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Families Torn Apart: Jewish Child Refugees in the United States, 1933–45

Public Program
Jewish refugee children wave at the Statue of Liberty as the SS President Harding steams into New York harbor, 1939. They are among a group of 50 Jewish child refugees from Vienna who came to the United States as part of a rescue effort organized by Americans Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Anita Willens

Jewish refugee children wave at the Statue of Liberty as the SS President Harding steams into New York harbor, 1939. They are among a group of 50 Jewish child refugees from Vienna who came to the United States as part of a rescue effort organized by Americans Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Anita Willens

2024 Monna and Otto Weinmann Annual Lecture

During the Nazi regime, approximately 1,000 European Jewish youths migrated unaccompanied to the United States through organized refugee efforts. The children and their parents anticipated a painful but short-lived separation, after which the family would reunite and settle in a permanent destination. But for most, the time in transit was prolonged for years—families stranded in Europe often perished from the Nazi onslaught, while children remained housed with foster families or relatives. Join us to hear how Jewish youths framed their experiences of family separation and what these stories reveal about the history of childhood during the Holocaust.

Opening remarks
Dr. Janice Weinman Shorenstein, CEO, Education Through Music

Speaker
Dr. Daniella Doron, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies, Colgate University

Moderator
Dr. Lisa M. Leff, Director, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

This in-person program is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

For more information, please contact campusoutreach@ushmm.org.

The Monna and Otto Weinmann Annual Lecture honors Holocaust survivors and their fates, experiences, and accomplishments. Monna Steinbach Weinmann (1906–1991), born in Poland and raised in Austria, fled to England in autumn 1938. Otto Weinmann (1903–1993), born in Vienna and raised in Czechoslovakia, served in the Czechoslovak, French, and British armies; was wounded at Normandy; and received the Croix de Guerre for his valiant contributions during the war. Monna Steinbach and Otto Weinmann married in London in 1941 and immigrated to the United States in 1948. This annual lecture has been made possible by Janice Weinman Shorenstein.

Related

  • The Immigration of Refugee Children to the United States

    Numerous organizations and individuals attempted to bring unaccompanied children, mostly German Jewish children, to the United States between 1933 and 1945. More than 1,000 unaccompanied children escaped Nazi persecution by immigrating to the United States as part of these organized efforts.

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  • Admit Refugee Children?

    Who supported and who opposed a 1939 legislative proposal in Congress to admit 20,000 German refugee children over two years? The bill specified that the children would enter the United States outside the existing restrictive immigration quota laws.

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  • The United States Committee for the Care of European Children

    First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt served as chair of this group that brought more than 300 refugee children, most of them Jewish, from southern France, Spain, and Portugal between 1940 and 1945.

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