The One Thousand Children (OTC)OTC web-pages give much information and are a primary source www.onethousandchildren.yivo.orgbook: Don't Wave Goodbye: The Children's Flight from Nazi Persecution to American Freedom, Jason, Philip K. and Iris Posner, editors, Praeger Greenwood Publishers, Westport, Connecticut, 2004. . is a designation, created in 2000, which is used to refer to the approximately 1,400 Jewish children who were rescued from Nazi Germany and other Nazi-occupied or threatened European countries, and who were taken directly to the United States during the period 1934–1945. The phrase "One Thousand Children" only refers to those children who went to the US unaccompanied. In nearly all cases, their parents were not able to escape with their children, because they could not get the necessary visas among other reasons. Later, nearly all these parents were killed by the Nazis.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), in its online "Holocaust Encyclopedia," in the article on "Immigration of Refugee Children to the United States," recognizes the name "One Thousand Children" for this group of children.
The archives of the "One Thousand Children," contain documentary material, including audio and video of the One Thousand Children 2002 Conference, and individual interviews of OTC children, as well as other original materials, held at the YIVO Institute.
The OTC children were rescued by United States and European organizations, as well as by individuals.
Originally only about one thousand such children had been identified as OTC children — hence the name "The One Thousand Children". By 2017 about 1,400 had been identified.
The One Thousand Children, Inc. (OTC, Inc.) was an organization created for further welfare of the OTC children.
Definition and early history
Some 1.5 million children, nearly all of them Jewish, were killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust. This includes those who died of starvation, or illness due to inhumane conditions in the ghettos.
A small number of Jewish children were saved by being hidden, in or close to their Nazi-occupied hometown (see Hidden Children).
A small number of Jewish children were also saved by being moved to non-Nazi-occupied lands through a number of programs. In western Europe these would include the Kindertransport program which included the individual efforts of Sir Nicholas Winton; and the work of the French Jewish organization Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE)The official web-page for OSE www.ose-france.org (in French). Most such programs that worked specifically to save children had the children remain within Western Europe.
Other well organized programs prepared and sent children to Palestine, for example Youth Aliyah, Youth village and Sh'erit ha-Pletah.
In the One Thousand Children "program"Jason, Philip K. and Iris Posner, editors, Don't Wave Goodbye: The Children's Flight from Nazi Persecution to American Freedom, Praeger Greenwood Publishers, Westport, Connecticut, 2004. Baumel, Judith T. Unfulfilled Promise. Denali Press, Juneau, AK. 1990. The official One Thousand Children web-pages www.onethousandchildren.yivo.org, approximately 1,400 children, nearly all Jewish, were taken to the United States.
In general, they were brought in quiet operations designed to avoid negative attention from isolationist and other antisemitic forces. Originally 1,177 such children had been identified as OTC — hence the name the "One Thousand Children" (OTC).
These OTC children generally: came from Europe directly to the United States during the period 1934 to 1945; were of age up to sixteen the cut-off age before they were considered adults, with the youngest being fourteen months old; arrived unaccompanied; and were placed with foster families, schools and other facilities across the U.S. However some came under individual arrangements with various final arrangements.
The OTC history is divided into four periods: the first: 1934, until Kristallnacht on November 9/10, 1938 – during which there were very few OTC; second: starting with Kristallnacht November 9/10, 1938, which had strongly alerted the American public to the oppression of the Jews in Germany, until the outbreak of the European War on September 1, 1939; third: September 1, 1939 until Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, during the period while Europe was at war but the United States was officially neutral, until Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, when the United States joined the war. This was a period when travel from all of Europe to the neutral United States was still permitted, but only if one could obtain the required travel documents; and fourth: December 7, 1941 until Victory in Europe May 8, 1945. During this period the United States and Germany were at war, so that legal travel from the Nazi-occupied lands to the United States was not available.
The first small group of six children arrived at New York City in November 1934. This was followed by subsequent small groups, totaling about 100 children annually, that occurred in the early years of operation, and they were taken to foster homes arranged through appeals to congregations and other organizations' members.
Most of the children came through programs run by private refugee agencies such as the German Jewish Children's Aid (GJCA)Much information about the GJCA is available from documents kept at the "Center for Jewish History" www.yivoarchives.org, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (colloquially known as "the Joint"), HICEM and the Society of Friends (the Quakers). Many of these efforts were combined to form the U.S. Committee for the Care of European Children (USCOM) which was registered with the US government and later became part of the National War Fund. Fundraising efforts were assisted by the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and the National Council of Jewish Women.
Many of the OTC were initially gathered together, supported, taken care of, and educated by the French Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE), sometimes for many months in the OSE "chateaux" (these were typically very large houses and grounds). They stayed with OSE until OSE was able to pass them on to "the Joint", or the Quakers, which then took them to the United States. Under the leadership of Andree Salomon, OSE gathered about 350 such children in three large groups, who traveled to the United States with the aid of the organizations mentioned. Many of these children came from the Gurs internment camp.
Other OTC came under private arrangements and sponsorship, typically made by the parent(s) with a family relative or friend. Such children would live with their sponsor, or sometimes live in a boarding school in close contact with their sponsor.
Before 1938, only small groups were brought into the country by such organizations, because of concern for antisemitism and social hostility to allowing foreigners to enter the U.S. during the Depression. The sponsoring organizations wanted to avoid drawing undue attention to the children. Furthermore, their immigration was limited by the U.S. immigration quota system for their countries of origin.
The demand on these organizations increased markedly after Kristallnacht on November 9/10, 1938 convinced more European parents that the destruction of Jews was an element of the Nazi agenda.
In the later period of 1941–1942, when news of Nazi atrocities was more widely circulated, larger groups of OTC were organized and arrived in the U.S. A few of the OTC came under the British Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) program, as well as the "U.S. Committee for the Care of European Children" (USCOM).
In the OTC programs under the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), German Jewish Children's Aid Society, (GJCA), the Quakers, etc., foster families in the U.S. agreed to care for the children until age twenty-one, see that they were educated, and provided a guarantee that they would not become public charges. Most of these children were assigned a social worker from a local social service agency to oversee the child's resettlement process. Jewish children were generally placed in Jewish homes. These children, and their sponsors, expected that they would be reunited with their own families at the end of the war. Most of the children lost one or both parents, and most of their extended families, by the time World War II had ended.
Where the Children Came From, And Some of Their Journeys
Most of the OTC children came from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. Some came from France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. Very few came directly from Eastern Europe. However, some families of OTC had previously made it from Eastern to Western Europe; and then the OTC child fled from Western Europe. For instance, this was the case for Wulf Wolodia Grajonca, who later became the "rock-and-roll" impresario Bill Graham (promoter).
Before the war, many managed to get to Hamburg or another port, and sail from there.
After the German blitzkrieg of May 1940 through Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg, and into France, many OTC children fled from Occupied France or Vichy France by going south and west to the Spanish border. Then they made the climb over the Pyrenees, usually guided by a passeur guide/smuggler. From Spain, they traveled to neutral Portugal and Lisbon. From there, they sailed to the United States, often on one of the Portuguese liners Serpa Pinto (also known as the RMS Ebro), or Mouzinho, or Nyassa.
Other OTC children traveled to Casablanca, and sailed from there.
Some French intact families followed a trajectory that led them to one of the French concentration camps such as Gurs. Then OSE was able to extract the child(ren) from that camp, but with the parents still interned. Then OSE would aid the child(ren) over the next OTC stages to their final transport across the Atlantic. In the later stages of this journey, often HIAS, or the "Joint" would also assist the OTC children.Œuvre de secours aux enfants
A group of about 6-8 unaccompanied Jewish children fled to the United States from Venezuela. Their parents, in the small Jewish community of Maracaibo in Venezuela, were well aware of Hitler's possible global threat, which included German submarines off the Venezuelan coast.
There were around 400 people who survived concentration camps, like the Hungarian Eva Szepesi.Eva Szepesi de:Eva_Szepesi, Ein Mädchen allein auf der Flucht. Ungarn – Slowakei – Polen (1944–1945) Metropol, 2011, 159 p. . These were also labeled child survivors.
The "OTC" Children For many of the OTC children, the period before they reached the United States was very difficult. Before World War II, most were simply assembled by rescue agencies directly from their home towns in Germany and Austria, and then easily escorted to the United States. But after the war started, nearly all of them went through extreme hardships and dangers before they boarded ship for the United States. Some did travel to the port with parents, but many traveled alone, at least for part of their flight. Some were smuggled over the Pyrenees (usually with their parents). Some were incarcerated for a time in concentration camps such as Gurs internment camp in southern France, while some spent time in a French "château" (large mansion) run by the Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants or OSE.
Some of the OTC children came by individual arrangements made by their family, in which the child would be sent into the care of a relative in America. In America, they would either live with that family, or perhaps be placed in a boarding school.
Many OTC children made notable contributions to American society. Among them are:Sonnert, Gerhard and Gerald Holton "What Happened to the Children Who Fled Nazi Persecution": .