Figure 1.--Here vwe see Eyropean DP children arriving in New York to tbe sent on to their new parents. We are not sure what organizatioms were involved. The press caption read, "DP's aboard Navy transport 'Gen. Steart' give their own version of the 'pirit of '76' upon their arrival in New York May 9. Pietr Chvastok (L), 4, Polish, is headed for Chicago, Ill.; Joseph Rosa, 4, German, to Cleveland, O.; and Halyra Soewngk, 6, from Ukraine will remain in New York City." No doubt the sailor on the ship kitted them up. The photograph was dated May 2, 1951. We do not know their stories. The children probably did not come from Poland and Ukraine, but had parents brought to the reich as skave workrd abd born in DP camps after the War.

Here we have two groups of countries to consider. This was the countrie from which displaced children came. And the counties that took in the children. The countries from which the children came were the countrie that witnessed the heaviest fighting and most severe occupation like Greece and the Netherland. Jewish children were a special case. This included the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Germany. Most children were cared for by authorities in their own countries. But the Germans transported millions of people to the Reich to work in war industries. This left children of all nationalities in Germany at the end od the War. Abd it mean that children were born after the War in the DP camps. Some fortunte children were adopted by people in foreign countries, primarily America. After World War II the plight of war orphns was especially compelling. Many Jewish orphans were moved to the United States by Jewish orphans, After the creation of Israel (1948) this opened more options for the apauling small number of child survivors of the Holocaust. Gradually interest in American began to build for war orphans. Not all international adoptions were made by Americans, but the vast majority were. Press coverage of the War and the terrible conditions following the War gave considerable visability to the problem and appealed to American humanitarian instincts. There was even a popular comic strip about an Italian war orphan--'Dondi'.

Created: 8:15 AM 7/13/2019
Last updated: 8:15 AM 7/13/2019