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Claudine Schwartz-Rudel was seven years old when she fled from Paris to Southern France with her parents. Before they left Paris, Claudine's parents gave her a doll named Colette opening Tens of thousands of Jews sought shelter in lofts, cellars, bunkers, sewers, and similar places. Many equipped themselves with forged papers, while children were often concealed with Christian families. The survival ratio was low: most fugitives were discovered and murdered. The number of Jews who survived by going underground is estimated in the thousands.
Before the War
In the Shadow of the War
Ghettos
In hiding
Toward a New Life
 
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The young boy in this photograph arrived in the Port of Haifa in 1945 with his brother after having been liberated from the Buchenwald camp

The young boy in this photograph arrived in the Port of Haifa in 1945 with his brother after having been liberated from the Buchenwald camp. Eight-year-old Lolek arrived clutching a broken rifle given to him as a toy by a Jewish American officer. The British soldier who saw Lolek coming off the boat proudly holding the rifle insisted on taking it away from him. The boy pleaded, explaining that it was only a toy. This photograph was taken by a reporter, moments before the officer hit the child on the head and took the rifle away. The photograph appeared in the daily newspaper Ha’aretz the following day. Lolek settled in Israel with his older brother Naphtali, who also survived the Buchenwald camp. Lolek is the childhood name of Yisrael Meir Lau,  who later became Israel’s Chief Rabbi.

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