It was a relatively easy task to send young children to the countries where their mothers came from. If their relatives were not found, places were sought for them in orphanages or adoptive families. Quite quickly, young children from Western European countries were returned to their home countries. It was more challenging with older children from the Soviet Union, sometimes Poland and Yugoslavia. They often faced a dilemma: to return or not to return? Liaison officers arriving at the centre tried to convince them to go back to their home countries.
The situation of Jewish children, most of whom had lost all of their relatives, was more difficult. They wanted to leave Germany as soon as possible. Delegates of Jewish organisations came to the centre to encourage them to go to Eretz Israel, and national liaison officers offered them a return to their home country. The UNRRA team agreed to any solution that was in line with the wishes of the wards.
1. Awaiting return home, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre
Sisters Marta (aged 14) and Regina Cierpiol (aged 12) in anticipation of their departure to Poland (May 1946).
They were part of a group of about 60 girls aged 10 to 14 from Chorzów who were deported in January 1945 in front of advancing Soviet troops to Germany under the pretext of a Sunday excursion. The children were recognised as 'Volksdeutsche’ (ethnic Germans) and were handed over to various farmers in Bavaria to work on their farms, look after their children, do laundry, cook and do small jobs.
Some of the girls left with their parents’ permission. However, Marta and Regina felt Polish and doubted that their parents had given their permission for them to go to Bavaria. After a year and a half of separation, they returned home.
2. Marta Cierpioł, US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
3. Regina Cierpiol, US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
4. Children on the train, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre
In June 1946, 111 girls and boys from various DP camps, including children and young people from the International Children’s Centre in Indersdorf, returned to Poland. The latter were accompanied by UNRRA employee Edna Davis.
5. Return to Poland, US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
The children spent the journey playing, drawing, reading and singing (Sofia Karpuk, right).
6. Zygmunt Kawczyński, born 15 August 1929, died 4 January 2006
After the Warsaw Uprising, he was sent to Pruszków transit camp in from where he was deported to Germany. He was in the Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen camps, as well as in the KZ Dachau-Horgau and Augsburg sub-camps, where he worked in the Messerschmitt factory. After the war he was a ward of the International Children’s Centre in Indersdorf. He returned to Poland in the summer of 1946.
Zygmunt Kawczyński, US Holocaust Memorial Museum w Waszyngtonie