November 1940
When one enters the childrens home and sees the sorrowful figures of the children, how they play or sit sunken in thought, one is struck with shock and pain. Where do these children come from? How old are they? How were they received? What kind of fate forced them to become little orphans?

Already from afar, as one approaches the building of the state nursery near Lyoszhe, one sees a large garden, and in the middle of it, a building. This is the children's home, where children are kept who were separated from their parents during the unfortunate execution.

A woman comes out to greet us and leads us into the building. In the first room, several children are sitting — some are playing on the floor, others sit lost in thought, looking out the window. They all wear simple but clean clothes.



Their appearance is especially moving — small faces in which lie a quiet tragedy, a deep innocence, and an exposed sorrow.








They are between 4 and 12 years old. At first, it’s hard to believe that these are orphans whose parents died just a few weeks ago. They play so quietly, so calmly — without shouting, without laughing, without childishness. No matter how young they are, it seems that life has already etched itself into their faces — a life of fear, of merely getting by, of worry and anxiety. The caregiver begins to speak. She tells about the first day when the children arrived. Crying, screaming, searching for their parents — they couldn’t understand what was happening. The first thing that had to be done was to calm them. Only after some time did they begin to care for them from a pedagogical standpoint: teaching them, introducing a certain routine, a daily structure.

And it wasn’t easy — not for the caregiver, and not for the children. The little hearts did not yield easily — one child refused to eat, others suffered terrible insomnia. In the middle of the night, many would wake up startled, scream, cling to the caregiver. They didn’t want to believe that they were truly safe here, that no harm would come to them.




And even now — the caregiver tells us — there are some among them who wander quietly all day, peeking into every room. They are searching — it’s clear for what. But in their eyes, there is still a glimmer of hope. Maybe they will find… It’s hard to say exactly what they truly feel. But it can be sensed: they know — they are alone.







The caregiver stands and speaks, and we listen, unable to tear our eyes away from the children’s faces. Each glance from them — a deep complaint, a question without a plea. They look at you like people who have lost everything — and know it. Not with anger, not with questions — but with a calmness born of having passed through something, a quiet that strikes the heart harder than any scream.

The caregiver takes us into other rooms. Here — children learning to write; in another — some drawing pictures, or playing with paper figures. And everywhere — the same quiet, the same expression. No one calls out, no one laughs loudly. Everything moves in a kind of hush, as if in a world where one must speak very softly, so as not to disturb something sacred.



When one leaves again — it stays with you for a long time. The silence of the children, the quiet cry in their gaze, the echo of past screams that still seem to linger in the walls — all of it goes with you. And one knows: this is work that must not be forgotten. There are places where Jewish life must be rebuilt again, from the roots upward. This is not work for ordinary educators or psychologists — it is a task for people with exceptional sensitivity, deep understanding, and a burning inner sense of mission.






The caregivers and teachers were selected through a strict screening process. Each one must have pedagogical training, but more than that — a heart. Not everyone is suited to work with such children. It’s not enough to love children — one must be able to bear their pain, not fall into despair, and believe in their future.

And when one sees the work — how each child is looked at with love, how they are spoken to, how they are approached with tenderness — one understands what all this truly means. This is not an ordinary profession. It is a calling, a delicate and immense task of restoring to a soul the feeling of being alive.



When one leaves again — it stays with you for a long time. The silence of the children, the quiet cry in their gaze, the echo of past screams that still seem to cling to the walls — all of it goes with you. And one knows: this is work that must not be forgotten. There are places where Jewish life must be rebuilt again, from the roots upward.*
*This is an intentional repeat.








Text: A report reportedly by Menachem Mendel Kohn documenting a visit to an orphanage for Jewish children, dated November, 1940. It was titled “[A bezukh bay di umgliklikhe kinder]“, or, “A visit to the unfortunate children.” It was contained in the Oyneg Shabes Archive. Translation: OpenAI, GPT 4o, April 2025.

Video: Montage of clips from 1963 film “Requiem for 500,000.” Directed by Jerzy Bossak and Wacław Kaźmierczak. Courtesy Internet Archive


The Ringelblum Archive 
Life Amid Destruction
Bearing Witness 
Research Guide 

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Contact  This work has been made possible due to the gracious support of the Holocaust Legacy Foundation and the Northeastern University Department of Jewish Studies.