Temporary residence card.
You needed this ID card for everthing, even to buy a train ticket. |
Orphanage
We were taken to a huge old mansion with dormitories, run by the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants). There some of the children, including Elie Wiesel, demanded prayer books, services and Kosher food. Although most of us had come from Orthodox homes before the war, many of us were reluctant to return to these practices. I had started to question God. Had he been on leave of absence during the Holocaust? I was part of the group that broke away from religious observance, so we became divided.
Once the euphoria of surviving subsided, we had the need to search for surviving relatives. We registered our history and pictures with the Red Cross for distribution.
I remember a journalist from Paris who visited us and then wrote an article entitled “J’Accuse,” accusing the world of indifference towards the 430 youngsters who had returned from hell and yet were still in a concentration camp. As a result of public pressure, the government of France agreed to receive the children of Buchenwald, even offering us citizenship. I can still remember the relief of leaving that godforsaken country, as we crossed the border into France.
DP Camp
We all wanted to go home but we remained in Buchenwald for about three months because there was nowhere else to go. The authorities had a hard time convincing us that we could not go home and that our homes were no longer there. In my case, they explained how dangerous it would be to go to Poland, where there had been pogroms against returning Jews. I could not understand why people, other than the Nazis, wanted to kill us. It took us a long time to understand our circumstances.
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