7 Jewish Youth in a World of Persecution and War

Abstract

Every war has its child welfare and educational problems; every nation in war must face the breakdown of its educational system and the bewilderment of its youth and must undertake the difficult task of leading back to normalcy both adults and children after the wartime disruption of normal life. It is not surprising that we have a vast literature of fact and fiction dealing with these problems after the first World War. In a “Preliminary Report on Children’s Reactions to the War,” Dr. J.L. Despert, psychologist of the New York Hospital, gives us a critical survey of this literature up to 1942. In 1943, H.F. Conover complied for the Division of Bibliography, a list of references on “Children and War.” Concerning more of recent years, we have the publications on smaller children in war situations in England published by Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham (“Young Children in Wartime”, “War and Children” and the “Monthly Reports on the Hampstead Nurseries”); the studies of Dr. Gustav Bychowski, former professor of psychology and brain pathology of the Faculty of Medicine in Warsaw, Poland, published in various periodicals; Dr. Suzanne Mercier’s reports on her work with children in France during war and occupation; Susan Isaacs’