Mobilizing Japanese Youth: The Cold War and the Making of the Sixties Generation by Christopher Gerteis (review)

Abstract

an enormous physical strain on young bodies but also resulted in a (limited) sort of protection for those deemed useful. Many Jewish children lied about their ages and presented themselves as older than they were in an effort to avoid seeming immediately expendable. This was particularly important in Plaszow, given that no children were allowed in the camp. Another central issue to the history of childhood is the intersection of age with class, gender, and other identity factors. Clearly being labeled by the Nazis as of the “Jewish race” was the primary, determinative factor shaping Jewish children’s experiences in Kraków. But a family’s economic resources, a child’s physical appearance, young people’s knowledge of languages—all these played a role in individual outcomes. Sliwa is sensitive to these issues and pays careful attention to them, not shying away from the effect that class status, in particular, could have on children’s fates. She might do more with gender distinctions, especially given the recent scholarship on sexual violence during the Holocaust. Finally, Jewish Childhood in Kraków is a model of how to research the history of childhood by combining various types of sources (in this case, in multiple languages across many archives). Sliwa makes good use of everything from survivor testimony to Nazi records to materials produced within the Kraków ghetto and Plaszow camp, approaching every topic from more than one perspective. She is attentive to change over time both in children’s circumstances and in their own life cycles as the war went on and on. The book may be a local study, but it is an important reminder of the larger truth that children were among both the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. Their experiences are just as important as anyone else’s in documenting that horrific past but also in bearing witness to the lives children have led and continue to lead even amid genocidal madness.