11 Initial Problems of a Children’s Home and Experimental School for Refugee Children: The Refugee Children’s Homes in Montmorency, France

Just four days before Hitler entered the French capital, the last of three hundred refugee children managed to make their escape to southern France from their homes in Montmorency, near Paris, where they have been living for two years. TheycamefromGermany,Austria,CzechoslovakiaandPoland, thesechildren, and most of them had left their native countries without their parents. Many of the fathers were in German concentration camps, some were dead. The parents had, for themost part, nopossibility of fleeingbecause they hadnovisas for other countries; those fortunates who were on their way to new countries planned to bring their children over when they were settled. About eighty percent of the children were Jewish, the rest were the youngsters of political refugees or of victims of political persecution. The organization that ran the four houses for the children in France was the French Committee of the OSE Union. These homes, which also gave vocational training, were accepted as an experimental school under the direct supervision of the Academy of Paris. I myself organized these houses and then was their general director. The educational task that presented itself to us was of a complex nature. We had to keep in mind the previous life led by these refugee children, the special circumstances of their coming to the home and the probable living conditions that awaited them in the future.