Rare group photograph of 35 children and their guide at the "Ilaniah" orphanage in Apeldoorn (Netherlands) - at a site that served as a Jewish psychiatric hospital whose inmates were sent to Auschwitz in 1943. Apeldoorn [1947].
In September 1947, a train left Bucharest under the auspices of the Red Cross with 421 Jewish children from all over Romania, accompanied by 37 guides and four teachers, heading for the Netherlands via Prague. The children were absorbed into the "Ilaniah" children's village in Apeldoorn, at a site that had previously been a Jewish psychiatric hospital. In January 1943, all the patients and staff of the hospital were sent to Auschwitz. Bringing the children to Apeldoorn was at the initiative of the Youth Aliyah of the Jewish Agency, in cooperation with the Joint and Jewish organizations in the Netherlands, and with the approval of the Dutch government. After a few weeks, another 32 children from Berlin joined.
The children, aged 6 to 16, experienced the horror of the Holocaust and required special care. Zahava Helman from the Agudat Israel group of children who was thirteen years old when she arrived at "Ilaniah" later recounted: "After the hell of the camps in Ukraine and the institutions in Romania, the Netherlands was paradise for me... I felt there like babies feel here at the well-baby clinic. They weighed us, examined us and took care of us. ... We were not normal children, but Holocaust survivor children, full of fears and nightmares. At night there were children crying and screaming in their sleep. Even wetting themselves. Moving from bed to bed out of fear of sleeping alone, fear of the dark and fear of what not? And how good it was to know that at the end of the corridor a night nurse was sleeping. As soon as she heard crying or screaming - like an angel she would appear and calm them down, even though she did not know how to speak our language. ... I developed there and I think the sadness also went away. (Ilaniah-Apeldoorn, p. 57; Shimon Schechter, Ilaniah Children's Village - Aliyah Stories, p. 41).
The name "Ilaniah" was given to the children's village after the 45 dunam grove of wild trees in which it was located. The children were allocated three residential buildings among the scattered pavilions in the grove and given the names "Seeds", "Roots" and "Buds", after the parts of the tree.
The children studied in a school where there were large differences between the students, mainly in language and Jewish education. They were divided into grades from 1st to 9th, with separate classes for religious students. The teachers came from Romania, Germany and Eretz Israel. There were children who had not managed to study at all and children who had studied for a few years. Some spoke only Romanian, some also spoke Yiddish and the children who came from Germany spoke only German. Very few knew Hebrew. The children also differed in the degree of Jewish education. After conducting a general test, the children were divided into grades from 1st to 9th. They studied in two shifts due to a shortage of teachers. Eretz Israel was at the center of the educational activity, and in June 1948, after the declaration of independence, it was decided to bring the children and adults to Israel. In October 1948, the children of "Ilaniah" boarded the ship "Negba" on its maiden voyage from the Netherlands to Haifa bearing the Israeli flag. A Dutch film crew documented the ship in port before sailing.
Size: 8x9 cm. Good condition.
