The Story of the ‘Beloved’

Iam not Jewish. I have not experienced antisemitism on a personal level. I view it through the lens of a small group of children who died a decade or more before I was born. They are the Beloved, 27 children of the 1930s whose portraits I have drawn in the past year. They range in age from 4 months to 7 years, and they are unique and delightful in the way only children can be. There is little Alida who reminds everyone of the Gerber baby and Samuel of the beautiful curls. There is Fani, who sparkles like a tiny jewel, and Rachel and Abraham, two very serious little people. There is Gyorgy with the sweet little tan line left behind by his baby T-shirt. There are Hersch, and Edith, and Albert, and little Hanna Samson – each one so beautiful, so special, captured in a single moment of life. These children were loved just as we love our children today. The little outfits so carefully chosen, and the curls carefully arranged testify to the attention and devotion of their parents.

That love and devotion could not save them, however, for they had committed the unpardonable sin of being born to Jewish par- ents. To the German Nazis, they were not beloved children; they were “useless eaters,” meaning that they consumed calories, but did no work.

Tiny little Alida, just 4 months old, died in the gas chamber at Auschwitz in 1942 with both of her parents. That same year, Rachel and Abraham and Hanna died with their mothers at Auschwitz as well.

After the war ended, the guards at Auschwitz reported how tenderly mothers murmured to their children as they carried them to their deaths.

Edith was from the Netherlands, as were Alida, Rachel, Abraham, and Hanna. Edith and her parents were fortunate to be hidden in two safe houses when most Jews were deported from Holland in 1942. Tragically, however, she was discovered in 1944 and died at Auschwitz a few days later. Her parents survived to rebuild a life without their beautiful little girl.

Sweet little Fani died at Auschwitz in 1942 also, but whether she had been taken from her mother, as thousands of children were, we don’t know.

Hersch and Gyorgy were from Romania and Hungary respectively and survived until 1944.

Samuel, with his beautiful black curls, lived in a Jewish ghetto in Poland for two years, despite critical shortages of food and water. On March 27, 1944, the Nazis rounded up the remaining 250 children in the ghetto and took them to their deaths at Auschwitz. Samuel was 5 years old on the cold spring day when he was taken from his moth- er. She survived the war, immigrated to the United States and lived her remaining years in New York, surviving her little Samuel by almost half a century.

The Beloved are just 27 of the 1.5 million children who died at the hands of the Nazis and their allies. They were powerless against the virulent hatred of the Jews that existed in Europe, and their little lives were crushed as if they meant absolutely nothing. Hatred has existed in some form on every page of the history of mankind, and our time is no exception. Each of us is presented with the eternal dilemma – we must decide whether we stand for good or for evil, for hatred or for love. May we always remember the Beloved children and choose wisely.