The Little Smuggler Essay

Over 1.5 million Jewish youths were killed in the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis. Most because they were thought to be of no use or value, or incapable of doing labor. The ones that survived mainly did so by hiding or escaping from persecution before it was too late. The Jewish youth in the Ghetto’s faced starvation, constant fear, and crumbling support systems as they peacefully resisted the injustices forced upon them and their families.
A hurdle that Jewish youths had to jump is starvation and lack of food in the Ghettoes. Henryka Lazawart who wrote “The Little Smuggler” mentions fear and hunger in her poem. She writes from the perspective of a child, who smuggles food to their mother by sneaking around guards and sentry points. In

Along with the waves of depression and famine that rolled over the Ghetto’s, they dealt with issues at home. In Dawid’s writing, he mentions many times that his father is going mad and his mother can no longer handle it. “Mother looks like a cadaver, and the worrying is finishing her off…Father…lost his self control again on Thursday and ate my entire loaf yesterday” (Dawid Sierakowiak). Nevertheless, for her child, Dawid, she stayed until she was almost deported. While there were struggles at home, desperation was constantly in the air, affecting everyone. “Oh, God, what’s going on here? Panic, departures en masse, defeatism” (Dawid

Many of the younger ones were hidden by their families to prevent them from being killed. “Thousands of Jewish children survived, many because they were hidden” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). These hiding places were found by people like the Girl Couriers. Some like Vladka Meed were fortunate enough to survive and got the chance to help people in their Ghettos. She was smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto in December 1942 and was recruited by the Zukunft Youth Movement of the Bund to smuggle things into the Ghetto and find hiding places for children. Though some families were eager to hide their children in attempts to save them, some consequences had to be taken into consideration. “Hiding meant leaving behind relatives, risking immediate and severe punishment, and finding an individual or family willing to provide refuge” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). This had to be taken into account, especially by teens that could understand what was happening around them and what freedom meant for their families. Regardless, Jewish youths were most likely to survive by going into hiding. “Of the almost 1 million Jewish children in 1939 Poland, only about 5,000 survived. Most of these youngsters survived in hiding” (United States Holocaust Memorial