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Nathalie Zajde

Who Were the Hidden Children? Thinking With the Major Witnesses Publication date : May 20, 2014

Nathalie Zajde is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Paris-VIII and a member of Professor Tobie Nathan’s ethno-psychiatry team at the Georges Devereux Centre. She created the first structures in France to provide psychological support for former ‘hidden children’ and for the descendants of Holocaust survivors.
She is the author of Enfants de survivants, Guérir de la Shoah and Les Enfants cachés en France, which were all published by Editions Odile Jabob.

‘A hidden child is a subject who was hidden as a child during the Shoah to escape extermination. He was usually separated from his parents. He often had to renounce his Jewish identity during the time of persecution. After the war, he was often one of the few survivors of his family and had to change his identity once more.
‘When you read such a definition, you realise that a hidden child is a hybrid notion that refers to several of the human sciences: history, psychology, sociology, law, political science, psychiatry and ethno-psychiatry.
‘Who were the hidden children? What did they live through? What became of them?
‘We discussed these questions with researchers, intellectuals, politicians, activists, major witnesses for the most part, and with those who hidden as children in France and Belgium during the Second World War. In other words, we asked scientists and intellectuals to take risks, in the sense that what they said engaged them personally,’ writes Nathalie Zajde.

• A multidisciplinary approach to a historical reality that was recognised only twenty years ago.
• This book follows the colloquium held at the Paris Shoah Memorial.
• With the participation of Boris Cyrulnik, Serge Klarsfeld, Tobie Nathan, François Heilbronn, Katy Hazan, Isräel Lichtenstein.