ילדי טהרן Teheran Children

City Samarqand
State/ Province Samarqand viloyati
Country Oʻzbekiston
 
Alternate Locations
City بندر انزل (Bandar-e Anzali)
State/ Province استان گیلا
Country ایران
 
City مشه Mashhad
State/ Province خراسان رضوی
Country ایران
 
City تهرا Tehran
State/ Province استان تهرا
Country ایران
 
City السوي Suez
State/ Province محافظة السوي
Country مص
 
City עתלית Atlit
County חוף הכרמל
State/ Province חיפה
Country ישראל
 

Narrative

ילדי טהרן
Tehran Children
הילדים של חורף שנת 43

Narrative

On September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, Jewish families, and their children, fled from Poland to the Soviet Union.
On June 22, 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, thousands of Polish Jews were sent to the interior of the Soviet Union, and more children became separated from their families as a result.

Narrative

In 1941 the families and children were released from the labor camps, some Jewish children found temporary refuge in orphanages and shelters in the Soviet Union, most were left to wander the Southern Soviet Union, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.

Narrative

In 1942, the Soviets authorized the resettlement of 24,000 Polish civilians and Anders Army recruits to Iran, including 1,000 Jewish children, mainly orphans, who became known as the Tehran Children.
Many came orphanages and shelters across the Soviet Union, travelled by train from Samarqand to Krasnovodsk, and then by ship to Bandar-e Pahlavi, or from Bukhara to Kazan and Ashkhabad, to Bandar-e Pahlavi.
In 1942, many orphaned. suffering from starvation, illness and cold, the cildren, pretending to be non-Jewish Polish refugees, arrived in Tehran.
In October 1942, Zipporah Shertok, wife of the head of the Jewish Agency's Political Department, Moshe Shertok (later Sharett), went to Tehran to direct the orphanage, Beit haYeled haYehudi (Jewish Child's Home).
Two Jewish Agency representatives, Reuven Shefer and Avraham Zilberberg, were sent to open a Palestine Office.
The children moved to Afhaz.

Narrative

On January 3, 1943, immigration permits had been obtained from the Mandate authorities, and a ship was obtained through the British authorities in Iran,
716 children traveled with escorts by truck to Bandar Shahpour, from there on the freighter, SS Dunera, to Karachi. IsraCast cites 861 children and 369 adults; 719 orphans, and 142 children with one or both parents
The Iraqis refused to grant them transit visas through Iraq.
They boarded Noralea , and sailed around the Arabian Peninsula, through the Red Sea to Suez.
After a two day quarantine in El Arish, they crossed the Sinai Desert by train.

 

 

Narrative

On February 18, 1943, more than 800 children arrived at Atlit.
Youth aliyah activists, headed by Henrietta Szold and Dr. Hans Beyth, made all-out efforts to absorb them.
From Atlit, they were sent to eleven transit camps, kibbutzim, moshavim, children's homes and schools, where they recuperated.

Narrative

On August 28, 1943, a second group of 120 children arrived in Palestine, via Iraq, after the British suppressed Rashid Ali's revolt.

Narrative

In all, 870 Tehran Children arrived in Palestine.
35 died either as civilians or as soldiers in the 1948-1949 War of Independence.
The 35 soldiers were commemorated in Yizkor the Tehran Children, by Meir Ohad, published by the Public Commission to Commemorate the Tehran Children, Tel Aviv, 1979.

Narrative

פרשת עלייתם של ילדי טהרן

Source References

  1. Momentous century: personal and eyewitness accounts of the rise of the Jewish homeland and state, 1875-1978
    1. Page: 228, Part IX, The "Teheran Children" are Welcomed in Eretz Yisrael (1943)
  2. The Children of Zion

References

  1. Abend, Aleksander ben Yosef (Josef)
  2. Achtenberg, Hersz ben Shmuel (Szmuel)
  3. Zylberman, Amalia bat Shmuel (Samuel)
  4. Zylberman, Regina bat Shmuel (Samuel)
  5. Zylberman, Roza bat Shmuel (Samuel)
  6. Zynstein, Regina bat Avraham (Abram)
  7. Zynstein, Ruchel 'Ruchla' bat Avraham (Abram)
  8. בן-גל Ben-Gal, Avigdor 'Yanush'
  9. תומר Teitelbaum Teitelboim Tomer, Benzion Ben Tsiyon