Title

Postcards Sent by a Jewish Child Sheltered by OSE to his Mother, Rita Goldstein

Authors

Object ID

2021.1.46a-e

Object Name

Postcards

Date

1940

Files

Description

Five postcards written in blue and black ink. All bearing blue french stamps.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

The OSE, (L'Œuvre de secours aux enfants), was a humanitarian children’s aid organization providing social and medical assistance to Jewish families in need. After 1933, OSE’s main office was moved from Berlin to Paris, where Jewish children-refugees from Nazi Germany and Austria- were placed in OSE children’s homes in the area. By 1939 more than 200 children had been placed in one of these homes in Paris. The child who wrote these postcards to his mother had been placed in one such home known as the Villa des Tourelles, located in the Paris region at 113 Rue de Paris, Soisy-sous-Montmorency, France. His mother- Rita Goldstein- had been living in Hotel d’Angers in Le Man. These postcards, one of which has the Union OSE stamp, were written on the eve of the German occupation in May 1940.

OSE also provided social services to foreign Jews living in internment camps such as Gurs and Rivesaltes. OSE attempted to relocate Jewish children from these camps to homes in the unoccupied Vichy region of France where they would be cared for. With the German occupation of the Vichy region in 1942, the OSE mission changed to more clandestine activities: the development of hiding places; the creation of false documents; and smuggling children across the border to Switzerland and Spain. Through the heroic efforts of the OSE, more than 5000 Jewish children were saved from Nazi extermination. OSE’s work continued post-liberation assisting surviving children from Buchenwald find placements in French rehabilitation facilities.

Dimensions

5 3/4 x 4"

Keywords

L'Œuvre de secours aux enfants, OSE, Rita Goldstein, Chabannes, Izieu

Subcollection

Kindertransport, Rescue

Recommended Citation

"Postcards Sent by a Jewish Child Sheltered by OSE to his Mother, Rita Goldstein" (1940). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2021.1.46a-e.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1748