Hidden Children

This is a true story about forty Jewish children en route to Palestine, who were obstructed by the German and Italian occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941. Before finding refuge at Villa Emma in Nonantola, northern Italy, where they arrived on June 17, 1942, the children spent several months in Slovenia, caught in the conflict between partisans and the Italian army. In April 1943, another 33 children, some from the Balkans and others from France, joined the original group. All were orphans who had lost their parents in concentration camps and had been smuggled out of Germany by Recha Freier, a well-known Zionist. The group ranged in age from six to twenty-one and settled in at Villa Emma with their chaperones and teachers, Josef Indig, Marco Schoky, and the pianist Boris Jochverdson.