Tracing the absence of children’s voices – artefacts of children’s persecution under the National Socialist regime

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research on the history of childhood faces fundamental challenges in tracing children’s voices. Not yet skilled in forms of written self-documentation, children leave few documents behind. Other forms of expression (i.e. drawings) must thus be recognised as valuable historical sources and appropriate methods must be applied. These research challenges are aggravated in regard to persecuted children under the National Socialist regime. Few artefacts produced by children have been preserved, and in many cases nobody is left to tell the stories attached to them. The rare preserved artefacts thus paradoxically refer to the absence of children’s voices in history. Referring to the epistemological concept of the trace and a material culture perspective, I address some of these remarkable exceptions to discuss their potential and limitations as historical sources to research children’s lives. Two drawings by an 11-year-old girl from her lessons at the Private Jewish Elementary School in Düsseldorf serve as the starting point of a case study. Beginning with the materiality this study raises further questions about conditions of origin and preservation. Furthermore I discuss the researcher’s role in identifying artefacts as sources and creating meaning. In this way, I contribute to the methodological discussion of how research on children’s history can draw on artefacts like drawings produced by children.