The resettled usually ended up in cramped lodging; often several families lived together in one room – so it was very difficult to ensure that children were kept properly clean. If we add to this the acute lack of clothing and the high cost of laundry and soap, it is easy to understand why these children were dirty, in rags and neglected, constantly exposed to illnesses and ailments. The parents, too, busy all day long in an unceasingly hard pursuit of earnings, had neither time nor patience to take care of their children and keep them clean. Often, bad housing conditions, such as overcrowded rooms, lack of fuel, lack of gas, etc., contributed to that situation. Consequently, children of the resettled found themselves in a lamentable state of hygiene and sanitation, which had a very unfavourable impact on their physical state and health.
However, such problems were not the only burdens that the Jewish child had to bear. The resettlements usually took place under duress, in haste and panic, and most often the resettled did not manage to take even a change of underwear or clothing with them, but left their places of residence only in the clothes they wore. This had terrible consequences for Jewish children, because shortly after resettling they were forced to wear dirty rags and endure the cold, which turned out to be a real catastrophe for the children of the resettled. For example, let me mention a woman who came to Warsaw from Kalisz with her three-year-old child. In Kalisz, her material situation had been adequate and she took care of the child, made sure he was clean and clothed, and tried to ensure that he would want for nothing. However, she ended up in Warsaw alone with the child, without clothes and without any means of subsistence. Throughout the war she struggled and the child was neglected. His health has deteriorated, he is in rags, dirty and hungry. When the mother sometimes prepares food for herself and her child, the child simply grabs it out of the mother’s mouth. He is so hungry that he has licked soup from the floor when it accidentally spilled out of his plate. The child who had not known what poverty was and never experienced it to the slightest extent in their hometown,
now stands guard over his bread and makes sure that the mother does not dare to cut a piece for herself from his quarter of the ration card bread, which for him is the greatest feast. A number of similar examples can be listed, as everywhere the conditions of the children of the resettled have changed rapidly for the worse. The difficult financial situation of the resettled did not even allow them to think about getting fresh clothes for the children, so they have been barefoot and naked in the winter. This situation was conducive to the
