After the Girls Club
How Teenaged Holocaust Survivors Built New Lives in America

After World War II, the Girls Club of Brooklyn, New York, became both home and safe haven to orphaned teenagers who were Holocaust survivors. They are a small group, but taken together these women's stories represent the broad range of experiences that most Jews suffered during and after the Holocaust. Some endured the ghettos and camps. Some survived in hiding, with partisans, or in the remote far-eastern reaches of the Soviet Union. Consequently this collective, personal history-enriched with relevant information about places, people, events and issues-tells not only their story, but also the story of tens of thousands of child survivors. The work of scholars from various disciplines and genres provides background information and historical detail as this book traces the women's experiences from their childhood days in pre-war Europe to the present. Contrary to what early literature on child survivors predicted, they built successful lives in America.

1 A Meeting with Holocaust Survivors 2 Table of Contents 3 Preface and Acknowledgements Chapter 4 1. Introduction: The Women and the Girls Club Chapter 5 2. Lodz: A Path to the Ghetto Chapter 6 3. Growing up: Coming of Age in a Nightmare Chapter 7 4. Sh'erit ha-Pletah: The "Surviving Remnant" Chapter 8 5. America: A Home at the Girls Club Chapter 9 6. After the Girls Club: Settling In, Settling Down Chapter 10 7. Betty and Lucy: Different Forks in the Road Chapter 11 8. Child Survivors in Old Age: The Aging Women 12 Bibliography 13 Index