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Susan Vromen, author of "Hidden Children of the Holocaust," spoke about her book on March 22, at the YM-YWHA of Union.

Vromen was born in Belgium and as a teenager escaped to the Belgian Congo, which is currently the Democratic Republic of Congo. Then, in 1941, in order to protect her Jewish identity, she was put into a convent.

"I heard this prayer that students are asking God to forgive Jews for their sins," she said about her experience as a Jew living among Catholics.

After a short time of living in the convent, Vromen said she began to appreciate being Jewish. She became a Zionist and eventually with a friend they started a Habonim chapter there, she said. Also, because of the lack of nuns, Vromen taught in the convent.

Later in life she became a professor of sociology at Bard University, where she started a women's studies program. However, after living in a convent during the Holocaust, she always wanted to know more about the hidden children of the Holocaust, she said. Prior to her research and interviews with people that were hidden children, she said no one had ever conducted this type of research before.

"It was difficult for nuns to take children from parents without saying where they were taking them to," she said. "The first rescuers were parents, who trusted their children to people they never met."

Vromen said that children from the ages of 7 days to 16 years old were cared for in convents. After a child was born, the doctors would call the resistance and members of the resistance would come and take the baby, she said.

"Convents didn't make money for hiding the children," Vromen said. "People took care of clothing, housing, ration cards, for the children."

There were two girls who needed to find shelter from the Nazis, she said. One went to people she knew, while the other -- after being rejected by her neighbors -- went to the local parish. The bishop and the cardinal there decided to remain silent about hiding the Jews, but realized it was the right thing to do.

"This girl was hidden by a Catholic family and a week into school was called into the principal's office," she said. "The girl in the Catholic family denounced the Jewish girl and she was then kicked out of the school."

Vromen tells of a story of sisters who wandered in the streets until a local hospice took them in. In order to ensure the girls' safety, on the door of the girls' room, a sign that read "contagious disease" was placed. The girls stayed in the hospice until a convent sent for them.

There was also the issue of how the children were able to keep their Jewish identity while living in a convent? Many convents differed on their rules about baptizing, going to mass, or confession for the Jewish children, she said.

"The motives for saving children are entangled; to save souls and 'enchristianize'."

Unfortunately, many of the children whose parents were deported for work camps didn't realize their parents were murdered, she said. The convents would often try to get the children to convert because many of them knew their parents were not returning; however, many children said they would convert when their parents returned.

"One mother came to get her daughter from the convent and the daughter said, 'now you come thank the Virgin Mary'," Vromen said. "For the first and the last time, the mother did."

Many children remained Christian after their parents did not return, Vromen said. One girl went to a boarding school convent, where the Jewish children never had visitors. One nun at the school asked a child how to say good night in Yiddish and after the child told her, every night that nun would say good night in Yiddish to all of the Jewish children.

There was also a boy who was hiding in a convent and his mother knew where he was. When she went to go see him, she gave the nuns a cake and told them to give it to him.

"He never got the cake; he felt betrayed," she said.

Life in the convent wasn't always safe for the Jewish children, she said. Vromen said the children were abused because some nuns believed that the Jews killed Jesus.

"They told me about being hungry and about lice, which was treated with kerosene," she said. "About 20-30 children would bathe in the same water."

Ultimately, the Jewish children learned how to keep quiet and hide their identity. One of the first things they had to get used to was a brand new non-Jewish sounding name, she said.

All of the nuns that Vromen interviewed said Mother Superior was the one who decided to hide the Jewish children. The nuns and anyone who worked with them in the convents were truly amazing people, she said.

"It was important for me to emphasize these women in the book," Vromen said. "The convent refused to give back children if their parents didn't come back, because they were now Catholic."

During the Holocaust there were about 5,000 children hidden and about 3,000-5,000 were saved, she said. The amount of Jews that converted to Catholicism is unknown.

Information about hidden children of the Holocaust didn't come to light until the 1980s, she said. In 1991, 160 adults who were hidden children during the Holocaust met a conference in New York City.

Mona Ginsberg, of Toms River, who was a hidden child of the Holocaust, said Vromen's explanation of the hidden children was wonderful. People need to realize that nuns, while saving children's lives, were putting their own lives at risk, she said. From the age of 8 to 11, Ginsberg lived in a home in Belgium and with a private family where she said she was treated like one of the family's children.

"I do remember going for walks, because Nazis were looking for children," Ginsberg said. "We did only what was right."