Recently the Yad Vashem museum exhibits three baby albums that were recently added to its large archive. These are albums created and preserved by women who hid Jewish children during the Holocaust.
In the past, parents kept records of their baby's growth in albums, which included photographs, measurements and data that show a baby's early development.
However, the copies recently delivered to Yad Vashem are not made by either the mother or the father: they are photos, scribbled anecdotes and notes recorded and kept by women to Jewish children, in the hope that their biological mothers would read them after war. The three children were Efraim Kochava, Avraham Packer and Rolf Stibbe.
Efraim Kochava was born in 1942 in Holland and was immediately given by his parents to the Mintzes, a friendly couple. The book chronicles Jacqueline's struggles as an adoptive mother, doing the best in a difficult situation. Kochava's parents died during the war, and when it ended, his surviving relatives found him and wanted to raise him, gaining custody of the child. When Efraim was in his early 20s, he learned about his adoptive parents and established contact with Max, who gave him a translated version of his baby book.
Another of the albums tells of the early years of Avraham Packer, who was cared for by Maria when his mother had to separate from him and his other siblings during the war, and the album was a fundamental piece in his recognition as Righteous Among the Nations.
The third book was by Rolf Stibbe, adopted by the Kirpenstijn family. As Stibbe grew up, his adoptive parents taught him about his Judaism and he ended up emigrating to Israel later.