Child of the Holocaust: A Jewish Child in Christian Disguise

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Jankele “Jacob” Kuperblum was just nine when the Germans rounded up
all the Jews of Siedliszcze, Poland, but they missed him because he was
away from home. Until almost his 13th birthday, Jacob had to survive by
his wits. In doing so, he assumed so many different identities and cover
stories that by the time he was ultimately liberated by the Russian
army, he had lost his ability to speak Yiddish and identified himself
more with Christianity than his natal faith.

Initially, Jacob was taken in by Mrs. Pejzak, a family friend of
Ukrainian heritage who renamed him Kubus. When the Germans threatened
widespread reprisals on any family hiding a Jew, Jacob had to leave the
Pejzak farm near the village of Kulik, and so he began his wanderings,
seeking shelter, food, and work wherever available. While no one
instructed him to do so, Jacob recognized his survival was dependent on
his ability to pass himself off as a Christian while hiding the one
physical characteristic that would identify him as a Jew—his
circumcision.

War’s end did not produce an immediate happy-ever-after ending for
Jacob, as he could not locate his family and had to deal with the
anti-Semitism that was still strong in Poland. At the book’s
conclusion, the one hopeful sign is that he has reclaimed his identity
by writing “Jankele Kuperblum is alive” on the wall of a registry
office for Jewish survivors. Kuper’s autobiography offers today’s
youth another entree into the horrors of the Holocaust. Recommended.