Schiedam “pale-faces”

Shortly after the Second World War, children were sent to another part of the country or abroad to recuperate. Not much is known about the children who were sent from Schiedam to other places between 1945-1947. In this project (2009), ten people were interviewed who had been sent to recuperate as ‘pale-faces’ in the Netherlands or abroad at the time.

The Schiedam children who were sent abroad shortly after the war ended up in England, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Denmark or Sweden. They spent two to eight weeks in a children’s camp before being placed with a foster family. In the camps, the children were in quarantine so that no child with a contagious disease ended up in a foster family. During their stay in the camp, the children were kept busy with games and trips were made. They were also taught the basics of the host country’s language. The interviews show, among other things, that the children initially suffered from homesickness, but that at the end of their stay abroad they often did not want to return home.