Unaccompanied Children’s Access to Healthcare (1945-1950)

2026-07-22

UCARE1945 focuses on unaccompanied minors in Germany in the period 1945-1950, exploring the impact of the postwar experience through institutional accounts, contemporary personal records, and oral history. This will be divided into five case studies per occupation zone (British, French and American, 15 case studies in total) to examine the life experience of individuals. UCARE1945 posits that three major factors affected the immediate needs of unaccompanied minors in the postwar era: gender, age, and social background. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, between 42 million and 60 million people were displaced. Children witnessed atrocities and lost family members, leaving thousands of children without a wider kinship network. Displaced persons camps, and international organisations such as the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) and the IRO (International Refugee Organisation) had three main objectives – document the displaced population, find accommodation, and provide much needed healthcare. The aim is to analyse the impact of healthcare crises in the aftermath of the Second World War, and to understand how differences in state policies and practices impact the experiences of unaccompanied child refugees. In post-WWII Europe, access to emigration and compensation was mediated through medical care; doctors were tasked with verifying the health of survivors before they were granted emigration papers, and attesting to medical harm when claiming compensation for unethical experimentation during the war. Many doctors continued to hold antisemitic views and anti Sinti and Roma bias after the war. In the years following the war, many Nazi doctors continued to practice medicine and their perceptions of the ‘worth’ of patients continued to impact the care they provided. UCARE1945 will question how governmental policies and institutional actors impacted childrens' access to care.

Ireland

2026-01-01