What happened to evacuees if their parents died?

Question

What happened to evacuees if they returned home and found out that their parents had been killed in the bombings in WWII.

Answer 1

they prob had foster parents or got adopted till 16 or 18.

Answer 2

Do you mean the London evacuees who were sent to the countryside during World War II? Presumably, like in any situation with orphans, the children would then go to the nearest living relatives, if possible. They were living in foster homes in the country for about 6 years, during which time some of the children had grown up. Some who returned to find no parents continued to live with the foster families they had lived with, but others were left in the waiting areas for months. Many people throughout Europe were living in displaced persons camps after the war ended. In England, evacuees returned in the spring of 1945, but by that August there were still 76,000 people living in reception areas.

See the following for further information:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2005/04/26/evacuees_return_feature.shtml
http://clutch.open.ac.uk/schools/standrews00/gov_evac.htm

Answer 3

If they had no family able to take them in, 'welfare' would have intervened and arranged adoption (if they were very young) or orphanage placement. As we know, some of these poor kids were made to emigrate compulsorily to Australia after the war when they did not know that they had family members here (who maybe just could not take them in but could have visited/had them to stay/offered support in other ways) and this should not have happened to them. The children were denied knowledge of their birth family and some became traumatised adults althoug others survived and did well. It does seem that there were a lot of youngsters orphaned by the Second World War (or whose parents disappeared) and the government was unable to look after them. They lacked the resources after the War.

Answer 4

then they would become orphans and the state would have to deal with that situation . I expect every case was different. Some would go to relatives. some get adopted some to orphanages and possibly some stay with the people who they were with as evacuees

Answer 5

At the end of WW2 there was an huge displaced persons problem that every involved nation dealt with in there own way. In Britian, and France the problem was not as severe as it was in Germany. Often with the bomdings of the cities many records were destroyed and as in example with the concentration camps many people had no means to prove their identiy. They were refered to as DP's Displaced Persons.
I served in the Army with one such person who at the end of the war "age 9" only knew his name. He was in the Soveit occupied part of Poland and fell in with a group of refugees trying to get the the US sector. Near the Czech border they were stopped and robbed by Soveits troops, many of the women in the group were raped by soveit troops and a couple were shot for not compling with the Soveits troops. An american Military patrol stumble upon the group where the American shot s couple Soveit soldiers and a Soveit officer showed up and refuse to let the adults pass into the American sector but let the childern go. The Americans took the childern to a Catholic Convent. At the age of 17 he join the French Foreign Legion and served with the legion in Indochina, when the French left he join the American Army, he spent 3 years in Veitnam, and 23years in the US Army and retired and lived in Germany until he died in 1999. He came from Poland and never found any of his family.

This may not anser your question, but it it what happened to one person.

Answer 6

Ive just finished a book about this, a girl 15 was in the concentration camp, all her family died (mother, father, aunts, uncles ect) she only had her brother left and she survived with him. if they don't have a mother or father they got to aunts, uncles, nanas, gandads, if there gone to it would just be friends, Or survive on their own because children were working in them days from 10.

Answer 7

Orphans

Answer 8

I believe the government would have placed them with their nearest relations. They had orphanages to feed and cloth children with no relatives, until they were old enough to get a job and fend for themselves.

Answer 9

They were put into a home for orphans and offered for adoption

Answer 10

They were taken to an orphanage, or if they had close relatives they were alowed to bring them up