The Selvino children were a group of approximately 800 Jewish children orphaned by the Holocaust. rescued after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 from ghetto

Ghetto

A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...

s and concentration camps and housed in a former Fascist children's home called Sciesopoli in the Alpine town of Selvino

Selvino

Selvino is a comune in the Province of Bergamo in the Italian region of Lombardy, located about 60 km northeast of Milan and about 11 km northeast of Bergamo. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,045 and an area of 6.4 km².Selvino borders the following municipalities:...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, constructed in the 1930s as a sports palace. There the children were allowed to recover physically, mentally, and spiritually from their ordeal, while being instructed both in the general education they had missed during their imprisonment as well as in their heritage of Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 and Judaic culture, in preparation for their later relocation to Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 as part of the Bricha. The house was run by members of a Palestinian Jewish

Jewish Legion

The Jewish Legion was the name for five battalions of Jewish volunteers established as the British Army's 38th through 42nd Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers...

 unit of the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 stationed in Northern Italy under Moshe Zeiri, along with the generous help of many Italian citizens. From early 1947 to May 1948, when Israel became a state, Amalia (Mania) Schoeps was director and run Sciesopoli.


The home was organized by a Jewish Socialist organization called Gordogna with the motto Beit Aliya Hanod. Aliya

Aliyah

Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

means house of the going up, i.e. moving to the Land of Israel

Land of Israel

The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...

. It was a Hakshara

Hakshara

Hakhshara is a Hebrew world that literally means "preparation", and often refers to agricultural institutes similar to kibbutzim where Zionist youth would learn technical skills necessary for their emigration to Israel. An example of a hakhshara is Sciesopoli....

, which was a kibbutz

Kibbutz

A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

 outside of (then) Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

for the training of "chaluzim," or young pioneers, to move to the holy land.

A plaque on the side of the house reads:

Between the years 1945-1948, nearly 800 children and youths - holocaust orphans - were gathered in this house. They were survivors of the ghettos and concentration camps. Here the joys of youth and the belief in mankind, that was snatched from them, were restored to them. They learned their people's ancient tongue - the language of the Bible, and were prepared for life in their homeland - Israel. Here they learned to recognise and cherish the goodness of the Italian people.