The removal of 2 million children to the English countryside during World War II, to keep them safe from German bombs, derived from good-hearted motives and tidy logic. But it was in many ways disastrous for the families involved.
“Operation Pied Piper,” as it was called, proved deeply traumatic for the children who were separated from their parents. “London children,” said Anna Freud, “were on the whole much less upset by bombing than by evacuation to the country as a protection against it.” The parents were likewise traumatized…
The lesson needs to be remembered today, in the United States: Separating children from their families can destroy them.
(To read the complete article, please visit CNN.)