This book is about the experiences of Jewish children who were members of armed partisan groups in Eastern Europe during World War II and the Holocaust. It describes and analyze the role of children as activists, agents, and decision makers in a situation of extraordinary danger and stress. The children in this book were hunted like prey and ran for their lives. They survived by fleeing into the forest and swamps of Eastern Europe and joining anti-German partisan groups. The vast majority of these children were teenagers between ages 11 and 18, although some were younger. They were, by any definition, child soldiers, and that is the reason they lived to tell their tales. The book will be of interest to general and academic audiences. There is also great interest in children and childhood across disciplines of history and the social sciences. It is likely to spark considerable debate and interest, since its argument runs counter to the generally accepted wisdom that child soldiers must first and foremost be seen as victims of their recruiters. The argument of this book is that time, place, and context play a key role in our understanding of children’s involvement in war and that in some contexts children under arms must be seen as exercising an inherent right of self-defense.

This book is about the experiences of Jewish children who were members of armed partisan groups in Eastern Europe during World War II and the Holocaust. It describes and analyze the role of children as activists, agents, and decision makers in a situation of extraordinary danger and stress. The children in this book were hunted like prey and ran for their lives. They survived by fleeing into the forest and swamps of Eastern Europe and joining anti-German partisan groups. The vast majority of these children were teenagers between ages 11 and 18, although some were younger. They were, by any definition, child soldiers, and that is the reason they lived to tell their tales. The book will be of interest to general and academic audiences. There is also great interest in children and childhood across disciplines of history and the social sciences. It is likely to spark considerable debate and interest, since its argument runs counter to the generally accepted wisdom that child soldiers must first and foremost be seen as victims of their recruiters. The argument of this book is that time, place, and context play a key role in our understanding of children's involvement in war and that in some contexts children under arms must be seen as exercising an inherent right of self-defense.

When we hear the term ""child soldiers"", most Americans imagine innocent victims roped into bloody conflicts in distant war-torn lands like Sudan and Sierra Leone. Yet our own history is filled with examples of children involved in warfare - from adolescent prisoner of war Andrew Jackson to Civil War drummer boys - who were once viewed as symbols of national pride rather than signs of human degradation. In this daring new study, anthropologist David M. Rosen investigates why our cultural perception of the child soldier has changed so radically over the past two centuries. Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination reveals how Western conceptions of childhood as a uniquely vulnerable and innocent state are a relatively recent invention. Furthermore, Rosen offers an illuminating history of how human rights organizations drew upon these sentiments to create the very term ""child soldier"", which they presented as the embodiment of war's human cost. Filled with shocking historical accounts and facts - and revealing the reasons why one cannot spell ""infantry"" without ""infant"" - Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination seeks to shake us out of our pervasive historical amnesia. It challenges us to stop looking at child soldiers through a biased set of idealized assumptions about childhood, so that we can better address the realities of adolescents and pre-adolescents in combat. Presenting informative facts while examining fictional representations of the child soldier in popular culture, this book is both eye-opening and thought-provoking.

This book exposes the role of children in war, describing where, why, and how children are deployed, the attempts made by international organizations to protect children, and the underlying political and cultural issues that make this such a thorny issue. In conflict-torn countries such as Myanmar and Uganda, the use of child soldiers in military and paramilitary operations continues to occur despite widespread condemnation and the efforts of organizations such as the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. This book will allow readers to grasp the impact of this issue for both individuals and nations worldwide. Child Soldiers: A Reference Handbook traces the evolution of child soldiers from approximately 1940 onwards, covering important historical to modern conflicts. The subject is discussed from a global perspective, with particular attention given to areas where the use of child soldiers is most prevalent. The book covers the complex underlying reasons for the continued use of child soldiers in the modern world, examines the political and psychological consequences of using children-both male and female-in military and paramilitary organizations, and describes how this subject has been addressed by international law and various human rights organizations. A chronology of major events in the efforts to limit the use of child soldiers Biographical sketches of famous child soldiers and key figures in the effort to ban the use of child soldiers A directory of organizations involved in the child soldier issue

"No thinking person, no media commentator, no political leader can afford to be without this book--not if they care about the truth and want to understand one of the more awful realities of our time. It will stir you to action on behalf of the world's vulnerable children." --Phyllis Chesler, author of The New Anti-Semitism Children have served as soldiers throughout history. They fought in the American Revolution, the Civil War, and in both world wars. They served as uniformed soldiers, camouflaged insurgents, and even suicide bombers. Indeed, the first U.S. soldier to be killed by hostile fire in the Afghanistan war was shot in ambush by a fourteen-year-old boy. Does this mean that child soldiers are agressors? Or are they victims? It is a difficult question with no obvious answer, yet in recent years the acceptable answer among humanitarian organizations and contemporary scholars has been resoundingly the latter. These children are most often seen as especially hideous examples of adult criminal exploitation. In this provocative book, David M. Rosen argues that this response vastly oversimplifies the child soldier problem. Drawing on three dramatic examples--from Sierra Leone, Palestine, and Eastern Europe during the Holocaust--Rosen vividly illustrates this controversial view. In each case, he shows that children are not always passive victims, but often make the rational decision that not fighting is worse than fighting. With a critical eye to international law, Armies of the Young urges readers to reconsider the situation of child combatants in light of circumstance and history before adopting uninformed child protectionist views. In the process, Rosen paints a memorable and unsettling picture of the role of children in international conflicts. David M. Rosen is a professor of anthropology and law at Fairleigh Dickinson University. A volume in The Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies, edited by Myra Bluebond-Langner, Rutgers University, Camden.