Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany
During World War II, around 200,000[4][5][6][7] ethnic Polish children as well as an unspecified number of children of other ethnicities were abducted from their homes and forcibly transported to Nazi Germany for purposes of forced labour, medical experimentation, or Germanization.
An aim of the project was to acquire and "Germanize" children with purportedly Aryan-Nordic traits because Nazi officials believed that they were the descendants of German settlers who had emigrated to Poland. Those labelled "racially valuable" were forcibly assimilated in centres and then forcibly adopted to German families and SS Home Schools.[8]
An association, "Stolen Children: Forgotten Victims" (Geraubte Kinder – Vergessene Opfer e.V.), is active in Germany, representing victims of German kidnapping.[9]
In a well-known speech to his military commanders at Obersalzberg on 22 August 1939, Adolf Hitler condoned the killing without pity or mercy of all men, women, and children of Polish race or language.[10]
On 7 November 1939, Hitler decreed that Heinrich Himmler, whose German title at that time was Reichskomissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums, would be responsible for policy regarding the population of occupied territories. The plan to kidnap Polish children most likely was created in a document titled Rassenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP.[11]
On 25 November 1939, Himmler was sent a 40-page document titled (in English translation) "The issue of the treatment of population in former Polish territories from a racial-political view."[11] The last chapter of the document concerns "racially valuable" Polish children and plans to forcefully acquire them for German plans and purposes:
On 15 May 1940, in a document titled (in German) Einige Gedanken ueber die Behandlung der Fremdenvoelker im Osten ("A Few Thoughts about the Treatment of Racial Aliens in the East"), and in another "top-secret memorandum with limited distribution, dated 25 May 1940", titled (in English translation) "The Treatment of Racial Aliens in the East", Himmler defined special directives for the kidnapping of Polish children.[10][12] Himmler "also outlined the administration of incorporated Poland and the General Government, where Poles were to be assigned to compulsory labor, and racially selected children were to be abducted and Germanized."[10]
Among Himmler's core points:[11]
On 20 June 1940, Hitler approved Himmler's directives, ordering copies to be sent to chief organs of the SS, to Gauleiters in German-occupied territories in Central Europe, and to the governor of General Government, and commanding that the operation of kidnapping Polish children in order to seek Aryan descendants for Germanisation be a priority in those territories.[14][6][7]
Himmler mused on initiating similar projects in German-occupied France. Hitler's Table Talk records him expressing his belief that "the French problem" would be best solved by yearly extractions of a number of racially healthy children, chosen from "France's Germanic population". He preferred they be placed in German boarding schools, in order to separate them from their "incidental" French nationality, and to make them aware of their "Germanic blood". Hitler responded that the "religious petit-bourgeois tendencies of the French people" would make it almost impossible to "salvage the Germanic elements from the claws of the ruling class of that country".[15] Martin Bormann believed it to be an ingenious policy, noting it in the document record as a [sic] "sinister theory!".[15]
German documentation[edit]
Once selected, the children between six and twelve were sent to special homes. Their names were altered to similar-sounding German ones.[27] They were compelled to learn German and beaten if they persisted in speaking Polish.[28] They were informed their parents were dead even if they were not.[26] Children who would not learn German or remembered their Polish origin were sent back to youth camps in Poland.[29] In some cases, the efforts were so successful that the children lived and died believing themselves to be Germans.[17]
The authorities were reluctant to let the children be officially adopted, as the proceedings might reveal their Polish origin. Indeed, some children were maltreated when their adoptive parents learned that they were Polish.[26] Adoption was also problematic because surveillance or more information might reveal problems with the child. When it was learned that Rosalie K's mother was epileptic, for instance, it was immediately concluded, despite the wishes of her German foster parents, that Germanization, education and adoption were therefore not justifiable. When adoptive parents demanded adoption certificates, such records were forged for them.[30]
German medical experiments[edit]
Those children who did not pass harsh Nazi exams and criteria and who were therefore selected during the operation, were sent as test subjects for experiments in special centres. Children sent there ranged from eight months to 18 years. Two such centres were located in German-occupied Poland. One of them, Medizinische Kinderheilanstalt, was in Lubliniec in Upper Silesia – in this centre children were also subject to forced "euthanasia"; while the second was located in Cieszyn. Children were given psychoactive drugs, chemicals and other substances for medical tests, although it was generally known that the true purpose of those procedures was their mass extermination.[31]
Post-war repatriation efforts[edit]
The extent of the program became clear to Allied forces over the course of months, as they found groups of "Germanized" children and became aware that many more were in the German population. Locating these children turned up their stories of forcible instruction in the German language and how the failures were killed.[32] Teams were constituted to search for the children, a particularly important point when dealing with institutions, where a single investigator could only interview a few children before all the rest were coached to provide false information. Many children had to be lured into speaking the truth; as for instance complimenting their German and asking how long they had spoken it, and only when told that a nine-year-old had spoken German for four years, pointing out that they must have spoken before then, whereupon the child could be brought to admit to having spoken Polish.[33] Some children suffered emotional trauma when they were removed from their adoptive German parents, often the only parents they remembered, and returned to their biological parents, when they no longer remembered Polish, only German. The older children generally remembered Poland; ones as young as ten had forgotten much, but could often be reminded by such things as Polish nursery rhymes; the youngest had no memories that could be recalled.[24]
Allied forces made efforts to repatriate them. However, many children, particularly Polish and Yugoslavian who were among the first taken, declared on being found that they were German. Russian and Ukrainian children, while not gotten to this stage, still had been taught to hate their native countries and did not want to return.[34] While many foster parents voluntarily brought forth well-cared-for children, other children proved to be abused or used for labour, and still other adoptive parents went to great efforts to hide the children.[35]
After the war, The United States of America v. Ulrich Greifelt, et al., or the RuSHA Trial, the eighth of the twelve Nuremberg Trials, dealt with the kidnapping of children by the Nazis.[36] Many children testified, although many of their parents were afraid to let them return to Germany.[37] From 1947 to 1948, the Nuremberg Trials ruled that the abductions, exterminations, and Germanization constituted genocide.[38]
Only 10 to 15 percent of those abducted returned to their homes.[39] When Allied effort to identify such children ceased, 13,517 inquiries were still open, and it was clear that German authorities would not be returning them.[40]
Between 1940 and 1945, according to official Polish estimates, approximately 200,000 Polish children were abducted by the Nazis.[14][6][7] William Rubinstein cites the figure of up to 200,000 Polish children kidnapped by Nazis.[2] According to Dirk Moses' estimate, 20,000 children were abducted for such purposes from Poland, 20,000 from the Soviet Union, and 10,000 from Western Europe and Southeast Europe.[3][1][44] Tadeusz Piotrowski in his book Poland's Holocaust states that 200,000 Polish children were kidnapped out of which only 15 to 20% were reclaimed by either parents or the Polish government after the war.[45] According to Tara Zahra, the number of children taken from their parents includes 40,000 to 50,000 children taken as part of Heuaktion for forced labour from Belarus, 28,000 Soviet youth "under the age of eighteen" taken for labour by the Luftwaffe, "tens of thousands" of Polish, Czech, Slovenian and Silesian children taken during evacuations after which they ended up in orphanages and Hitler Youth camps, unspecified number of children taken by force from women working as forced labour in Germany, and 20,000–50,000 "deliberately kidnapped" in Eastern Europe.[1] Additional non-German-speaking children were evacuated along with German civilians, while tens of thousands of foreign children were recruited as forced labourers or born to female forced labourers in Germany. Confusion between ethnic German children from Eastern Europe and non-German children was another factor that led to inflated estimates.[1] The modern association "Stolen children. Forgotten victims" representing victims of this operation presented the following estimates as of 2018:
Post-war estimates on kidnapped children vary depending on criteria used; Isabell Heinemann in the documentary "Kinderraub der Nazis. Die vergessenen Opfer" stated that her research team identified 20,000 Polish children kidnapped who passed the Germanization criteria and were integrated into the Lebensborn program. While Polish estimates, for example, include children taken under different conditions, such as those taken away forcefully from women working as forced labour in Germany.[47] Precise numbers are difficult to ascertain and depend on classification of kidnapping and if one counts children born to parents used as forced labour.[48]
Remembrance[edit]
In 2017, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Polish journalists from Interia.pl engaged in a remembrance project documenting history and fate of kidnapped children. Journalists visited institutions, archives and foundations, as well as victims who are still alive today. Numerous surviving victims have been interviewed presenting their attempts to trace back their origins, claim compensation or present their story. Together, as part of this series, over 40 articles and 23 video documentaries were produced, culminating in a book and a movie documentary which was presented by German state broadcaster ARD.[50][51][52]