Articles

We recommend the following texts as an introduction to the story of the stolen children.

The articles present the story of the stolen children from German, Polish, Ukrainian and Czech perspectives. They were written by academics and journalists from the countries in question, whose professional engagement with this subject has led to them developing a valuable expertise.

In the collection, you will find the following articles:

  • The forced Germanisation of children from Poland, the Soviet Union and Southeastern Europe during World War II – historical background, practice, consequences by Isabel Heinemann

  • Taken away to be made into Germans. The Fate of Children Abducted from Eastern and Southeastern Europe under the National Socialist Regime by Dorothee Schmitz-Köster

  • “Good blood”. Lebensborn and the theft of “racially valuable” children by Katarzyna Kaczorowska

  • Mostly unrecovered. The post-war fate of the Polish “stolen” children by Anna Malinowska

  • Uprooted. The history of the abduction and Germanisation of children from Ukraine during World War II by Serhiy Stelnykovych and Volodymyr Hinda

  • “Stolen Children”. Children from the Czech Lands Marked for Germanisation during the Nazi Occupation by Pavla Plachá

Barbara was taken to a transitional children’s home where she was examined again, measured and photographed … The experience was beyond her comprehension and left her deeply distressed. The grandmother managed to find her granddaughter one more time and had a few furtive words with her through the fence. The little girl answered with “ja” rather than “tak”. Even here, the children were forced to use German, a language they weren’t familiar with at all. Any of them who spoke their mother tongue were punished. The process of “Germanization” had begun.

from: “Taken away to be made into Germans. The Fate of Children Abducted from Eastern and Southeastern Europe under the National Socialist Regime” by Dorothee Schmitz-Köster, Journalist

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