Starting in the mid-1990s, for more than 25 years, an author and journalist, Dorothee Schmitz-Köster, researched the topic of Lebensborn and created an extensive and very valuable personal archive. She started with her own “Friesland” neighbourhood near Bremen, but later expanded the search as far as Poland. The documents, interviews, stories from contemporary witnesses, and notes in her collection, many of them published, include interviews with Lebensborn mothers, children and employees in a wide range of audio formats. There are also some private records and photos of Lebensborn children that were given to her by different private individuals. All the materials she collected resulted in the publication of four books and numerous radio and television programmes.
Lebensborn children’s home in Kohren-Sahlis (Saxony) – from the collection of Dorothee Schmitz-Köster
She managed to help many people. For example, a boy who had been stolen from a Polish family in 1943 managed to reconnect with his biological siblings over 70 years later. This story became one of her books – Raubkind (“Stolen Child”), published in 2018.
Dorothee Schmitz-Köster handed over her collection to the Arolsen Archives (the International Centre on Nazi Persecution) in July 2021:
“I want people to understand what the core of Lebensborn is. These
were not brothels in which Aryan couples were brought together. For
the Nazis, it was about their racial policy and the selection of
certain children for that.”
