The kidnapping of Polish children by Nazi Germany

[pjotr]

DW Documentary

On orders from Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron; SS), the Nazis abducted children from Poland for forced Germanization. Hermann Lüdeking (Roman Roszatowski), Jozef Sowa and Alodia Witaszek have never met, but they shared the same fate.

Tears still come to Jozef Sowa’s eyes when he talks about his life. His parents were murdered by Wehrmacht soldiers in Poland in 1943, and he and his four siblings were taken to Germany. Four of them managed to return to Poland. But his younger sister Janina was given up for adoption - as a supposedly German child. She still lives in Germany today. This kidnapping was planned. In 1941, Himmler, who headed the Nazi SS, gave the order to "gather young children who are especially racially suitable from Polish families and for us to raise them in special modestly-sized kindergartens and children’s homes."

Professor Isabel Heinemann explains, "By so doing, he aimed to build up the German race." For years, the historian has been researching the fates of the estimated 50 thousand children in Europe who were snatched. The largest group comes from Poland. Without their biological parents to protect them, the children were given to German families by the "SS Race and Resettlement Main Office." Their names and dates of birth were changed to obscure their true identity.

After the war ended, those whose origins could be traced returned to their homelands. But their native countries had often become foreign to them and being singled out as a German "Hitler child" made reintegration difficult. Those responsible for the kidnapping were never brought to justice.


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[pjotr]

Folks,

The story of that one Polish man with his German (“Germanized”) sister is tragic. He grew up Polish and she as a German girl and woman and still lives in Germany. Their parents were brutally murdered by the Waffen SS in Poland. The story is hard to listen too. Also the story of the Germanized Polish child Hermann Lüdeking born as Roman Roszatowski in Łódź (1940–1945 Litzmannstadt). Roman Roszatowski grew up as a German and is a German in his eighties, but he found out that his German parents were not his real parents and he remembers the Lebensborn home Sonnenwiese in Kohren-Sahlis, a town and a former municipality in the Leipzig district, in Saxony, Germany. Since January 2018, it is part of the town Frohburg.

Hermann Lüdeking did not go to his mothers funeral because she didn’t like his search for (after) his Polish roots and heritage.

From 1 November 1942 to 14 April 1945 the children's home "Sonnenwiese", which was operated by the SS Lebensborn organization, was located in Kohren-Salis. Primarily children abducted from Norway were placed here before they were passed on for adoption to families loyal to the Nazi system. But also children from Poland which had to be ‘Aryanized’ and ‘Germanized’ were there. Polish children with blue eyes, blond hair, strong build, that could be perfect German children in the eyes of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler ( 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945).

The official opening of “Sonnenwiese" (engl. "Sun Meadow") took place after reconstruction in November 1942. The Lebensborn home had a maximum capacity of 170 seats. On average, there were 130 children housed. Most children were under three years old, some were up to six years, very few children were older.

The care of the children was taken over by up to 20 sisters, three learning sisters, ten nursing students and three educators. The home "Sonnenwiese" also played a role in the "Germanization" of foreign children from Poland, Yugoslavia and Norway - reliable figures are not available here. Most foreign children came from Norway, mostly by air. In 1943/44 200 children were brought from Oslo to Germany, of which 150 were recorded in Kohren-Sahlis. But not only abducted children but also anonymously released (illegitimate) children were housed in the home. Also some children from Norway were children of Wehrmacht soldiers that were sent to Germany with the consent of the Norwegian mothers and at the pressure of their families. Folks, the fate of these 'Norwegian' Lebensborn children was terrible after the war, the children of German Wehrmacht

In Norway, children born to Norwegian mothers by German fathers were allegedly often bullied, raped, abused, and persecuted by the government after the war, and placed in mental institutions. The Norwegian government attempted to deport Lebensborn children to Germany, Brazil, and Australia but did not succeed. Many Norwegian Lebensborn children had difficult lives as teenagers and adults, suffering from depression, some of them became psychiatric patients and some of them committed Suicide. Lebensborn was a curse on their lives. A group of Lebensborn children sought compensation from the Norwegian government, who they saw as being complicit in their mistreatment. In 2008, their case before the European Court of Human Rights was dismissed as the events had happened too long ago, but they were each offered an £8,000 payment from the Norwegian government. One of these Norwegian 'Lebensborn' children was the later singer of the world Famous Swedish pop group Abba, Anni-Frid Lyngstad. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anni-Frid_Lyngstad )


Lebensborn child Anni-Frid Lyngstad, daughter of a Norwegian mother and a German Wehrmacht soldier

What a suffering these children went through, the Polish ones, but also the ones taken from Yugoslavia, the SovietUnion and Norway. Imagine being taken away from your parents, being transported abroad to a country, people, culture, place, language and atmsophere you don't know. The important security, safety, protection, being take well care of and being cherished and nurtured by your parents is taken away from you. That often had life long consequences, pyscholigical and psychiatric problems, longing for parents and family members you never met but knew that they existed (for these children that remember their abduction or found out later that their German parents were not their real parents like in the tragic case of Hermann Lüdeking, who real name was Roman Roszatowski. You see in the Deutsche Welle (DW) documentary that Hermann (Roman) isn't happy and struggle whole of his life to find his roots, find out whom his Polish parents were, if they were still alive or died and if there were family members left. Hermann Lüdeking is a German, but he knows that in reality he is not a German at all, and that his real name is Roman Roszatowski. He was not allowed to be Roman Roszatowski, and was forced to be Hermann Lüdeking. Who is Hermann Lüdeking, is he the 80 years old German Hermann Lüdeking or is the 80 years old Pole Roman Roszatowski who lived in Germany most of his life?

Pieter