Hitler's Forgotten Children: The Shocking True Story of the Nazi Kidnapping Conspiracy in Obsessed with True Crime

May 21, 2017 Anne Hawn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, 1-non-fiction, own, audible, 1-social-psychological-issues, war, holocaust, read-2017, dewey-challenge

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book was excellent! The author struggled with a difficult relationship with her parents and was left frequently in children's homes. Eventually, she realized that she was not the biological child of her parents, but was not allowed to ask any questions. She grew up feeling isolated and unloved until she was contacted by the Red Cross and learned that she was a foster child. The few clues she had from the documents she found as she went through her mother's effects began her long journey to This book was excellent! The author struggled with a difficult relationship with her parents and was left frequently in children's homes. Eventually, she realized that she was not the biological child of her parents, but was not allowed to ask any questions. She grew up feeling isolated and unloved until she was contacted by the Red Cross and learned that she was a foster child. The few clues she had from the documents she found as she went through her mother's effects began her long journey to finding that she was a Lebensborn baby. She continued to search until she found some of her family in Yugoslavia, but even then she did not feel the kind of connection she longed for.

I have read several books about the Lebensborn children, but this is the first one that dealt with the details of the lives of children found in conquered countries who were sent back to Lebensborn to be "Germanized." In this book, the author describes how she learned that her parents were required to go to the town center where the men who had resisted the Nazis were lined up and shot in front of the horrified crowd. Then the Nazi's looked over the children and any that appeared to be Germanic were taken from their mothers and siblings and kept in a building until the Nazis could put them on trains to carry them to Germany. Older children were in charge of the babies and toddlers. The author didn't just leave the description there. The babies had no clean diapers or bottles of milk at the proper time. In fact, they were delayed 4-1/2 hours and were kept in a large room with no food or place to lie down. She helps the readers understand what it was like for the children who had no idea where they were being taken or what would happen to them. Modern parents, when faced with a long journey with children prepare for days and, along with the necessaries, they provide things for their children to do and make frequent stops for exercise. These children were often put in railway cars for journies that took days. At each step of her journey, the author takes the reader into the mind of the stolen child and conveys the fear and bewilderment. She details the number of living situations the children had to get used to only to be swept off to another placement and another group of strangers.

She also describes the contrast between what Hitler was trying to build by taking these children and what the actual result was. How could human beings treat children as property and then expect them to grow up to be the leaders of a super race? How could they look at these children who were bred or stolen to supplement a flagging birth rate? Most interesting, given all the preoccupation with the Nordic perfection, was the description of the adult Lebensborn children in later support groups. They looked around the groups and saw the same mix of people that could have been found anywhere. There were no perfect looking people who radiated leadership and success. There was no sign of a super race.

Another aspect I found interesting was the description of the minds of Hitler and Himmler and their preoccupation with purifying the race. I knew that they were obsessed with getting rid of the undesirables such as the Jews and Gypsies, but I did not fully understand how their understanding of race undergirded everything they did. Reading the book left me with amazement at the way they replaced God with themselves as creators of a new and better race. They manipulated people with no thought of the Geneva conventions and basic human rights. The hubris of these men was unbelievable.

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