Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätte
Encyclopedia
Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätte (State Care for Foreign Children), also Säuglingsheim, Entbindungsheim, were Third Reich
institutions where babies and children, abducted from Eastern European forced laborers
from 1943 to 1945, were kept.
.
The mortality of the babies was very high, sometimes over 50%. It is estimated that 100,000 - 200,000 babies died in these institutions. A German general, Hilgenfeldt, inspecting this locations was horrified; couching his objections carefully, he said that the children died in a few months from inadequate rations, and if they were wanted dead, they should not take up the rations that were given, and if they were wanted alive for labor, they should receive rations adequate for their nourishment.
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
institutions where babies and children, abducted from Eastern European forced laborers
OST-Arbeiter
OST-Arbeiter was a designation for slave workers gathered from Eastern Europe to do forced labor in Germany during World War II. The Ostarbeiters were mostly from the territory of Reichskommissariat Ukraine . Ukrainians made up the largest portion although many Belarusians, Russians, Poles and...
from 1943 to 1945, were kept.
Nazi policy
As pregnancy in a forced laborer reduced productivitiy, many female workers were forced to abort their pregnancies -- despite its being illegal in Germany -- but only after determining whether the probable father was German or Germanic. Any children born were to be sent to the Auslanderkind-Pflegestatte, unless the foreigner worker was considered to be Germanic (such as Norwegians), in which case the child was removed for GermanisationGermanisation
Germanisation is both the spread of the German language, people and culture either by force or assimilation, and the adaptation of a foreign word to the German language in linguistics, much like the Romanisation of many languages which do not use the Latin alphabet...
.
The mortality of the babies was very high, sometimes over 50%. It is estimated that 100,000 - 200,000 babies died in these institutions. A German general, Hilgenfeldt, inspecting this locations was horrified; couching his objections carefully, he said that the children died in a few months from inadequate rations, and if they were wanted dead, they should not take up the rations that were given, and if they were wanted alive for labor, they should receive rations adequate for their nourishment.
Locations of Selected Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätte and cemeteries
- BraunschweigBraunschweigBraunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
, Entbindungsheim fuer Ostarbeiterinnen, over 360 babies buried - VelpkeVelpkeVelpke is a municipality in the district of Helmstedt, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approx. 20 km north of Helmstedt, and 10 km east of Wolfsburg.Velpke is also the seat of the Samtgemeinde Velpke....
, two death sentences by British court - DresdenDresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Dr.-Todt-Straße 120 (Radeburger Straße 12a), Auslandskinderpflegestätte
External links
- Krieg gegen Kinder "War Against Children" database with information on over 400 institutions