Abstract: The Second World War brought not only material destruction, but also and perhaps foremost a spiritual and moral ruin. This was felt very painfully by the Polish nation, towards which the Nazi Germany had prepared a policy of total annihilation. This program had severe repercussions for Polish children, who became hostages to a false idea of the greatness and exceptionalism of the German nation, of the superiority of the Master Race. This chapter gives an outline of the basic problems faced by both the Polish state and Polish families during their attempts to repatriate kidnapped and deported children who remained in the Allied occupation zones after 1945.
Keywords: Polish child war victims, children in Allied occupation zones, the fate of Polish children in the Second World War
During World War II, as a result of the deliberate and planned extermination of the Polish nation, more than 2.5 million of Polish citizens were sent to the territories of the German Third Reich. Among them were about 200 thousand children aged 12 and less (Wnuk, 1982, p. 425). The Nazi authorities issued several resolutions and regulations (Helbing, 2017, pp. 19–22) which “organized” these criminal practices (Wnuk, 1982, p. 425). Among them “the decree of Heinrich Himmler as the SS Reichsfuhrer and the Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood on Screening and Selecting the Population in the Annexed Territories (…) stated that against those who refuse re-Germanisation, Security Police measures are to be taken and that their children “who cannot be held responsible for their parents’ behavior” are to be taken to proper German institutions” (Hrabar, Tokarz, Wilczur, 1979, p. 111).
The “Drive to the East” (Drang nach Osten) policy, the Lebensraum concept of creating a new living space for the German nation (Eberhardt, 2008, pp. 175–198), the racist-fascist ideology set out in, for example, Hitler's Mein Kampf and the so called Nuremberg Laws of September 15th, 1935 on Reich citizenship, protection of German Blood and German Honor and the Healthy Heritage of the German Nation became the grounds for persecutions against the Polish people, which included the physical, psychological and spiritual extermination of children and youth (Madajczyk, 1969, pp. 15–26).