brant goff will have your reply to start world updates at the top hour find out more on our website of course that's d w dot com i'm going to. this state of emergency is the one people around the world orthodox to these dramatic times. they're keeping the coronas shirey and welcoming us into the pipes they let us get as close and personal as the pandemic will allow. the diary starts matriarchs w. .

september 19th $39.00 nazi germany invaded poland and for more than 5 years brought terror to much of europe with its ideology of a master race. a central figure in that campaign was rice fair and says heinrich himmler. the leading nazi was obsessed with racial purity and came up with a plan to bolster the so-called arion race between 19411945 children were kidnapped from all over eastern europe and forcibly germanized. historians estimate that 20000 of those children came from poland alone. in nazi run children's homes they learn to speak german their identities were falsified in the ghattas form before i was named and odia vitesse check from that moment on i was a leaf said that. those children are now over 80

years old and many of them still know nothing about their roots. nor do buy me a lesson easily felt this kind of back and forth also affected my relationships few years and much of what happened to them is still a mystery. use of some of our travels as often as he can to the place where his parents are buried . it lies outside chance to hava in southern poland.

he was just 9 years old when they died. troian bark i feel i'm missing the warmth of being raised by a father and mother. were brought up by strangers who were something like a family but all my life i've been missing that warmth that embrace all that. his father usurped was 41. his mother french scieszka 36. when they were murdered by the nazis on the spot. their son user is now 86 years old. but he has never forgotten his childhood home. our. barbara. starr would all be a school over there was a village house with 2 ramps but it was made of wood and bricks book which i made

the journey. let me show you where the stables were and found his workshop and bill clinton. during world war 2 use of his family he did use and partisans in the bunker 7 people lived underground here for 2 years is out there more good m.b.o. out all of the above this bunker was a pipe where the air came in or not and the jews and the polish partisans got their air through this pipe of course my parents also gave them food water should be an economy a product shows they were just sort of going to go yet. and the whole tragedy got it all beauty and torture took place here. and show you how. the germans came to congress soldiers in the interim so many. valid a knock on the door and asked if they're so frustrated. called mommy that's an invalid they started smashing the windows with their rifles should have been that's how it all the planes were broke up just my mother was crying and took us children out to

the young. children right behind our mama and papa we were all practically naked undershirts it was 5 o'clock in the morning it was september so it was chileans and i and the german said where the jews were the partisans but also i only went into the barn they had a pointy metal stick and stuck it in the straw to see if they would hit a person who would scream and yell more but there was not enough they got angry yes that. stick. on the answer to the germans hit them with anything they could get their hands on. this whole assumption pitchfork's through my mother was stabbed in the stomach 3 times with a pitchfork children while she was pregnant fresh to show their mission under 6 their 7th month. well the mama didn't make any more sense she was really just a know it was my father had. he been hit with a rifle the whole court yard was full of blood they dragged my mother here my

father there are kids there. and they still found nothing but i shall miss their leisure not know. it's not just between the workshop and the stables and. i'm not sure. how they got out that maybe 4 or 6 hand grenades fell in the middle of the courtyard and at that moment the 1st jewish woman came out of the. dog and then they said the other side of the house on funny little guy. after that the soldiers shot use of parents dead and threw their bodies into a pit at the spot where their graves is now. the children survived after witnessing the events then they were taken to germany like thousands of other children from 1941 onwards who were deemed to be worthy of being german i just. use of

sr yanina still lives in germany. or not is there and she's german going to germany nice. all eyes just that she corresponds to the curial nordic response blond hair and like colored i asked that was what the germans wanted to show our sister was lost to us forever. as the pool of little sisters the best one of us was in germany like that so there's. just comes god. in me give me good good good even if you got maybe you just didn't want to do. your job or come to find help god would be kinda fun bein and for me. just there were given what i was doing. if you don't. wish to. come on luther king has lived

in by dear i'm in southwestern germany since he retired. where he originally came from he doesn't know whose you know arguably seeking leave but everyone feels nice curiosity to know what their parents look nothing. like don't know if i should others saw systems. so i just don't know seems to have tried everything. i do 20 archives i found nothing is nothing at all they have nice guy thinks. this for decades herrmann has been trying to find out who his parents were and where he was born. he always has the support of his partner. even as a child he felt that there was some mystery when he was 6 years old when he was

placed with maria and her man luther king but he sensed that they were keeping something from him. this stuff out of the way spot was hidden in my foster father's closet. and those are various 13 or 14 year old i look to see what was in . this yes i was always curious. when i saw this i realized more or less what it was about. this is my that i already knew that i wanted my real parents but i didn't know how it all hung together. and then i read this document that said father ted mother dead. kings birth certificate issued by nazi officials and there are dashes where the names of his father and mother should. his place of birth is listed as broken in vertigo the site of one of the nazi run orphanages where the identities of the

abducted children were covered up. with him. when he was the 1st place i went looking and i spoke to the can take it that he was still alive i asked him if anybody else took place like it said in the document and he said no no but ever took place here. would step forward and found since then harriman has discovered that he was probably called roman russia tough skinned before he was placed with his foster parents was he really born on january 20th $1036.00 he has his doubts. i might be a year older or younger maybe i'm just 36 years old. there's standard documents from woods was january the 21st. i don't see one to say i know. the central polish city of wood was probably the 1st station in his life.

come on still doesn't know who gave him up to this orphanage. but he does know that the nazis took him from here to germany. be that you've been in the us would have gone bust you for being going. on off the list by. boredom i am. not being normal. you british guy was on the net and you know what you. order given because. i do not. want to i didn't know if you have it on. critical mind. that couldn't be a hold on i am not credible 31. of the.

story also has ties to which. she was 5 years old when she was brought to the youth detention camp in let's munched out as would you was called during the nazi occupation. today she's meeting up with her friend barbaro patrick a bitch. the 2 women have a lot in common. and their parents in life have been very similar. they've come to a school located on the site of the camp. the school directory showing them a room that commemorates the thousands of children who were interned here. like who was brought here in 1943. oh you have a great mouth. shall we need to find him really applied to st it's over here we should turn the map around like this what i thought that means my

house must have been here. how well you remember everything of course have you ever heard of the children from dr v. tash x. group i am a. father was a resistance fighter executed by the nazis her mother was deported to auschwitz for her husband's actions and ended up in the machinery of the german occupiers oppression people and how long were you in the camp possible. i was probably here for around 8 weeks. before that in the race office in poznan and they had determined that i corresponded to the so-called aerial skiing jets and the germans wanted to german eyes children of the arion race . get one yourself right.

3 people. 3 life stories. with this in common. all 3 are victims of heinrich humors racist mania. the right spirit s.s. visited occupied poland in 1941 and traveled through the bar to guard history. in 1039 poland had been carved up between the soviets and the germans. sections of the western part of the country including the so-called racecar to lie and were incorporated into the german reich. other regions were placed under german civil administration. himmler's vision was to make germany the mightiest nation in the world by by. during the population with new progeny from abroad mainly from eastern europe. in the discussion of in berlin are hundreds of documents that show the gradual development of humor strategy for the

organized abduction of children. after his trip through vertigo himmler wrote to the girl later actual price or. i believe it is right that small children of especially good raise from polish families become lectern brought up by us and special not to large children's nurseries and orphanages. i would advise starting with 2 or 3 such institutions so as to gather experience. isabelle hina mine is a professor of contemporary history at the university of minister. she has studied the subject of the stolen children for a number of years. she set up a europe wide research project and with colleagues has analyzed 17000 files of

foreign children found by the allies in germany after the war. on historians want to reconstruct the roots taken by the stolen children and with them as it was left but the fact that the nazis deliberately conceal their identities makes that a formidable task. it would have nothing but i did the calculations life down based on the reports of how many children were transported and how many were found after the war and i would estimate that number to be around 20000 polish children behind each one of those numbers is that individual story of a life threatening to 10 while and set on a completely different course. there are many myths about the forced german ization of foreign children one account is that they were ethnic germans that is children of german ancestry who lived outside the german right and that only very 10 while and set on

a completely different course and then fell off the north. there are many myths about the forced german ization of foreign children one account is that they were ethnic germans that is children of german ancestry who lived outside the german reich and that only very few children were brought to germany at all. but his clan did have a system as the rights commissioner for the consolidation of german nation hood he helped to issue do. directive 671. it's stated. first all children and formerly polish orphanages are to be taken and placed in accommodations after that operation is concluded children living with polish foster parents will be examined. the directive was signed by all rich private himmler's direct subordinate.

later at the nuremberg trials he claimed that there had never been a concrete plan. for a directive $6071.00 went to only high ranking leaders of the s.s. and the police and the corresponding s.s. leaders concerned with race and settlement policy so that the s.s. operators would be aware of how it worked it was a part of a supposedly rational occupation and gemini ization policy that was imposed mainly on occupied poland but also one other occupied and mixed regions of europe. possibly going. today experts believe that our own 50000 children were abducted from across europe. cases are known from today's ukraine the czech republic and slovenia. but the largest group was from poland because the machinery of the abduction started in the bar to go district.

first orphanages were searched then child welfare officials summoned all children living with foster parents for inspection. there were precise guidelines on how a racially suitable child was supposed to look. 21 characteristics were examined including growth patterns the back of the head the bridge of the nose and body hair . the officials were looking for so-called arion types classified as pure nordic purif alien or nordic faily and what the nazis couldn't use were unbalanced hybrid types. and finally children were also taken away from their biological parents like. she was taken for racial examination after her mother was deported then in the autumn of 1943 she was brought to the youth detention camp in litzmannstadt to be germanized. this memorial recalls the thousands of children who lived here and were forced to do hard labor. knew it.

was a book well the memories come flooding back when all over your stands here. she was brought to the camp together with her little sister daria. straight away we weren't allowed to speak polish. we'd whisper to each other in polish but of course we couldn't make it obvious that we were speaking. of the our public school. we were punished for every infraction. each couple had a club and they shouted at us very loudly. we were scared of the yelling and of course the severe beating. by the arts of apparel. i think say and they work us for roll call. counters off in germany which was hard

for us we didn't know the numbers. and that's why the roll call used to take a very long time wash near some of our time but. i missed that but it had to keep going until our supervisor had counted the entire group of children. and often when they went through the barracks where we slept. they would find their children in the beds. oh yes they are. not. then called was the 1st place where all of you were sent more followed college. bercow. bud protein.

thousands of children were funneled through these nazi run homes. each station represented a further step to conceal the child's real identity. dates of birth were changed names were made more german sounding. became elite civic. her friend barbara became bearable. they were forced to forget their origins finally both were placed in german families where paradoxically they experienced the happiest years of their childhood. use of silver lives in the center of chance to hold. even know he can't accept that his sister yanina loves the nation that caused his family so much suffering ramakant us from things of their letters from germany from my sister.

that should she did not want to appear in person in this film or engage with the family's history that's apparent in her letters there's a line vendor by your side is that when you come to see us please please don't talk about politics or about the war. bores you love and kisses. yes i needa. all her letters are signed with her polish and her german name on a stock. has been so germanized that she even writes in her letters that i shouldn't talk about politics or our history show you cross because she's embarrassed. you can still get on a sugar rush she doesn't want to know anything about poland or the memory of her family. or when you know she lives her life there in germany and she is for you richard. after the murder of their parents the 5 soviet children were brought to court cattle you know grown cold for. you know nino was taken from there by

a woman from hanover who adopted her her name was changed to anita no official records about this were preserved which is why you know it was not found after the war but her siblings never stopped looking it was 20 years before use of saw her again since then they've met up regularly. how the out o. good and our combined good day my dear sister mr are you were home or out for a walk. here thought i asked us for had lunch and you're probably tired just i'm looking forward so much to seeing you soon as the were for the jets. yeah you look at all about me living chance to hope for tomorrow or 12 known.

by my dear sister. banks. those are shut it buys for you so now you've heard her voice. use of sr was carried off to germany shortly before the end of the war she didn't undergo a racial examination the longer the war went on the less attention the german officials paid to rules and guidelines. and in his abduction was an act of pure despotism. in the southwestern german city of fribourg hermeneutic king is paying a visit to crystal this is the. charts as a teacher but for years he has been helping him on the 21 the german government to

recognize the kidnapped children as victims of the nazi regime so that they can receive compensation. she wants founded an association representing the children's interests and he and harman have filed lawsuits together so far with no success. as a last resort they've approached germany's highest court the constitutional court. because this is this nice is the letter i received and this. is the processing it. and now i have to wait for a day. you know how money short for just a minute suggest that we write another letter to the constitutional court saying they should speed things up a little in consideration of your age and show biz lavelle as one of the board is who are not. those finish of toil i think it's great that at his age he still are prepared to fight for justice even though it's only about the symbolic sums of 2500

euros for not really it's a joke. according to germany's act regulating compensation for national socialist injustice that is the sum to which non jewish victims are entitled. to come a new ticking considers himself a part of that group. is good enough for me it's not about the money but about the recognition that this was a crime it's me that's what gets me mad he used the strategy is to wait until nature takes care of it and then it's over. the german government argues that the kidnappings can be seen as general collateral damage of war and that therefore there can be no claim to compensation. and it's often argued that the kidnapped children were well treated in contrast to other victims. that was true in herremans case his german foster parents were wealthy his mother was a teacher and head of the regional association of german girls. the father was

a high ranking teacher both were nazi party members. came and graduated from school studied at university and became a mechanical engineer. but the parents never spoke to him about his background. back in chains to hoffa. use of silva is on duty. for the past 30 years he's been working for an organization for the victims of nazi persecution he campaigns for them to receive compensation but. poland has a number of funds from which the germanized children or the children of mothers who are forced laborers receive small payments. like this woman from now on she'll get 50 euros a month. for everybody not all her dearly on this is actually until several

hours by this letter says you will get at least 212 swatches the last show so we've been able to help here we are here say sure just me by you probably probably about about dark. in the early 1990 s. germany paid $500000000.00 each marx to poland as a humanitarian gesture as it was called back then. use if wanted to apply for money for his siblings but they needed to nina's consent. not by my sister answerable no no no i will not steal money from the german people because i am dramatically ice and yet. my bar has invited a load a year to her home they want to talk about the stories of their lives that wound up taking such a similar course. but they actually asked we all kind of like

sisters. always for a long time we didn't know if we were german or pay less. but i feel as though we were both very lucky. but that a few missions we ended up in families that treated us like their own children and i said questioning. why ok so that could. barbaro was 3 when the nazis examined her and approved her for a german ization. in 1902 she was placed with a german foster family and grew up as bearable in limbo. like a lawyer she had to return to poland after the war. she was 10 at the time. yes after movie room lawyer vine actually if i always say that my war started after i went back yes i said the same. my parents were no longer alive there was nothing left. i was an unwanted child he was shunted around here and there you

couldn't speak polish and write so i couldn't speak the language anymore i was this hitler ride german swine for us children our return was disastrous but it was understandable that poland wanted its children back jiechi. after the war you mean yes. has extreme she'll think it's extremely complicated and the western allied powers made the child's well being the benchmark on the one hand and on the other hand there was the justifiable demand of the polish station that said give our children back your thirty's found themselves and a complicated legal model in terms of international law. violation the feeling. alone here is back home again she lives in big gosh that's 170 kilometers northwest

of roads. for years she's been giving public lectures as a witness of history. in a few days she'll be traveling again to germany to tell the story of her life. not them out here in the album is the 1st aircraft taken with my new german moti picked me out. more. this is louise that. she didn't have any children of her. took the 6 year old to her home in stendhal in saxony on heart. the little girl started going to school there and lead a comfortable life as a much loved only child. 4 years later came the shock. louise and her husband received a letter from the polish red cross which tore the family apart. luisa dahl wrote

this in response. if the mother of the child is alive we are prepared in view of the mother's terrible suffering and uncertainty during the years of separation to return the child safe and sound to her. of course the biological mother has the 1st right and with a heavy heart i will give up the child whom we have come to love and cherish. 'd polish mother. had survived auschwitz. and with this photograph searched the world for her 2 daughters. and found them. when the news came that i was a stolen polish child and had to go back to my home country. and there my moods he

began to tell me about my siblings who i had forgotten in the course of the 4 years . ochterlony abscessed they were left out of the water on the ocean so for that reason i was not so reluctant to return to poland. but at one spot of i wasn't afraid at all or skinny a boy or girl. but going back was hard. had forgotten her native polish. but she could communicate with her mother helena who spoke excellent german. o.d.u. was lucky that she maintained contact to her german morty. and the 2 women also became friends. or was now daughter to both of them. i had 2 mamas. and these 2 mamas loved each other very much.

they understood each other and we all. believe the dolls when they said they had not known who early to really was the result wrote to the polish red cross. so was born in post 9 and after she became ill in a children's home in college was then brought to bad policy and. that is where i picked up little on april 25th 1944 mediated by the former lebanese born association the child was placed with me as a pure german child with a german name as an eastern german orphan for adoption. cameron luther king's foster mother must have known that he was not

a german child she got him in december 942 from zone and visa eleven's born home in koran's ollie's a village near leipzig. his name then was roman russia tough ski. levin's born was a pet project of heinrich himmler. it provided a place for unmarried women to have their babies and leave them to be raised the goal was to boost the area and population. zone and reason also served as an institution for children like airman who were abducted from poland yugoslavia and the soviet union to be taken to germany. herrmann was one of the 1st children here to be given away to families loyal to the nazi regime. he remembers how it came about. that. i used to always play with my friend all of your words and with

it together and this and. all and then a nurse came and said you 2 have to come along to the head. so we went up there and they had noticed was sitting with an elegant lady was standing there. later i knew it was my foster mother. but she wore a hat with a veil. and the head said all right. you can pick one of the 2 children. and she said right away. take little hammer. pay or our family amount. and the head nurse said so just sign here and then you can take the chance with. it. and she took my hand and we went out and took the train to let him go and found and let her. go that's

how it went. so one of these other you know like a chicken farmer and i want down chicken that one doesn't look so good was what i like. that's how they did it with the children too or. at the time herrmann was just happy that he had someone to take care of him and he got along well with maria luther king. but once he started to try and find out about his background she broke away from him. when she died in the late 1980 s. he did not attend her funeral. but. at the nuremberg trials american prosecutors tried to press charges for the kidnapping of alien children for purposes of german ization.

but the tribunal contested the charges according the defendants of that crime and describing the livin sporn organization as a welfare institution. in this respect the nuremberg trials can be seen to have made a tragic legal mistake to classify levens born which ran these children's homes as a purely charitable organization and equipped those involved the challenges from today's point of view that was that related judicial era class a field and child on. a lot of return is on her way to the city of fribourg. she knows germany well. she often visited her foster parents here. today she's giving a talk to students at the catholic university of applied sciences as

a living witness. as always she tells her life story in german all that will happen soon and that is why they gave us new 1st and last names. until then i had been. and now i was early to say if i leave it that. says her lectures have also been a form of therapy for her. it's a way of coming to terms with her own past but the biggest. damage to the fact that your time in germany shaped you and yet you still consider yourself polish. would you say that germany is also your homeland in a way on. the us i think that's true it is that for me i love to come back here comments over it and i always say every country has very good people and very bad people and they should.

retire shaq's story is also a positive one with lots of understanding on both sides and she hopes to keep telling it for as long as she can. today use of salva is setting off to the family get together with his sister yanina . but i'm gorgeous about the journey that i didn't sleep for a last night yes pretty spot on. the family history is likely to be a topic at the gathering. use of can't forgive jani no for denying that she's polish but he says she is and will always be his sister. saw jean out of the young everyone in the family loves her

yes she's warm and empathetic over nature but is about the color of the princess because she's so sensitive so nice and warm article or stuck in your pocket that he cut costs. that's not. i am an luther king has received a letter from the german constitutional court another defeat he has lost his fight for compensation. but he will continue to search for his roots for the parts of his life that the nazis hid from him. as he was how i don't think i'll find out anything but i'll keep looking. who knows maybe i'll find a nugget somewhere you know or. even in his

mid eighties not knowing who his parents were is a source of unease that hammond says will never leave him. enter the conflict zone in these extraordinary times we decided to take the opportunity to focus on the impact that the coronavirus pandemic is having on human

rights around the world there are reports of invasive surveillance authoritarian power grabs my guest is the head of human rights watch candidate rafael many limitations are people willing to accept in order to fight a threat like coronavirus conflict. in 30 minutes on the w. . orld. group also notice of grave the need to keep a brave eligible for over correction home the force and leave them holding the most mostly men that we can end up with at least the bottom of the ballet that the last dragons as word has called on all those who used. to be a really good. time going crazy. thing in all the time. how to handle on new allies in times of the koran

a pandemic d.w. reporter. just like her and she's looking for answers thankfully with the help of jamie expect. thank you is not life as we know it. our new web series. this is g w news lawyer from a religion tonight a warning from germany there will be no quick and easy end to the coronavirus pandemic germany's health minister just days said the country and the world will be

dealing with the virus for a long time to come in preparation orders of flu vaccines have been increased to prevent a double whammy viral hit in the fall also coming up it is real the pandemic has forced reluctant political partners to finally form a government will it last.