Nazi crimes against children explained

Nazi crimes against children refer to various crimes against humanity and war crimes perpetrated by the Nazi Germany against children.

The Nazis advocated killing children of unwanted or "dangerous" people in accordance with their ideological views, either as part of the Nazi idea of the racial struggle or as a measure of preventive security. They particularly targeted Jewish children (see The Holocaust), but also targeted ethnically Polish children and Romani (also called Gypsy) children and children with mental or physical disabilities. Thousands of children died in Nazi concentration camps. The Nazis and their collaborators killed children for these ideological reasons and in retaliation for real or alleged partisan attacks.

It is estimated that during World War II Nazis killed an estimated 2 million of Polish and Polish Jewish children in occupied Polish territories. 1.5 million of Jewish children perished in the Holocaust; tens of thousands of Romani (Gypsy) children died in the Romani Holocaust, between 5,000 to 25,000 disabled children were killed as part of their children euthanasia program. 200,000 mostly ethnic Polish children were kidnapped for the purpose of forced Germanization. Others were subject to forced labor.

Murder

Euthanasia

See main article: Child euthanasia in Nazi Germany and Nazi birthing centres for foreign workers. Nazis established centers for children euthanasia (lit. "pediatric specialty care units") in 1939 as part of their program to eliminate disabled people. Those centers were responsible for killings of thousands of children; others were sterilized.[1] [2] The number of children with disabilities that were exterminated by the Nazis is estimated to be between 5,000 to 25,000.[3] Some of such children were subject to medical experiments before their death.[4] [5]

Sally M. Rogow noted that "it is a myth that only children with severe disabilities were killed", noting that Nazi victims also included children with minor disabilities, and even non-conformist youth, citing the cases of Edelweiss Pirates and Swing Youth, whose members were often subject to forced institutionalization, including in concentration camps and psychiatric hospitals.

In addition to the euthanasia for disabled children, Nazis also established, from 1942, "birthing centres" for "troublesome babies", based on Himmler's decree on foreign workers. Those centers, known in German as German: Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätte (literally "foreign children nurseries"), German: Ostarbeiterkinderpflegestätten ("eastern worker children nurseries"), or Säuglingsheim ("baby home"), were intended for abandoned infants, primarily the offspring born to foreign women and girls servicing the German war economy, including Polish and Eastern European female forced labour. The babies and children, most of them resulting from rape at the place of their forced labor (realistically, enslavement), were abducted from their mothers en masse between 1943 and 1945. At some locations, up to 90 percent of infants died a torturous death due to calculated neglect. [6] [7] For example, at the Waltrop-Holthausen camp, 1,273 infants were purposely left to die in the so-called baby-hut and then simply checked off as stillborn.[8]

While many such crimes occurred in German territories, Nazis also murdered disabled children in territories they occupied, such as in the Soviet Union.[9]

Collective punishment

After German invasion of Poland, Germans begun a campaign of mass repressions against the Poles. Already in fall of 1939, a number of massacres of Polish civilians were carried out, often in the form of collective punishment in retaliation for real or alleged acts of resistance. In a number of cases (ex.,[10] in Gdynia, Wawer massacre) victims included children (teenagers under 18, and sometimes children as young as 12).[11] Various similar incidents occurred in Poland through the war (for example, in 1942 in the Stary Ciepielów and Rekówka massacre, Germans murdered over 30 people, half of them children, for the crime of hiding Jews; in 1943, Germans massacred many inhabitants of the Michniów village, including dozens of children; in 1944 Germans executed the Ulma family, including their seven young children, also for the crime of hiding Jews[12]).

Large-scale collective punishment on civilians, including children, was not limited to Poland. Throughout the war Nazis committed similar crimes in other places:

The Holocaust

See main article: Children in the Holocaust. An estimated 1.5 million children, nearly all Jewish, were murdered during the Holocaust, either directly by or as a direct consequence of Nazi actions. This estimate includes children killed directly (for example, in executions) as well as victims of starvation and neglect in ghettos and concentration camps (see also [25] [26]).[27] In the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, of the approximately 230,000 children and young people deported to Auschwitz, more than 216,000 children, the majority, were of Jewish descent. No more than 650 of them survived until liberation.[28] Likewise, tens of thousands of Romani (also called Gypsy) children perished in the Romani Holocaust.[29]

Casualties

The total number of Polish children (including Polish Jewish child victims of The Holocaust) under the age of 16 who died in Poland is estimated at 1,800,000. Of these, historians believe 1,200,000 were Polish and 600,000 were Polish Jewish. Including children aged 16 to 18 raises the estimated losses to 2,025,000.

Other crimes

See also: Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany and Lebensborn. During World War II, around 200,000 ethnic Polish children as well as an unknown number of children of other ethnicities were abducted from their homes and forcibly transported to Nazi Germany for purposes of forced labour, medical experimentation, or Germanization.[30] [31] [32] Only a fifth of that number were recovered after the war.[33] A significant aim of the project was to acquire and "Germanize" children believed to have Aryan/Nordic traits because Nazi officials believed that they were the descendants of German settlers who had emigrated to Poland. Those labelled "racially valuable" (gutrassig) were forcibly assimilated in centers and then forcibly adopted to German families and SS Home Schools.[34] Hundreds of thousands of children, particularly in Eastern Europe, ended up joining anti-Nazi German resistance forces.

Nazis also executed underage partisans without regard for their age; two out of the three victims of the first public execution following German invasion of the USSR were underage (in the Minsk region).

Near the end of the war, in early 1945, as Germany was getting desperate, many underage males, particularly from Hitler Youth, as young as fifteen years old (and sometimes even younger), were removed from school, conscripted by the military (particularly SS) and often sent on what were essentially suicide missions. Some children were forced to or indoctrinated to participate in atrocities such as The Holocaust; others (as young as twelve) became involved in the Werwolf Nazi partisan movement.[35] [36]

Nazi propaganda directed at the youth, promoting concepts such as antisemitism, has also been mentioned in the context of Nazi crimes against the children.[37] [38] It was also instrumental in recruiting and radicalizing child soldiers.

Notable child victims of Nazi Germany

See also

Works about Nazi crimes against children

Notes and References

  1. Obladen . Michael . 2016-05-01 . Despising the weak: long shadows of infant murder in Nazi Germany . Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition . en . 101 . 3 . F190–F194 . 10.1136/archdischild-2015-309257 . 1359-2998 . 26920413.
  2. Kaelber . Lutz . September 2012 . Child Murder in Nazi Germany: The Memory of Nazi Medical Crimes and Commemoration of "Children's Euthanasia" Victims at Two Facilities (Eichberg, Kalmenhof) . Societies . en . 2 . 3 . 157–194 . 10.3390/soc2030157 . free . 2075-4698.
  3. Book: Evans, Susanne E. . Forgotten Crimes: The Holocaust and People with Disabilities . 2023-12-21 . Rowman & Littlefield . 978-1-4930-8236-0 . en.
  4. Rogow . Sally M. . December 1999 . Child Victims in Nazi Germany . The Journal of Holocaust Education . en . 8 . 3 . 71–86 . 10.1080/17504902.1999.11087097 . 1359-1371.
  5. Weindling . Paul . 2022 . Painful and sometimes deadly experiments which Nazi doctors carried out on children . Acta Paediatrica . en . 111 . 9 . 1664–1669 . 10.1111/apa.16310 . 35202478 . 11497248 . 0803-5253.
  6. Magdalena Sierocińska . 2016 . Eksterminacja "niewartościowych rasowo" dzieci polskich robotnic przymusowych na terenie III Rzeszy w świetle postępowań prowadzonych przez Oddziałową Komisję Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu w Poznaniu . Extermination of "racially worthless" children of enslaved Polish women in the territory of Nazi Germany from the IPN documents in Poznań . Bibliography: R. Hrabar, N. Szuman; Cz. Łuczak; W. Rusiński . Warsaw, Poland . Institute of National Remembrance.
  7. Book: Nicholas, Lynn H. . Lynn H. Nicholas

    . Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web . 9 May 2006 . Knopf Doubleday Publishing . 0-679-77663-X . Lynn H. Nicholas.

  8. Book: Oliver Rathkolb . Revisiting the National Socialist Legacy: Coming to Terms With Forced Labor, Expropriation, Compensation, and Restitution . Transaction Publishers . 141283323X . 89.
  9. Penter . Tanja . April 2020 . Child victims and female perpetrators: Dealing with the Nazi-murder of disabled children in the postwar Soviet Union . Ukraina Moderna . 28 . 168–188 . 10.3138/ukrainamoderna.28.168 . 2 December 2024 . 2078-659X.
  10. Book: Wardzyńska, Maria . Był rok 1939: operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce "Intelligenzaktion" . 2009 . Instytut Pamięci Narodowej . 978-83-7629-063-8 . Monografie / Instytut Pamięci Narodowej - Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu . Warszawa.
  11. Book: Lukas, Richard C. . Did the children cry? Hitler's war against Jewish and Polish children, 1939-1945 . 1994 . Hippocrene Books . 978-0-7818-0242-0 . New York.
  12. Web site: Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma Paying the Ultimate Price Themes A Tribute to the Righteous Among the Nations . 2018-02-22 . www.YadVashem.org.
  13. Book: Glenny, Misha . The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804-1999 . 2000 . Viking . 978-0-670-85338-0 . en.
  14. Web site: 2024-11-19 . Public collection underway to preserve bronze group sculpture of 82 murdered Lidice children . 2024-11-30 . Radio Prague International . en.
  15. Web site: 2022-06-08 . Comment The 80th anniversary of the Lidice massacre . 2024-11-30 . Keele University . en.
  16. . 2015 . Terrorists or national heroes? Politics and perceptions of the OUN and the UPA in Ukraine . Communist and Post-Communist Studies . 48 . 2–3 . 217–228 . 10.1016/j.postcomstud.2015.06.006.
  17. Book: Berkhoff, Karel C. . Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule . 2008-03-15 . Harvard University Press . 978-0-674-26200-3 . en.
  18. Rudling . P. A. . 2012-04-01 . The Khatyn Massacre in Belorussia: A Historical Controversy Revisited . Holocaust and Genocide Studies . en . 26 . 1 . 29–58 . 10.1093/hgs/dcs011 . 8756-6583.
  19. Web site: Kouras . Bill . 2024-06-10 . Remembering Distomo: 80 Years Since Nazi Atrocity – Greek City Times . 2024-11-30 . en-GB.
  20. Web site: Herald . The Greek . 2021-06-10 . Remembering the victims of the Distomo massacre . 2024-11-30 . The Greek Herald . en-AU.
  21. Book: Kedward, Rod . The French Resistance and its Legacy . 2022-08-11 . Bloomsbury Publishing . 978-1-350-26044-3 . en.
  22. Book: Freeman, Ted . Theatres of War: French Committed Theatre from the Second World War to the Cold War . 1998 . University of Exeter Press . 978-0-85989-559-0 . en.
  23. Web site: Nazi massacre at Sant'Anna di Stazzema – DW – 08/12/2019 . 2024-11-30 . dw.com . en.
  24. Web site: Sant'Anna di Stazzema, Stazzema (Italy) - Culture and Creativity . 2024-11-30 . culture.ec.europa.eu . en.
  25. Web site: Children in the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp . 2024-11-30 . bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de . de.
  26. Web site: Bergen-Belsen exhibition focuses on the fate of children – DW – 04/17/2018 . 2024-11-30 . dw.com . en.
  27. Web site: October 1, 2019 . Children During the Holocaust . March 30, 2021 . United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  28. To Forget about Them Would Be Unthinkable – The Youngest Victims of Auschwitz: A New Album Devoted to the Child Victims of the Auschwitz Camp . June 6, 2003 . . dead . Latest News (1999–2008) . . 2008-08-29 . https://web.archive.org/web/20060930043035/http://www.auschwitz.org.pl/new/index.php?tryb=news_big&language=EN&id=449 . September 30, 2006.
  29. Web site: Children during the Holocaust . 2024-10-12 . encyclopedia.ushmm.org . en.
  30. Book: Rethinking Poles and Jews: troubled past, brighter future . 2007 . Rowman & Littlefield Pub . 978-0-7425-4665-3 . Cherry . Robert D. . Lanham . ocm85862099 . Orla-Bukowska . Annamaria.
  31. Book: Czesław Madajczyk . Generalna Gubernia w planach hitlerowskich. Studia . Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe . 1961 . pl.
  32. Book: Roman Z. Hrabar . Hitlerowski rabunek dzieci polskich: Uprowadzanie i germanizowanie dzieci polskich w latach 1939–1945 . Śląski Instytut Naukowy w Katowicach, Katowice: Wydawnictwo Śląsk . 1960 . pl.
  33. Schleunes . Karl A. . 1996 . Review of: Richard C. Lukas, Did the Children Cry? Hitler's War against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939-1945. . The American Historical Review . 101 . 2 . 520 . 10.2307/2170499. 2170499 .
  34. Book: A. Dirk Moses . Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History . Berghahn Books . 2004 . 978-1571814104 . New York and Oxford . 255 . 2008-09-16.
  35. Web site: Hall . Allan . 2014-04-09 . Revealed: The tragedy of the Nazi child soldiers rounded up from schoo . 2024-11-30 . Express.co.uk . en.
  36. Book: Rosen, David M. . Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination: From Patriots to Victims . 2015-10-12 . Rutgers University Press . 978-0-8135-6372-5 . en.
  37. Corelli . Marie . 2002-05-01 . Poisoning young minds in Nazi Germany: children and propaganda in the Third Reich . Social Education . English . 66 . 4 . 228–231.
  38. Wegner . Gregory Paul . June 2007 . 'A Propagandist of Extermination:' Johann von Leers and the Anti-Semitic Formation of Children in Nazi Germany . Paedagogica Historica . en . 43 . 3 . 299–325 . 10.1080/00309230701363625 . 0030-9230.
  39. http://secondstorypress.ca/books/85-hana-s-suitcase Hana's Suitcase: Holocaust Remembrance Series for Young Readers
  40. Book: Van der Rol, Verhoeven . Anne Frank Beyond the Diary: a Photographic Remembrance. . Puffin/Viking . 1995 . 978-0140369267 . New York . 80, 103.
  41. Book: Van der Rol, Verhoeven . Anne Frank Beyond the Diary: a Photographic Remembrance. . Puffin/Viking . 1995 . 978-0140369267 . New York . 80, 103.
  42. Web site: Pearson . Alexander . 19 March 2018 . Color photo of girl at Auschwitz strikes chord . July 12, 2023 . Deutsche Welle.

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