War children
War children are those born to a local parent and a parent belonging to a foreign military force. Having a child by a member of a belligerent force, throughout history and across cultures, is often considered a grave betrayal of social values. Commonly, the native parent is disowned by her family, friends, and society at large. The term "war child" is most commonly used for children born during World War II and its aftermath, particularly in relation to children born to fathers by German occupying forces in northern Europe. In Norway, there were also Lebensborn children. The discrimination suffered by the local parent and child in the postwar period did not take into account widespread rapes by occupying forces, or the relationships women had to form in order to survive the war years.
Discrimination
Children with a parent who was part of an occupying force, or whose parent collaborated with enemy forces, are innocent of any war crimes committed by parents. Yet these children have often been condemned by descent from the enemy and discriminated against in their society. They also suffer from association with a parent whose war crimes are prosecuted in the postwar years. As such children grew to adolescence and adulthood, many harbored feelings of guilt and shame.An example are the children born during and after World War II whose fathers were military personnel in regions occupied by Nazi Germany. These children claim they lived with their identity in an inner exile until the 1980s, when some of them officially acknowledged their status. In 1987, Bente Blehr refused anonymity; an interview with her was published in Born Guilty, a collection of 12 interviews with persons whose parent had been associated with German forces in occupied Norway. The first autobiography by the child of a German occupying soldier and Norwegian mother was The Boy from Gimle by Eystein Eggen; he dedicated his book to all such children. It was published in Norway.
During and in the aftermath of war, women who have voluntary relationships with military personnel of an occupying force have historically been censured by their own society. Women who became pregnant from such unions would often take measures to conceal the father's status.
They commonly chose among the following:
- Arrange a marriage with a local man, who would take responsibility for the child
- Claim the father was unknown, dead, or had left, and bring up the child as a single mother
- Acknowledge the relationship; bring up the child as a single mother
- Acknowledge the relationship; accept welfare from the occupying force
- Place the child in an orphanage or give the child up for adoption
- Emigrate to the occupying country and claim that identity
- Have an abortion
- Name calling: German whore and German kid were common labels
- Isolation or harassment from the local community and at schools
- Loss of work
- Shaving the heads of the mothers in order to publicly identify and shame them
- Temporary placement in confinement or internment camps
War children of World War II
Estimates of the number of war children fathered by German soldiers during World War II are difficult to gauge. Mothers tended to hide such pregnancies for fear of revenge and reprisal by family members. Lower estimates range in the hundreds of thousands, while upper estimates are much increased, into the millions.Lebensborn program
"Lebensborn" was one of several programs initiated by the Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler to try to secure the racial heredity of the Third Reich. The program mainly served as a welfare institution for parents and children deemed racially valuable, initially, those of SS men. As German forces occupied nations in northern Europe, the organization expanded its program to provide care to suitable women and children, particularly in Norway, where the women were judged suitably Aryan.In Norway a local Lebensborn office, Abteilung Lebensborn, was established in 1941 to support children of German soldiers and their Norwegian mothers, pursuant to German law. The organization ran several homes where pregnant women could give birth. Facilities also served as permanent homes for eligible women until the end of the war. Additionally, the organization paid child support on behalf of the father, and covered other expenses, including medical bills, dental treatment and transportation.
In total, between 9 and 15 Lebensborn homes were established. Of the estimated 10,000–12,000 children born to Norwegian mothers and German fathers during the war, 8,000 were registered by Abteilung Lebensborn. In 4,000 of these cases, the father is known. The women were encouraged to give the children up for adoption, and many were transferred to Germany, where they were adopted or raised in orphanages.
During and after the war, the Norwegians commonly referred to these children as tyskerunger, translating as "German-kids" or "Kraut kids", a derogatory term. As a result of later recognition of their post-war mistreatment, the more diplomatic term krigsbarn came into use and is now the generally accepted form.
Post-war years
As the war ended, the children and their mothers were made outcasts by many among the general populace in formerly occupied countries, as societies grieved and resented the losses of the war, and actively rejected everything associated with Germany. The children and their mothers were often isolated socially, and many children were bullied by other children, and sometimes by adults, due to their origin.For instance, immediately after the peace, 14,000 women were arrested in Norway on suspicion of "collaboration" or association with the enemy; 5,000 were, without any judiciary process, placed in forced labor camps for a year and a half. Their heads were shaved, and they were beaten and raped. In an interview for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, war children claim that, while living at an orphanage in Bergen, they were forced as children to parade on the streets so the local population could whip them and spit at them.
In a survey conducted by the Norwegian Ministry of Social Affairs in 1945, the local government in one third of the counties expressed an unfavorable view of the war children. The same year the Ministry of Social Affairs briefly explored the possibility of reuniting the children and their mothers with surviving fathers in post-war Germany, but decided against this.
Five hundred children who were still cared for in Lebensborn facilities at the end of the war had to leave as the homes were closed down. Some children were left to state custody, during a time when such care was marked by strict rules, insufficient education, and abuse. Approximately 20 children ended up in a mental institution in 1946, due to lack of space in other institutions and unsuccessful adoption attempts. Some remained there past their eighteenth birthdays.
Due to the political attitudes prevailing after the end of the war, the Norwegian government made proposals to forcibly deport 8000 children and their mothers to Germany, but there were concerns that the deportees would have no means of livelihood there. Another option was to send them to Sweden. Australia was also considered after the Swedish government declined to accept these people; the Norwegian government later shelved such proposals.
Financial and legal issues
In 1950, diplomatic relations improved so that the Norwegian government was able to collect child support from identified fathers of war children who were living in West Germany and Austria. As of 1953 such payments were made. Child support from fathers living in East Germany was kept in locked accounts until diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1975.Some of the war children have tried to obtain official recognition for past mistreatment. Supporters claim the discrimination against them equated to an attempt at genocide. In December 1999, 122 war children filed a claim in the Norwegian courts for the failure of the state to protect them as Norwegian citizens. The case was to test the boundaries of the law; seven persons signed the claim. The courts have ruled such suits as void due to the statute of limitations.
The law of Norway allows citizens who have experienced neglect or mistreatment by failure of the state to apply for "simple compensation". In July 2004 the government expanded this compensation program to include war children who had experienced lesser difficulties. The basic compensation rate is set to 20,000 NOK for what Norwegian government terms "mobbing". Those who can document other abuse can receive up to 200,000 NOK.
On 8 March 2007, 158 war children were to have their case heard at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. They demanded reparations of between 500,000 SEK and 2,000,000 SEK each for systematic abuse. The Norwegian government contested the claim that the children were abused with the consent of the government. In 2008 their case before the European Court of Human Rights was dismissed, but they were each offered a £8,000 token from the Norwegian government.
Medical experimentation
In conjunction with the 1999 claim by the war children, a motion was filed in September 2000 alleging that 10 war children were subject to experiments with LSD approved by the Norwegian government and financed by the CIA, the American intelligence agency.In the postwar years, medical staff in several European countries, and the United States, conducted clinical trials or experimental treatment involving LSD, most of them at some point between 1950 and 1970. In Norway, trials involved volunteer patients under a protocol after traditional medical treatments had proved unsuccessful.