Evening star., 1946-06-02
Thousands of Stolen Children Found in German Homes
Continued From First Page.)

often would be in school, in class
rooms, when uniformed Nazis wouls
walk in to march the class of en-
masse to a boxcar waiting on {
siding.
This child search project was borr
of persistent rumors which me-
UNRRA workers as they waded init
the task of administering displaced
persons camps in Germany last year
Inmates of the camps kept pleading
for their children, stolen when the!
themselves had been carried off tt
serve the Nazi war machine as slav,
laborers. These children, said tht
displaced persons, were still in Ger.
many, hidden in institutions ane
private homes. A few of these DPS
unable to contain their paterna
and maternal instincts, took matter.
into their own hands and set out
to find their own children.
| Some of them wandered over the
Scared face of Germany for months
often afoot, often without food
often in rags they had worn in the
concentration camps, chasing wind.
blown clues through towns, villages
institutions and private homes tc
find the children they had loved and
lost. A few of these indomitable
mothers and fathers appeared again
at their displaced persons camps
tired and hungry but happily lead
ing their lost children by the hand
In January, 1916, the first UNRRA
child-search team went to work ir
the Regensburg (Bavaria) area, ar
area rich in rumors and clues. BY
March this three-man team hao
located nearly 1000 children and the
of child searching had
been established. Today six teams
are in the field, operating in the
American. British and French zones
each having up to is members and
speaking as many as q languages.
And language often turns out tc
be the factor which determines a
child's status as German, as
when one search team member in
terviewed 6-year-old Brigette Pober-
otski in a German child institu-
ton at Kallmunz. The child and
her 3-year-old sister appeared to be
German-as claimed by German Of
ficials-until the interviewer ad-
dressed the child in Polish and found
that Brigette understood.
Remembers Incidents.
With this clue to 60 on, the inter-
viewer gently prodded the child s
mind into remembering a mother
who worked in factory and who
left the children alone during the
day, woman who came one day to
take them away, long train ride
and time spent in cold home where
there were many little children
assembled.
That was all the child could re-
member. 1t was enough to establish
definitely that the child was not
German but the clue was not
enough to locate her parents. The
names of the two children will go
to the child-tracing section Of
UNRRA Central Tracing Bureau
which is attempting to follow the
tangled threads of family relation
ships, left behind by forced migra-
ton and enslavement of 10000, 900
Europeans.
@g At the tracing bureau files will be
searched to see If any inquiry has
been received for children named
Poberotski. Records and documents
from concentration camps, hospitals,
police records and even German
death records will be searched. AS
last resort, Brigette's name may
be broadcast on regular radio pro-
grams listened to by inmates of the
400 UNRRA displaced persons as
Sembly centers in Germany. Finally,
<ifall other possibilities fall, Brig
sette and her sister may be claimed
by Poland and placed in Polish
children's home to be reared AZ
Polish citizens. 8 IS
New Story of Lidice.
The village of Lidice in SCzecho-
slovakia has become famous the
world over as the classic symbol of
Nazi brutality, as the village which
was exterminated to the last man
in reprisal for the assassination of
the Nazi hangman, Rheinhardt
Heydrich by underground resistance
men. Actually the Germans, who
shot all male adults and placed in
concentration camps all adult fe-
males, tried to Germanize 81 chill
dren of Lidice, according to the
stories of nine of them who have
been located.
The details of what actually hap
pened, according to the new version,
indicate that on June 10, 1912, after
Heydrich's death, the children and
their mothers were brought to the
nearby Gladno grammar school
On the 18th the children were taken
by bus to Prague, and from there to
Lodz, Poland arriving there on the
18th, the day their mothers arrived
at the Regensbruck concentration
camp. From here the children were
scattered into various institutions
and homes in Silesia and Germany.
Children stolen by the Nazis were
carefully screened for intelligence
and physical superiority. Approx
$50 children, for example,
might be chosen from 1000 to be
sent to special schools where poten-
tial SIS men were being educated
Some of these schools and child in
were actually operated by
the IS, an example of which was
described by Sister Cassini Swientik
Polish nun in a Catholic orphanage
at Katowice.
Intelligent Taken.
When Nazi officers appeared at
she said, the nuns were
expelled and 10 children In the in
stitution disappeared Immediately,
selected as superior mental and
physical types to be sent to Ger
many for assimilation. The nuns
were taken to another institution,
operated under the direction of an
SIS officer, where were segregated $50
OF 400 children, also classified as
the more intelligent and with
whom the nuns could have no con-
tact. The remainder of the 400 were
DESIGNATED for use az guinea nios in