Babies were born: of proud Aryan men, tall, strong, clear-eyed, aquiline-nosed killing machines. Of women, some merely compliant, others filled with zeal for the mission, all with certifiable pedigrees.
The mission: to breed a pure race—racial hygiene to save the world, to accelerate the population of the purist of the pure. Babies—the bright future of the Third Reich.
Babies were born: into a mad world—a world aflame with passion, with fear, with hatred, with torture, with mistrust, with misinformation. The fathers ate well and fucked with abandon; the mothers less well. The babies tumbled into a world of need, a world of hunger, misery, and pain. The fathers vanished before the master babies swelled their mother’s bellies. Between labor pains, the breeding stock dodged bullets and bombs and worried. Starving women can’t produce milk. Nor can cows—devoured for the little flesh left on their bones. Who fed the babies? Who held and nurtured the babies? Who raised the babies?
What became of the master babies after the door slammed shut on their brave new world? What became of the babies after the leader of the great National Socialist German Worker’s Party ignominiously exited the scene in that bunker below the living hell? What world of isolation, disrespect, and revulsion awaited these innocent master babies? How did they survive, grow up, grow strong, grow into a world they were never bred for? Who are they? Where are they? Have they atoned for the sins of their fathers? Have we atoned for allowing the sins of their fathers?
~~~~
This gruesome thing is my entry for this week’s Trifecta challenge which asks us to write a response between 33 and 333 words, using the third listed definition of the word “door” : a means of access or participation : opportunity <opens new doors> <door to success> These exercises seem to plumb some dark place I never knew I had.
And yet, feeling the war fatigue we resist the idea of engaging in Syria. I suppose the question of allowing the sins is one we will forever struggle with.
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So true, Renee. There are no easy answers to these issues. No black and white. Just shades of…oh, dare I say it…gray…
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Yikes “brave new world” it is.
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Thanks, Sam. Glad it’s not my world.
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Fuckin’ A, Linda, your shadow can sing in about five different keys simultaneously! I think I just fell in love with your dark side. Or at least it’s voice. Are you by any chance planning to wrestle the questions posed to the mat? I want more.
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I don’t think up to wrestling this beast to the mat, Dia. I just finished reading “The Shame of Survival; Working Through a Nazi Childhood” by Ursula Mahlendorf. In one of the chapters, she described working in a hospital ward where these unfortunate babies were being “cared for.” It was toward the end of the war and there wasn’t enough of anything for anyone. The babies were given four and water in their bottles for lack of anything else. I knew about the Lebensborn program, but I’d never heard it described in this way before. It really made me think of the poor kids, the end products of eugenics. I’ve never heard anything about them. I feel haunted.
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Powerful piece. As you noted above, so many questions that are left answered.
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Thanks, Janna. I appreciate you comments.
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I shuddered at the title but read it. I know/knew much of those babies. They did not have nurturing beginnings and many succumbed to lack of food, human touch, and medical care, among other things. Very well written. I relate to being born into a world meant for a destiny not of my own will. Such power here.
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Maggie, thanks for sharing your thoughts. It caught me by surprise to realize that, while I’d heard of the program, I’d never considered the lives of the children that resulted from it. I need to learn more about the trajectory of their lives.
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Fascinating and tragic perspective on our general inability as societies (and individuals) to forecast the consequences of our actions. It’s like we’re permanent toddlers, eh? Your piece is disturbing and powerfully written.
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Thank you for the acknowledgement. I feel a bit like I’ve lifted the lid for Pandora…
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Wow! angry, powerful and thought provoking!!!!!
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So troubling. I’m not even sure how to reply appropriately.
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Gruesome reality – made me cringe reading it.
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Thanks for sticking with it.
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Dramatic and powerful. As are the facts themselves. Well done.
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Thanks! I appreciate your comments.
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Quite hard-hitting, but good. It raises some deep questions.
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Thanks, Draug.
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Great piece of work, pulsing with justified anger, thank you
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Pulsing with justified anger, I like that! Thanks.
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Wow! This is amazing. Aside from the unique perspective, this is written in such a drama building way. It starts out as a matter of fact narrative, then the facts become clearer and clear to create this bleak, other worldly writing. Well done.
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Thanks for such kind comments. 😉
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I would like to read your book with the answers to the questions you posed. Great topic, great perspective!
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That book would require better knowledge of German than I will ever have and…fun…spending some time in Germany!
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Author Lily Brett, daughter of holocaust survivors. always has fun promoting her books in Germany. A lot of Germans love her books!
Most Germans know quite a bit of English. For any kind of research you’d definitely be able to find enough English speaking people in Germany!
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Oh, a new author for me to explore. I’m not familiar with Lily Brett. Thank you! You are right about Germans knowing English. That’s part of why I never learn anything when I’m there. All my relatives/friends resort to speaking English with me, purely out of self defense. I really butcher their language but they are utterly fluent in English. But I do believe that to do research I would need to be able to read German….more than road signs and menus.
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I did hear of these babies. One of them was in ABBA
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I think you’re pulling my leg. 😮
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yep! Anna-Frid was born to a german soldier in Norway near the end of the second world war
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Thanks for sharing that. I had no idea.
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I had no idea either. Wow.
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A dark but mindful and impacting piece – Yeah, I hadn’t seen or know that it was in you, either.
I like and admire your expanding and sometimes jolting, revealing efforts.
On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 12:17 PM, Rangewriter
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I do have a very dark side, Bob.I just don’t wear it on my sleeve. These writing prompts are weird. I just let my fingers go and then I’m astonished at where they take me. They seem to have a direct link to my subconscious.
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I have a friend who was a liebenborn. What is unique about her is that she is not sentimental about Germany like many German women who married Americans. I have another friend who had German national parents but was born in the Phillipines during WW2. The stories they know.
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Really, Ann? I am fascinated by this idea, now. I have German relatives and friends (living in Germany) but to my knowledge I’ve never met a Lebensborn. But would I know it if I had? I have no idea why this idea never occurred to me before. And yes. The stories. There’s a whole generation of stories that are about to disappear. I’m glad that many brave souls are stepping forward in their later years to share what they experienced. They say knowledge is power. I hope it is the power of prevention…but I’m not very optimistic.
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I assume most Lebensborn children would have grown up with foster parents, a lot of them perhaps even not knowing themselves that they had been Lebensborn children!
Knowledge is power? I guess it could be. But it often doesn’t work this way for people tend to go more by their feelings than by what knowledge should tell them. Why are there countries where people to this day kill each other even though they might be of the same stock? Look for how many centuries European countries had wars with each other!
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Good point about knowledge, Auntyauta. I guess knowledge should be power. One would expect knowledge to open lines of understanding and reasoning, but, perhaps I’m a dreamer.
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Interesting way of presenting this – distant presentation of facts and later almost intimate, imploring questions.
I guess it depends on how much you believe in the destiny of genetics? (me, not much) Thought-provoking post!
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I think what fascinates me most is the deprivation suffered by many of these infants. Not only starvation that the entire country struggled with, but also the lack of nurturing, displacement, social ostracism. And what did happen to them? Where are their stories? I need to investigate. 😉
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This is such a powerful piece. The terrible things we do to one another. Very well-written.
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Thanks, Suzanne.
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Great write, and still they were just babies. Like the mix of innocense with the crimes of the third Reich.
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Thanks, Bjorn.
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Great piece
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Thanks!
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I love that you mention how your writing is bringing up some dark places you didn’t know you had. I feel that way so often myself. I really enjoyed the writing in this piece.
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Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment!
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Powerful and beautiful and tragic.
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Thanks. It is tragic.
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I think you might be interested in this book, about a Jewish woman who married a Nazi, yes that’s right a Nazi, and gave birth to a child. Fascinating. Its true!
http://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Officers-Wife-Survived-Holocaust/dp/068817776X
Sort of related to the Lebensborn, too fascinating not to share.
There’s also a young Jewish man who became a Nazi soldier (was forced to out of necessity to survive), and a German girl wanted him to impregnate her with a Lebensborn baby, but he refused to have sex with her because he was afraid she’d see he was circumcised and he’d be killed…Its a real true story, his name is Solomon Perel, and he survived the war. A movie was made from his life, its called Europa Europa, you can see the full movie on YouTube, I think with English subtitles, just search Europa Europa…Fascinating stuff. Incredible but true. Truth is stranger than fiction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Perel
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099776/
Also, this guy’s story is incredible, though not directly related to the Lebensborn. He wrote an autobiography and they also made a film about his life, a mini-series which was broadcast on German television in Germany, I don’t remember what its called, but I’m sure you can find it somewhere, I don’t know if its posted in full online anywhere, I haven’t looked…Anyhow, his name was Hans-Jurgen Massaquoi and he was the biracial son of a white German mother and a black African father from Liberia…He lived an amazing life, he just died recently in January of this year, I think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Massaquoi
http://www.amazon.com/Destined-Witness-Growing-Black-Germany/dp/0060959614/
These stories are just incredible. Amazing stuff.
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Thank you, thank you, Scriptor. I suspected you’d have a reading list at your fingertips. And I really am interested in learning more about this. I know there were some amazing stories of Jewish people passing as Aryan. I saw Europa, Europa years ago. So long ago that I need to see it again. I’m sure much of it flew over my ignorant head at the time. Have not heard of any of the other cases you mentioned and will appreciate spending some time investigating the links you so graciously shared. A relative of mine (German) lost his leg in the war. I tried so hard to get him to talk to me about that time but he was skillful at deflecting my questions. His wife shared a bit of her experience, but she was younger, a teenager at the time. It is impossible to fathom the fear that permeated everyone’s lives at that time. No one was safe, no matter your pedigree.
I just watched a movie on Netflix called “In Darkness” which told the story of a group of people who survived for something like 2 years in the sewers in Warsaw, aided by a Polish man who risked everything to bring them food. These stories of people who took chances to help others always make me look inward and question how I would act. It’s a frightening thought.
Thanks so much for the reading and film list! Really.
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You’re very welcome. I’m really interested in this stuff, because of my family’s background being Holocaust survivors and all that and what they went through during the war. I’ve watched tons of movies and stuff about the Holocaust. Anything to do with this topic really interests me and draws me in.
PS: I found the first seven parts of the movie about Hans Massaquoi here online, the movie is 20 parts total but seven parts is better than none, all the other links online where the movie was posted were to illegally download the movie and I didn’t want to do that. So here it is in case you’re interested. Its called Neger Neger Schornsteinfeger (Negro Negro Chimney Sweep):
http://www.dailymotion.com/user/Mariposalinda/1
Its in German with some English subtitles in parts.
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That was stark. I wasn’t sure where we were going in those first lines, and I was worried about where you might be taking me. And then I knew, and it was exactly where I feared, and holy shit. I loved the way you posed the question, the way you twisted the ‘master’ into subservience and even pity.
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I’m glad you liked it. I have mixed feelings about this piece. It is so dark, I can’t find it in me to celebrate over readers’ praise__like somehow I have appropriated this horrible, deep, dark event and manipulated it to earn the praise of others? That, in itself, seems twisted. But thank you…your praise eases me a bit. 😉
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Tickling the underbelly of what it means to be human. This is a deep and insightful post. Thank you for linking it and giving us lots to think about.
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Thanks for presenting the opportunity to explore myself and the human condition in ways that I don’t normally probe.
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Oh,for a moment after the first few lines I thought it was Scriptor’s piece(I open up many tabs & start reading & commenting)so went back to check -was amazed to see it’s from you Linda!Absolutely horrifying,cold ,hard questions-it pierced my soul!How one man’s “dream” could infect & poison so many generations-a perfect example of that!Hats off to your writing prowess!
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Honored to be mistaken for Scriptor, even for a moment.
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Hey,you proved many times over that you are no less my dear Linda:-)Also we all know Scriptor & how much she knows & relates to this topic for it is close to her heart for personal reason-thus my assumption that it must be her piece 😀
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You are too kind. But absolutely right about Scriptor. I worship her creativity and her dedication to the subject so close to her heart.
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:-)You are so modest Linda but I understand your pov
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Oh wow that’s powerful, unexpected and very good.
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Thank you. I’m glad it moved you.
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This is incredibly sad and moving. Thank you for writing this. LM x
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Thank you for reading and sharing your reaction.
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Powerful piece. I’m glad you shined a light on something that has never really crossed my mind when I think about that time in history.
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Thanks.
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Yes Linda, I had never thought about this either. You certainly stirred up some provocative thought for a lot of people!
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Yeah. I stirred the pot. That’s not a bad thing. A little frightening, though.
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Very thought-provoking. Even more interesting to me is the process of your arriving at this topic for the challenge. Amazing how the mind works!
You were one of my favourites in expressing the tough and the real. I think you’re right at the top of the list now.
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You make my heart sing! Thank you.
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