Hitler's Forgotten Children (27 page)

Stari Pisker prison, Celje, former Yugolsavia, summer 1942. Partisans are lined up against a wall prior to being shot;

Stari Pisker prison, Celje, former Yugolsavia, summer 1942. The partisans' bodies lie where they fell.

Inside the school, Celje, former Yugoslavia, August 1942. The children are held in makeshift enclosures, packed with straw, as they wait for their racial examinations.

Ingrid Matko-von-Oelhafen today, with the first official document of her existence, a vaccination certificate issued by Lebensborn.

F
inding my roots has been a long and rocky road, but I have met many wonderful people who accompanied me along the way.

I particularly want to say thank you to my best and most long-standing friend, Dorothee Schlüter. She has been with me from the first timid steps I took in the search for my origins. She has supported me mentally and emotionally and has been deeply involved as I progressed. Thanks are also due to Jutta Schröder, who has always been there with help and care.

I must express my gratitude to Dr Georg Lilienthal for guiding me and to Josef Focks, who pushed me over and over again (as I hesitated) until at last I agreed to go to Slovenia.

To my friends in Lebensspuren, where I first met other children of the Lebensborn programme: you, above all, know how important you have been.

For their company and support on my trips to Rogaška Slatina, I thank my friends Ute Grünwald, Ingrid Rätzmann and Helga Lucas. And I am grateful to my Slovenian family for being so friendly and open.

I owe a special debt to Dr Dorothee Schmitz-Köster. From the moment I met her, she has been a great help. She not only encouraged
me to believe that my story could be written but also contributed her extensive knowledge of Lebensborn. She was very good and sensible company on my last trip to Slovenia.

When Tim suggested this book, I made myself examine all the stages of my life. So much had been unknown and troublesome, but as we worked together I found the darkness which had enveloped me gradually disappearing. I also discovered that in the process of writing I was able to ‘talk' to Helena, Johann and even Erika Matko. I was able, on the page, if not in reality, to ask ‘why'. I did not necessarily find all the answers. But these conversations (some of them heated!) helped me to forgive and to love life as it is.

Ingrid Matko-von-Oelhafen

Osnabrück, April 2015

T
his book grew out of a film I made in 2013. I had heard of Lebensborn several years earlier and had tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade various television networks to commission a documentary about it. Finally, Channel 5 agreed to fund a sixty-minute film: I am indebted to its commissioning editor, Simon Raikes, for seeing the importance of the story and backing it.

I met Ingrid while researching the programme: she agreed to be filmed and was immensely generous when I was unable, for reasons of space, to include her story within the documentary. She was also kind enough to listen when I subsequently suggested that we should write a book about her extraordinary and brave journey to discover the truth about Lebensborn and her past.

Neither that film nor this book could have emerged without the efforts and encouragement of Dr Dorothee Schmitz-Köster. The
Lebensborn children have no greater champion than Dorothee, and her commitment to telling their stories in her own books (sadly published only in Germany) has been crucial in bringing Himmler's shadowy organisation into the light.

Our thanks are also due to our British publishers, Elliott & Thompson, for so enthusiastically supporting this book, and to our editor there, Olivia Bays: her cool-headed advice significantly improved our manuscript.

Similarly, Andrew Lownie is the very model of a perfect literary agent. His initial guidance, and thereafter his relationship with publishers across the world, has ensured that this story will be read in countries as far apart as Finland, Italy and the United States.

Finally, I could not write without the love and support of my partner, Mia Pennal. After a lifetime of searching, I was lucky enough to be found.
Cursum Perficio
: my journey ends here.

Tim Tate

Wiltshire, April 2015

Aktionen
179–180
,
183

Aktion T4
103
,
108

Aller, river
23–24

Allies
5–8
,
10–13
,
17
,
24
,
60
,
71
,
77
,
111
,
114
,
122
,
123

Supreme Allied Headquarters in Europe
76

Alnova
118

America
see
United States

Andersen, Ingrid (‘Eka')
9
,
15
,
27
,
29
,
30
,
40
,
46
,
48–50
,
55

Andersen family
42
,
50
,
54

Ansbach
10

Argentina
92
,
158

Aryans
65–66
,
79
,
82–83
,
88
,
89
,
91
,
110
,
112
,
116
,
117
,
121
,
124
,
126
,
129
,
160
,
162
,
164
,
166
,
180–181
,
185

Auschwitz
91
,
180

Australia
136

Austria
10
,
43
,
45
,
52
,
67
,
72
,
98
,
105
,
144
,
173
,
180

Avenarius, Ingeborg von
128

Bad Arolsen
75–88
,
101
,
118
,
172
,
174

Bad Polzin
108
,
116
,
165

Bad Salzuflen
28
,
32–34
,
37
,
49

Bad Sauerbrunn
63
,
67
,
72

Bad Toelz
163

Bahrdorf
24

Bandekow
8–11
,
14
,
19
,
22

Banditenkinder
162
,
188

Bavaria
4
,
111–112
,
163
,
183
,
191

Bayreuth
133

Beck, Anneliese
195

Belgium
10
,
105

Bergen-Belsen
91
,
109

Beria, Lavrenti
13

Berlin
16
,
21
,
45
,
53
,
72
,
84
,
85
,
109
,
112
,
122

Wall
51–53
,
60

Black Forest
45–46

Blitzkrieg
6
,
176

bombing
7
,
15
,
23
,
39
,
122
,
141

carpet
6

RAF
114

Bonn
136

Agreement
78

Bormann, Martin
114
,
159

Bosnia-Herzegovina
140
,
142

Brandenburg
108–109

Brandt, Rudolph
106

Britain
5
,
11
,
77
,
122

British Army
29
,
115
,
168

Budapest
52

Bund Deutscher Mädel
87
,
167

Bundesarchiv
60
,
63
,
67
,
71
,
72

Bundestag
78

camps
vii
,
4
,
10
,
87
,
105
,
109
,
130
,
131
,
143
,
144
,
166
,
168
,
180
,
182–183

concentration
1
,
3
,
13–14
,
131
,
141
,
146
,
160
,
169
,
173
,
180
,
188

see also Schweigelager
and named camps

Caritas
173

Celje (Cilli)
1
,
3
,
139
,
141–144
,
149
,
176
,
179
,
180
,
183
,
184
,
187
,
191
,
194

Central Tracing Bureau
see
International Tracing Service

Chelmo
130
,
160

Churchill, Winston
7

Cold War
vii
,
11
,
17
,
123
,
140
,
173

Cologne
16
,
103

communism
17
,
52
,
98
,
115
,
139
,
179

Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
140

Constance, Lake
43

Crimea
118

Croatia
98
,
140
,
142

Czechoslovakia
71
,
125
,
130
,
133

Danzig
164–165

Darré, Walther
92

Death's Head regiments
59
,
95–96

denazification
11
,
12
,
60

Deutsche Frauenschaft
12
,
14

Dietmar
see
Holzapfel, Dietmar Divača
141

Doležalová, Marie
130–131

Dollinger, Hannes
111–113