Today I read a particularly baffling 2023 Atlantic article about Lebensborn, the children produced in the famous nazi project to cultivate the German nation. After the war, Lebensborn endured extreme abuse, frequently institutionalized by force and sterilized out of fear of their evil nazi genes (ironic).
While the author Valentine Faure did very briefly allude to the lifetime of bullying, she was much more interested in exploring the evil genes” theme, and the shame these people felt. Faure even had the audacity to ask, “Were they ‘survivors,’ these toddlers who owed their existence to Nazi birth policy, who ate fresh fruit and porridge while other babies were gassed or starved to death?” As if these babies were diehard nazis feasting on the flesh of Jews. True or not, that does seem to be the message conveyed to the Lebensborn for their entire lives.
‘Walter, for his part, became obsessed with gaining acceptance from the Jewish community. He studied the Torah and identified as a Zionist. “He used to celebrate Jewish holidays,” Valérie remembers. “His Jewish friends were a great help to my father. To tell him, ‘You are also a victim, Walter’ was the greatest gift… He died in 2021, wearing a Star of David around his neck.’
Overall, I find the attitude of the article baffling and quite disgusting. And perhaps not coincidentally, the Lebensborn and their descendants mentioned in the article seem to have disproportionately gone out of their way to marry non-Europeans. It is another example of the extreme schizophrenia of western culture, on one hand torturing Lebensborn for the unforgivable crime of being a German baby in WWII, and at the same time praising every Baltic, Finnish and Ukrainian nazi with a sad story about “My gramps died in the war resisting Stalin.” Or just straight up erecting memorials to the nazis who died.
Ian Kummer
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[…] imagined out of thin air for the sake of drama. As I have written about before, some real Germans did literally reject their own identities and convert to Judaism, the greatest act of capitulation possible. So to be fair, this movie isn’t just propaganda, […]