Hitler's Forgotten Children is both a harrowing personal memoir and
a devastating investigation into the awful crimes and monstrous scope of
the Lebensborn program in World War 2.
Created by Heinrich Himmler, the Lebensborn program abducted as many as
half a million children from across Europe. Through a process called
Germanization, they were to become the next generation of the Aryan
master race in the second phase of the Final Solution.
In the summer of 1942, parents across Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia were
required to submit their children to medical checks designed to assess
racial purity. One such child, Erika Matko, was nine months old when
Nazi doctors declared her fit to be a "Child of Hitler." Taken to
Germany and placed with politically vetted foster parents, Erika was
renamed Ingrid von Oelhafen. Many years later, Ingrid began to uncover
the truth of her identity.
Though the Nazis destroyed many Lebensborn records, Ingrid unearthed
rare documents, including Nuremberg trial testimony about her own
abduction. Following the evidence back to her place of birth, Ingrid
discovered an even more shocking secret: a woman named Erika Matko, who
as an infant had been given to Ingrid's mother as a replacement child.
INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS