Nursing home for foreign children

In the foreign children care facility Burgwedel ( Großburgwedel ) were about 40-50 children from forced laborers who had to work with farmers in the old district Burgdorf, housed.

The establishment of foster homes for foreign children goes back to a decree by Heinrich Himmler from 1943. The children of forced laborers were not in a hospital, but in so-called children's collection are born. There, the newborns were to be separated from their mothers as few days after birth as possible and housed in facilities of the simplest kind, which Himmler's decree played down as foster homes for foreign children . This was tantamount to a murder recommendation.

The "Ausländerkinder-Pflegeststätte" Großburgwedel, simply called "Polenheim" in the village, was operated from September 1944 until the end of the war in a dilapidated and no longer inhabited farmhouse in the middle of the village, near St. Petri Church. Evidence shows that at least 24 children died here, but probably 28 children. They were buried in the community cemetery in Großburgwedel. The exact location of the graves can no longer be determined today due to the structural changes in the cemetery. The "home" in Burgwedel as well as a comparable one in Papenhorst No. 9a near Nienhagen in the district of Celle (today the municipality of Wathlingen ) was built in the last years of the Second World War. Documentation published in 2008 names 60 camps at that time for Lower Saxony, 30 more were in the planning stage.

geography

The "home" in Burgwedel was in an old, vacant farmhouse, Großburgwedel No. 13, (today's address: Im Mitteldorf 9). It was located directly behind the St. Petri Church, about 50 meters away from the municipal administration.

history

In August / September 1944, under the sponsorship of the district farmers' association, a "foreign children nursing home" was set up in Großburgwedel for the children of Eastern European female forced laborers. The first deaths of children in this "home" are documented as early as October 1944. A total of 28 children probably died here: 15 came from Poland, 9 from the former Soviet Union, mostly from Ukraine. They were taken away from their mothers, who had to do forced labor on local farms, a few weeks after they were born. The youngest of the children who died in the home was six weeks old, the oldest 15 months old. The babies died of neglect and malnutrition or malnutrition and were buried in an undisclosed location in the local cemetery.

Stumbling blocks

On November 23, 2019, the Cologne artist Gunter Demnig laid 28 stumbling blocks in Burgwedel for 24 known and four unknown deceased infants and toddlers of Soviet and Polish forced laborers.

literature

• Irmtraud Heike, Jürgen Zimmer: The dead children of the "foreign children care facility" in Großburgwedel, in: Robbed lives. Searching for traces : Burgwedel during the Nazi era , pp. 66-133. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-96488-038-3 .
• Thomas Oberdorfer: "This research is really close to you", Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung November 14, 2019
• Sandra Köhler: Angels and flowers for the 28 dead babies, Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung November 25, 2019
• Andreas Babel: "Terrible and unimaginable", Cellesche Zeitung November 25, 2019

Web links

• Stumbling blocks in Burgwedel
• List of stumbling blocks in Burgwedel

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Himmler's “Foster Care” brought children to death on wendland-net.de, accessed on April 5, 2020.
2. ↑ Irmtraud Heike / Jürgen Zimmer: Robbed lives. Searching for traces: Burgwedel during the Nazi era . VSA Verlag, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-96488-038-3 , pp. 76-90 .