On December 12th 1935, a programme was initiated in Germany to provide the Third Reich with the new generation of leaders and future elite for their 1000-year empire: Lebensborn (Source of Life). The birth rate in Germany fell dramatically after World War I, and the Nazis tried to reverse the trend by all possible means. All Germans were called upon to have more children, with the slogan “Give the Führer a child”. Abortion was banned, contraceptives suppressed, and incentives and tax breaks devised for families with children. SS officers were encouraged to procreate as much as possible, including out of wedlock. In this setting, the Lebensborn had a special task: to increase the number of so-called ‘Aryan’ offspring. In several Lebensborn homes spread across Germany and Austria, Norway, Belgium, and France (married or unmarried) women could give birth to their children if they met the requirements of the Aryan race. The architect behind this plan, Heinrich Himmler, aimed to improve the ‘racial quality’ in the new empire to be built on a National Socialist basis with these blue-eyed, blonde-haired, and light-skinned children. When it turned out the program wasn’t effective enough, children were kidnapped from Eastern Europe and taken to Germany to be ‘Germanised’.
After the war, the children from these homes and families were often stigmatised and sometimes even mistreated or abused. Many grew up with secrets. For the project Angeniet Berkers tracked down these ‘children’ who are now in their 80s to interview and portray them. She did archival research and photographed relevant objects and documents such as birth certificates, to visualise the system that was behind the program. Berkers also visited former Lebensborn homes and photographed both the buildings and the surrounding landscape. Although these locations now have a different function, they remain silent witnesses to an eventful past.
