During World War II, on orders from SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, the Nazis kidnapped tens of thousands of children and forcibly "Germanized" them. Afterward, they were left to grapple with their trauma alone.

During World War II, on orders from SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, the Nazis kidnapped tens of thousands of children and forcibly "Germanized" them. Afterward, they were left to grapple with their trauma alone. Alodia Witaszek's biological parents were still alive when she was kidnapped as a girl. In autumn of 1943, both she and her little sister were sent to a youth custody camp in Litzmannstadt, which is today Lodz, to become "Germanized." The sisters were no longer allowed to speak Polish in the camp. Countless Polish children experienced the same fate: The organized child robbery was part of the Nazi racial policy to turn "racially valuable" children from the annexed parts of western Poland into Germans. The youth welfare offices reported the children whose appearance they considered "Aryan."—Ulf Kjell Gür