Hitler's Forgotten Children

A True Story of the Lebensborn Program and One Woman's Search for Her Real Identity

By: Ingrid von Oelhafen, Tim Tate

Narrated by: Davina Porter

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.

©2016 Ingrid von Oelhafen and Tim Tate (P)2016 Penguin Audio

educational approach & excellent personal memoir

for over 2 yrs now, I have delved deep into the WW II era from various vantage points – American & German homefronts, European resistance, displaced person sagas, art poaching, Communism/Socialism, & German Nazi atrocities; through this, I recently learned of the Lebensborn program & was pleased to find this educational approach to the subject overall, with an in depth description of the program, explanation of relevant geography/politics/world events, before/during/after WWII, as well as a highly personal account of one womans journey to discover her roots; the narrator does a superb job, such that you forget you are not listening to the author herself speaking; she seems to be "telling" instead of "reading"

Underwhelming

The story was very interesting and showed the despicable actions of the Nazis during the war. All war is heinous, just read any soldier’s story. How the treatment of civilians need not be. Anyone who wishes to build an empire realizes treatment of civilians needs to be as honorable and humane as possible. This book tells of gruesome acts by Nazi leaders. However the author bogs us down in needless detail. So much so that you lose track of who is who and what is relevant to the story. The narrator is British with the applicable accent. At times you couldn’t understand her, I rated the story 4 stars and would have rated it higher if not for the criticism noted above. Good story just wish it had been told better.

Excellent history lesson

Very informative book on an institution that is hardly spoken of. Valuable study work for WWII scholars

Wow.

Wow.
That’s really all there is to say about this absolutely incredibly perfect memoir. I’m a memoir/biography junkie, and this is just simply amazing. Worth every penny, every scintilla of a coveted and guarded credit. Don’t let this languish on your wish list—this is a must. Trust me.
Wow.
Thank you, Ingrid. Thank you.

A lesser know Nazi atrocity

I would highly recommend this book to anyone studying WW2. It is yet another crime the Nazi’s committed against humanity

An interesting story

An interesting story about how eugenics and racial prejudice driven by an evolutionary worldview did gave way to great abuse and atrocities perpetrated by Hitler's regime.

Interesting story.

If you could sum up Hitler's Forgotten Children in three words, what would they be?

Interesting, tragic and compelling.

What did you like best about this story?

That these amazing people survived and flourished.

What does Davina Porter bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She can pronounce a lot of the German and foreign words!

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me mad.

Any additional comments?

Good story, somewhat slow at times but very compelling. You truly feel for these amazing survivors.

Wonderfully written and wonderfully performed

Davina very eloquently reads a story that will hook you in from the first sentence to the last!

Compelling

An incredible story not just about this woman’s life but the lives of so many others also. Heartbreaking and thought provoking. So very well written.

Finally a new angle!

Much has been written about and by the soldiers of the war and survivors of the holocaust. This book is a brief glimpse into the unheard story of the children caught up in the madness and the attempt of governmental intervention to make life "normal" again. My heart goes out to those parents and children who bear the burden of not knowing what became of their loved ones. I. am shocked at how long it has taken to start opening the records. I would love to have just a bit more information about the lives of other Lebensborn children.