Our last three blogs introduced you to many people who saved the lives of hundreds of children during the occupation of France. (Miss Mary: Irish Oskar Schindler [click here to read], An (extra)Ordinary Holocaust Story [click here to read], and The Marcel Network [click here to read]) Unfortunately, for every “feel good” story of survival, there are millions of stories when the outcome for a Nazi victim was death.

Most of us are familiar with Nazi direct killing methods including mobile asphyxiation vehicles, firing squads, the gas chambers, executions by hanging or a bullet to the back of the head, and lethal injections of poison. However, the Nazis employed other deadly methods to ensure their enemies or racially inferior persons would not survive. For example, the Nazis had a policy called “Death through work.” In other words, a prisoner was deliberately worked to death. Hitler’s directives, Aktion T4 and Aktion 14f13, were euthanasia programs targeting men, women, and children deemed to be mentally or physically disabled. Anyone who was chronically ill, blind, terminally ill, had Down Syndrome, crippled, or suffered an ailment or condition the Nazis considered as “asocial” were targets for the euthanasia programs. (Click here to read the blog Hitler’s Directives).

Today, our topic will focus on the Nazi killing centers that were euphemistically referred to as “birthing centers,” or “child-care” facilities for babies born to foreign women (and girls)⏤primarily Polish and Soviet. They worked as forced laborers for the Nazis and most of the babies were conceived as a result of rape at the place of enslavement. More than ninety percent of the babies born in these institutions died as a result of intentional neglect. Read More Murder by Willful Neglect