Kidnapping of Eastern European Children By Nazi Germany - Selection

Selection

The children were placed in special temporary camps of the health department, or Lebensborn E.V., called in German Kindererziehungslager ("child camps"). Afterwards they went through special "quality selection" or "racial selection" — a detailed racial examination, combined with psychological tests and medical exams made by experts from RuSHA or doctors from Gesundheitsamt (health department). A child's "racial value" would determine to which of 11 racial types it was assigned, including 62 points assessing body proportions, eye colour, hair colour, and the shape of the skull.

During this testing process, children were divided into three groups (in English translation):

• "desired population growth" (erwünschter Bevölkerungszuwachs);
• "acceptable population growth" (tragbarer Bevölkerungszuwachs); and
• "undesired population growth" (unerwünschter Bevölkerungszuwachs).

The failures that could result in a child, otherwise fitting all racial criteria, into the second group included such traits as "round-headed" referring the skull shape. Children could be declared the third group for tuberculosis, "degenerate" skull shape, or "Gypsy characteristics". A girl who was later identified by a small birthmark would have been rejected had the birthmark been much larger.

These racial exams determined the fate of children: whether they would be killed, or sent to concentration camps, or experience other consequences. For example, after forcibly taking a child away from his or her parents, "medical exams" could be performed in secret and in disguise.

Many Nazis were astounded at the number of Polish children found to exhibit "Nordic" traits, but assumed that all such children were genuinely German children, who had been Polonized; Hans Frank summoned up such views when he declared, "When we see a blue-eyed child we are surprised that she is speaking Polish." Among those children thought to be genuinely German were children whose parents had been executed for resisting Germanization.