Norway's Shame - About the Lebensborn, good and evil, WWII and writing history unkindly

[misscam]

I'm going to write a little history.

Once upon a time, there was little Norway, a mostly good and quiet country. My country, in fact, but I wasn't born yet. We had proclaimed neutrality when war beset Europe, but that got rather ignored by both the British and the German. And so, on April 9th 1940, Norway was invaded by Germany. We didn't stand much of a chance, of course. Our Royal family and parts of the government managed to escape to the UK, though, and maintained a resistance from there throughtout the war. Norway became an occupied country. However, Norwegians are a Germanic people, and were treated relatively well in comparison to other occupied countries. (So were the Danes.) One of the ways treatment was better, was that Himmler actively encouraged German soldiers to get it on with Norwegian women. And have children, Aryan children. After all, we were "racially acceptable". And children were born. Over 10,000 children were born in Norway fathered by German soldiers.

But the occupation ended. May 8th 1945, Norway was free again. It rebuilt. It found oil. It lived happily, richly ever after. And May 8th is still a day we celebrate. And the resistance movement during the war, the civil disobedience to the occupying forces by most of the population, those are things we're proud of still.

And now for the things we shouldn't be. After the war, the Lebensborn - as the children of German soldiers were known - were treated horribly. Some were locked in mental institutions. Many were abandoned by their mothers who feared the stigma society would put on them for having an affair with a German. So the children got it instead. Abuse, belittlement, probably never feeling like they belonged at all. The Norwegian state has admited this. They just haven't done much about it.

So now 150 Lebensborn have sued the Norwegian state in the European Court of Human Rights. And you know what? I hope they win. I hope they win good. Money is the fucking least we can give them.

We have the last few years started to talk about the sides of the war that were shushed decades after. About the Lebensborn. About the Norwegian volunteers in SS Nordland, who were some of the last left standing defending Berlin. About the members of NS, who assisted and worked with the German forces in various ways. About a Norwegian society after the war who wanted to paint out all the spots of a picture we've come to regard as so important.

Time to get a little dirty, I say. WWII has for so many years been the posterchild of good versus evil, with a happy ending to boot. But it is not that simple. It isn't. Not because the Nazi should be in any way whitewashed, like some rather repulsive "revisionists" would have it. No, the Nazi were humanity gone batshit in a frightening sane way, with horrifying consequences for so many millions. But that doesn't make everything the Allies did okay. That doesn't make Dresden okay. That doesn't make the rape of hundreds of thousands - of millions, maybe - German women okay. That doesn't make forcing people of your enemy's nationality into camps okay. That doesn't make the fate of the Lebensborn one bit okay. It does not.

It's been sixty years now. "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it," Churchill said once. Well, Winston my boy, there's a new generation writing it now. We're writing it. How are we going to? Yes, it was an important war, maybe in the end a necessary war after the mistakes of an unnecessary one. But it wasn't a simple one. Let's not write it all off on some German madness no one else could ever get. Let's not silence to death what Germans suffered too, or those who followed them. Let's not forget what wasn't simple. Let history be a little unkind. Humans certainly can be - even the good guys.

Even my little beloved Norway. The Lebenborn is our shame, our bad. It is much too late to correct, but it is not to late to learn from. In this world of much talk of good versus bad again, it might even have something quite important to teach. Once upon a time, even good people did bad things. Once upon a time can happen again.

Meanwhile, here's to the Lebensborn. I hope you win. I hope you win good. At least then, your history got recorded too.

Comments

[maureenlycaon.livejournal.com]

I saw that. I remember reading about the Lebensborn some months ago for the first time. And I agree with you -- for the good of Good, they need to win BIG.

I do wish they had sued long before, many years ago, because this evil and their pain has festered all this time. Maybe the laws have changed, or maybe their children finally persuaded them the way the children of our WWII Japanese-Americans persuaded them to act. But I wish this had been done sooner.

Let's not write it all off on some German madness no one else could ever get.

Given what I fear will happen in America in the next few decades, we cannot afford to believe this was some uniquely German madness, or beamed down from the sky by evil Satan-worshipping aliens. Sadly, once a people descends this far down into the madness, we're no longer able to see or care. The time to think twice, and understand the real lesson of Hitler, is long before then.

[sarie-gamgee.livejournal.com]

I watched a documentary about the Lebensborn on TV a couple of years ago, and thought it was truly horrifying. Hope they make it and get what the recognition (and money) they deserve.

Somehow this story reminds me of the hundreds of kids the Spanish government (the Republican one) sent to the USSR during the Spanish Civil War. They were exiled for 40 years, many never saw their families again, and they still don't get a pension or anything. Same with those who fled to France after Franco's victory, only to be caught by the Nazis and taken to concentration camps. Only 60 are still alive, and no Spanish government has ever done anything for them.

[distaff-exile.livejournal.com]

My granddad nearly died in a Polish POW camp; he stayed there until '48. He wasn't a Nazi by any means. He was just a German boy. So much of my family's made of "just Germans". My teeth do this little grindy thing whenever I hear Germans referred to as Nazis, because we're not, and I deserve to be proud of my country, too.

Best of luck to the Lebensborn. If the lesson of the Holocaust is that one's blood doesn't determine one's worth as a person, then a lot of people still have a lot of learning to do.

[qwercus.livejournal.com]

I think in Russia much more children, who were born from German soldiers, in Yandex you won't find this information, my brain rememberes the number of about 150 thousands, as our lecturer on Newer history of Russia told. I think nobody of them goes to any of the courts, to fight for his own rights (though he might have suffered for his "unloyal" born a lot) - do you know why?
That's really an absurd for him!

[jocelyncs.livejournal.com]

Well said. One of my favorite lines from Horatio Hornblower is "Each of us can find a maggot in our past that will happily consume our future." Every nation has taken an act (or a hundred acts) that its historians and citizens would desperately love to forget.

But we cannot forget, and there is not even the remotest possibility of "moving on" until the nation acknowledges openly what it has done, admits the wrongfulness of the act with the enlightenment of hindsight, and, if at all possible, makes restitution to those it wronged.

The Lebensborn are not a story I've heard before. Thanks for bringing it to public attention, particularly here where readers are scattered all over the globe. After all, awareness is the first step in acknowledgment.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

There's so much crap buried between the commonplaces everyone knows about WWII, the Lebensborn just one of them. I'd love to hear how this'll continue, just to see it appear in the news over here. It'll start another debate for sure, about wheter or not it's all right to blame the Allies/other nation for cruelties during the war, too. I'm getting tired of those after the last fuss about the Dresden bombings.

[lotus79.livejournal.com]

Well said. :) When you go into editorial mode I get goosebumps--you picked the right degree!

...that doesn't make everything the Allies did okay. That doesn't make Dresden okay. That doesn't make the rape of hundreds of thousands - of millions, maybe - German women okay. That doesn't make forcing people of your enemy's nationality into camps okay. That doesn't make the fate of the Lebensborn one bit okay. It does not.

And let's not forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki, too.

I'd dare say every country has something incredibly shameful in their past--it's not limited to the "evil nazis". I reckon those who instituted the White Australia policy and the Stolen Generation are just as "evil". In WA, we had AO Neville, and his charming plan to exterminate the Aboriginal people by breeding them out--through forced removal of children, and controlled marriages. Horrifying, and to me not much better than the Holocaust.

*raises glass* Here's to the Lebensborn. I hope they win, too.

[undeadgoat.livejournal.com]

I read about this in The New York Times a while ago . . . It's a real shame. People are people, always, is something that people often forget to remember.

[spotts1701.livejournal.com]

So many times the ugly details of war are glossed over as time marches on, until all that is left is a worn and shiny image. It's tragic - we should remember the brutality, the bigotry, and the senselessness of war because then we might not be so inclined to pick up the sword again.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wish things had been done sooner, but it's not easy to get over a lifetime of shame to stand up and be heard. A lot of them probably wanted to forget they were Lebensborn alltogether. It took a while for society here to be able to have a debate about them that didn't turn hateful, too. There was - perhaps still is, in some ways - a lot of bitterness about the German invasion of us, about Quisling, about NS, about Norwegians fighting for the Germans.

Never easy to open the closet and take out the skeletons on your own, I suppose. Not that makes it any less okay to be silent so long.

I do believe it is possible to resist a madness even with the whole world gone mad around you, though. It is very, very hard, but not impossible. I take heart here from the Danes, who when almost all other occupied country closed their eyes to deportation of the Jews or even helped it, instead helped their Jews escape to Sweden.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

:(

That is quite horrifying too. It does remind me a bit of the Soviets taken prisoners by the Germans at the start of the war - then, when they were freed, Stalin sent them to the Gulag. Twice over getting so badly treated is just depressing.

Here's to hoping for a little historical justice, eh?

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yes, you do. And you should be. You have every right to be.

Anyone who cares to dvelve a little into the running up to and WWII itself will know it's certainly not a case of all Germans being OMG!Evil!Nazis. Many did indeed go along with the regime, but why is a study of human particulars to evil, not German. After all, regimes of similar bent if not as extreme did pop up in many other countries of Europe.

Sometimes I wonder if the lesson of the Holocaust is simply that under the wrong circumstances, most people are capable of extreme suckitude. That's one depressing lesson, if so.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

I don't know exactly why, but if I were to guess, I'd say this is probably considered even more shameful than in Norway. As I said in my post, relatively speaking, Norway was treated not horribly by the Germans. But Russia... Oh man, Russia. What the Germans did there was appaling. It did make Russian propaganda paint Germans as monsters, because what they did was monsterous in so many ways. So the thought that Russians would fall in love with "monsters", that would be upsetting. And considered treason. To stand up for yourself in face of so much anger still is very, very hard.

Not to mention, Russian courts - or media - aren't exactly the most independent. There's no guarantees they would even get noticed if they tried to fight their case.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'd hoped Norway had learned this lesson - after all, we did wrong the Sami. But after the state admitted this, tried to right some wrongs, the Sami have risen to a position in our national idenity, even becoming a point of pride. You just have to make that first hard step.

Yeah. I suspect many European countries have dark stories about children born to German soldiers, really. It would not surprise me one but.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

It's a hard sort of debate, because you can sort of understand why it happened, you know? After all the bombs Londoners suffered, I can see why they thought dropping as much on Berlin was quite all right. After what Russians suffered, I can see why they would return the favour. But does that make it all right to do still? If you've been wronged, is that a get-out-of-moral-jail-free-card for everything you do? Or for some of it?

But yeah, there's a lot of crap buried. The fate of German women during the Russian advance I remember particulary shocking me when I first read about it.

[qwercus.livejournal.com]

Yes, they might have "the complex of self-blame", I think.

Most (if not all) the Russian courts are the Shemyaka courts (venal judge is every second)

[misscam.livejournal.com]

:)

Oh yeah.You're right, let's definitely NOT forget Hioshima and Nagasaki. Got a bit focused on the European side of things, but it was after all a world war.

And yeah, every country has something. What was done to the Aboriginees in Australia is downright appaling, and the government hasn't really faced up to it at all, has it? (Here's a finger in your direction, Prime Toad.) There is still too much silence about that. For shame, truly.

*clinks glass* Hear her. And to the Aboriginees too. And definitely not to AO Neville, may he rot in silence.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yes. No saints and devils, just humans, changing haloes for horns on a second's notice.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

But that would ruin all the nice little illusions we have. Some of which are quite comforting, me thinks. The good versus evil of WWII certainly has been.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

It is a story about retaliation, that's true. There's lots of those in WWII and it's always a bit uncomfortable to talk about it because you've got to be oh so very careful not to sound pro-Nazi. But I have family who had to flee from East Prussia to Hamburg on foot. It's hard to find reason in bombing starving or freezing people

[slm4gsr.livejournal.com]

I completely disagree with the assertion that WWII is somehow the posterchild of Good vs. Evil. I don't think I've ever met someone who sees WWII as such. From the perspective of someone who received an American education, I would argue that children today are NOT taught that all Allied actions were okay. We spend a significant amount of time learning about Japanese internment camps and the horrible plight of Japanese-American citizens during WWII. Many of us visit former internment camps, such as Manzanar, so that we can comprehend the exact nature of our wrong-doings. We certainly learn about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the horrific aftermath of those bombings. And, quite importantly, we are taught about the evils of war -- the destruction that WWII brought to Europe and the innocent civilians whose lives were lost or left in shambles at the hands of all parties involved.

I also disagree with the assertion that WWII was "maybe in the end a necessary war." Had the world stood idle and watched the extermination of millions upon millions upon millions of innocent human beings, history would not look kindly upon us. We should never overlook the 5-6 million European Jews and the the millions of Christian Poles, gypsies, disabled, European Freemasons, Communists, homosexuals, Jahovah's Witnesses, political enemies and other "undesirables" who were systematically exterminated under Hitler's regime. Spend 10 minutes at a former Nazi concentration camp and you will know why this was a necessary war and why we must never, EVER forget the evils that we humans are capable of. No one I've ever met writes off WWII as some German madness no one else could ever get. Rather, the importance of learning about the Nazi atrocities is to remember the potential for unspeakable evil that lurks in every one of us.

On a different note, I think most people are well aware that while Nazis were German, many Germans were not Nazis. Furthermore, those who continue to identify all Germans as Nazis represent a tiny minority comprised of uneducated, ignorant people.

Lastly, I think it is wonderful that the Lebensborn are finally receiving reparations for their plight. We can only hope that this will, in some small way, acknowledge the wounds of a generation wronged and lead to a path of healing.

[peace-weasel.livejournal.com]

Well, I've definitely heard WWII referred to as the posterchild of Good vs. Evil. It's not really that everything the Allies was good, but the "who was right-who was wrong" thing was much more clearly defined than in most wars. I would definitely agree that the actions on both sides were obscene, as would (I hope) everyone I know. However, not everyone I know is as well-educated on WWII. Mind you, this may be because I'm still in high school, but I live in Russia-one of the hardest-hit areas in the entire war.
I agree completely that WWII was neccessary. We could not have lived with ourselves if we had stood by and done nothing. Perhaps more importantly, my generation could not have lived with our parents, knowing that they did nothing. (Although if we hadn't taken any action, this may have been a moot point by now.)

[joraina.livejournal.com]

I love the European Court of Human Rights.
Hurrah for European institutions!

[boz4pm.livejournal.com]

Well said.

I saw a documentary (about a year ago?) about this - interviewing some of the 'Lebensborn' whilst also discussing the life of one quarter of Abba (the brunette?) who, I didn't know, was Norwegian by birth and one of the Lebensborn herself, but was sent to Sweden, thus escaping the trauma that most other children in her situation went through.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's extra hard because those bloody revisionists try and make it sound like it was the Allies who were bad and wee little Germans were innocent and no one sane wants to be counted in their number. Shudder.

But there is a debate that should be had about the bad done in the name of good, so to speak, I think.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Maybe you could've had diffrent experiences, but the Good versus Evil angle has DEFINITELY been strong in Europe and in a lot of the media portrayal of the war. Maybe it is different in the US - after all, you weren't invaded by the Germans and might not have the same anger fused into your national idenity. However, I will agree that the last few years - last decade, maybe - has started to modify this.

As for "maybe in the end a necessary war", I think you misunderstand me. I HAVE been to concentration camps, even Auschwitz itself. My country was invaded by Germany. Of course we had no choice but to fight that. But the things to lead up to the war, including the end of WWI, offered many opportunities to avoid the war alltogether. If the economy hadn't fallen apart at the end of the 1920s, the Nazi party might never have risen to power. Then it wouldn't have been necessary to have another world war. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Not all European insititutions are that great, though. But that's another matter.

[joraina.livejournal.com]

True. I just like to pretend that they all are. I like the Euro in principle, but in reality, it's not such a good idea for some of the countries that have started using it.