trotzdem da! 
Many of the life stories of children from forbidden relationships cannot be told. There are many reasons for this. For example, how many of these children there were is still unknown. Their number cannot be determined or even estimated. For fear of persecution, mothers would also try to conceal their pregnancy or disclaim their partner and pretend their child was from another man. Most of these cases cannot be reconstructed. Some of these children still do not know that they were born out of a forbidden relationship. Others who know do not want to talk about it publicly. Moreover, the call for participation in the “nevertheless here!” project will not have reached many of the children concerned. This is particularly true for those who never grew up or do not live in Germany.
Also remaining untold are the stories of the children who did not survive. But for some of these children there still are traces that can be followed.
Annemarie’s parents, Aloisia Hofinger and Josef Gowdek, were denounced in 1942 because of their relationship. Aloisia was sent to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, and Josef was hanged. After her imprisonment, Aloisia never saw her daughter again, who died of diphtheria in October 1943.
Photo: unknown. Private property Elfriede Schober
The German Engelhardt family took in Helmut, the child of a German woman and a French forced labourer, in 1944. Helmut was repatriated to France around 1949. Today, the grandson of Helmut’s adoptive sister, René Vincze, is trying to find and contact him.
Photo: unknown. Private property René Vincze
As a child, Wilfried was sent to live with relatives in the United States. When he learned from the Iselersheim Local History Association in 1990 that his mother Annemarie Gerken and his father, the Polish forced labourer Stefan Szablewski, had a forbidden relationship, he reacted dismissively.
Photo: Hermann Röttjer. Private property Röttjer
It can be assumed that most children born from a forbidden relationship are unaware of this. Similarly, adopted children often did not find out who their biological parents were. For some, the relationship with their adoptive parents was so close that they did not want to search for their biological parents. In families where the children grew up with a biological parent, it often took a great deal of courage and vigour to break the silence in the family. In many cases, only the first name of the parent who had been a prisoner of war or forced labourer was passed down in the families. Other children were not even told who their second biological parent was. Some only began to search in old age, when most of those who could have provided information had already passed away. Not all of them were able to carry out research in archives with the little information they nonetheless obtained.
The home was one of three “Ausländerkinder-Pflegeheime” (foreign children care homes) for the children of Eastern European forced labourers at the Volkswagen factory based in the “city of the KdF car”, now Wolfsburg. Between 350 and 400 children died in these three homes as a result of deliberate neglect.
Photo: unknown. The National Archives, London
Annemarie’s parents, Aloisia Hofinger and Josef Gowdek, were denounced in 1942 because of their relationship. Aloisia was sent to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, and Josef was hanged. After her imprisonment, Aloisia never saw her daughter again, who died of diphtheria in October 1943.
Photo: unknown. Private property Elfriede Schober
As a child, Wilfried was sent to live with relatives in the United States. When he learned from the Iselersheim Local History Association in 1990 that his mother Annemarie Gerken and his father, the Polish forced labourer Stefan Szablewski, had a forbidden relationship, he reacted dismissively.
Photo: Hermann Röttjer. Private property Röttjer
