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The Stolen Children of Poland
Not yet published
Expected 25 Aug 26The Nazi Child Abductions in Poland
The relationship between Germany and Poland is still shaped by the crimes committed by Nazi Germany during World War II. One of the lesser-known atrocities is the abduction of tens of thousands of Polish children, who were selected based on racial criteria, taken from their families, and forcibly "Germanized." Many people in both countries remain unaware of this dark chapter of history.
Few topics in German-Polish historical research have as many gaps as this one. Even today, many of those affected live without knowing their true identities.
For the first time, this book brings together a collection of harrowing testimonies from abducted children—an unprecedented record of their experiences. The Polish editorial team of Deutsche Welle and the Polish news portal Interia launched a multimedia project titled Stolen Children to shed light on this forgotten tragedy.
The relationship between Germany and Poland is still shaped by the crimes committed by Nazi Germany during World War II. One of the lesser-known atrocities is the abduction of tens of thousands of Polish children, who were selected based on racial criteria, taken from their families, and forcibly "Germanized." Many people in both countries remain unaware of this dark chapter of history.
Few topics in German-Polish historical research have as many gaps as this one. Even today, many of those affected live without knowing their true identities.
For the first time, this book brings together a collection of harrowing testimonies from abducted children—an unprecedented record of their experiences. The Polish editorial team of Deutsche Welle and the Polish news portal Interia launched a multimedia project titled Stolen Children to shed light on this forgotten tragedy.
300 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication August 25, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 27, 2025
PUBLISH DATE: May 5, 2026
This is a deeply moving and important book. The personal accounts shared here are heartbreaking, powerful, and impossible to forget. What stood out to me most was the inclusion of real photographs. Seeing the faces behind the stories made the experiences feel even more real and helped me connect on a much deeper emotional level.
That said, this book doesn’t read like a traditional narrative. It feels more like a collection of letters, diary entries, or historical documentation rather than a flowing story. That approach absolutely makes sense given the subject matter, but I wasn’t quite prepared for it going in. Because of the format, I did find it harder at times to stay fully engaged, and it required more focus than a typical nonfiction narrative. I found myself more "skimming" several times throughout.
Even so, this is an incredibly valuable and necessary work that sheds light on a lesser known and devastating chapter of history. I’m giving it five stars regardless, for its impact and importance, with the caveat that readers should know it’s more documentary in style than storydriven. It is actually very well written, but just not a style that I personally find easy to read.
BOOK TITLE: The Stolen Children of Poland
AUTHOR: Agnieszka Was-Turecka; Ewelina Karpinska-Morek; Monika Sieradzka; Artur Wróblewski; Tomasz Majta; Michal Drzonek
PUBLISHER: Histria
FORMAT: e-book
PAGES: 300
I received a complimentary digital ARC [Advanced Reader copy] of this book via NetGalley. Thank you to Histria Publishing and the author, for the opportunity to read and review this title prior to publication. As always, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
This is a deeply moving and important book. The personal accounts shared here are heartbreaking, powerful, and impossible to forget. What stood out to me most was the inclusion of real photographs. Seeing the faces behind the stories made the experiences feel even more real and helped me connect on a much deeper emotional level.
That said, this book doesn’t read like a traditional narrative. It feels more like a collection of letters, diary entries, or historical documentation rather than a flowing story. That approach absolutely makes sense given the subject matter, but I wasn’t quite prepared for it going in. Because of the format, I did find it harder at times to stay fully engaged, and it required more focus than a typical nonfiction narrative. I found myself more "skimming" several times throughout.
Even so, this is an incredibly valuable and necessary work that sheds light on a lesser known and devastating chapter of history. I’m giving it five stars regardless, for its impact and importance, with the caveat that readers should know it’s more documentary in style than storydriven. It is actually very well written, but just not a style that I personally find easy to read.
BOOK TITLE: The Stolen Children of Poland
AUTHOR: Agnieszka Was-Turecka; Ewelina Karpinska-Morek; Monika Sieradzka; Artur Wróblewski; Tomasz Majta; Michal Drzonek
PUBLISHER: Histria
FORMAT: e-book
PAGES: 300
I received a complimentary digital ARC [Advanced Reader copy] of this book via NetGalley. Thank you to Histria Publishing and the author, for the opportunity to read and review this title prior to publication. As always, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
January 10, 2026
As a middle grade librarian, I learned about the Nazi Lebensborn program of kidnapping children and then using them to provide manpower and to repopulate Germany from an historical fiction book called Someone Named Eva (Joan Wolf) and later from Marsha Skrypuch’s Stolen Girl (a part of the Making Bombs for Hitler trilogy). Like so many of us, I continue to be horrified by aspects of our world’s history but know how important it is to be aware of the wrongs of the past to not only try to avoid repeating them, but recognize them for what they are when they are being repeated. In the Stolen Children of Poland, the authors delve deeply into Lebensborn and its widespread abuse of the youngest victims of Hitler’s regime. Highly researched and driven by the remembrances of those who were forcibly removed from their families and their home country, this book is not for the faint of heart nor for children as the torture, starvation, and physical as well as psychological abuses is stated outright and, with a scope of nearly a quarter of a million children snatched away, repeated often. Locations of many orphanages, private facilities, retraining camps are described and documentation supporting their existence and those in charge as well as attempts by individuals and organizations to repatriate children and reunite them with family are detailed, but with so many countries and people trying to bury, forget or pretend this atrocity ever happened, few endings are happy ones.
First person accounts, photographs of documents, locations and people, and thorough citations are included making this an excellent resource for those researching World War II and the Lebensborn program, specifically.
Target audience: high school-adult
First person accounts, photographs of documents, locations and people, and thorough citations are included making this an excellent resource for those researching World War II and the Lebensborn program, specifically.
Target audience: high school-adult
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This powerful book delves into the suppressed fate of thousands of Polish children during WWII. The Nazis' racial policies extended far beyond the killing of Jews. Slavs too, were targeted for annihilation and the land they lived on was to be cleared of "subhuman" Slavs and repopulated by settlers deemed Aryan. Intermixed with all of this was the kidnapping of Polish and Ukrainian children from pre-WWII Poland. The children were sorted according to the Nazis' crazed racial hierarchy, with some children brainwashed into thinking they were German (the Lebensborn program), some children killed outright, and others worked to death as slave labourers. Those deemed Aryan but too old to be brainwashed ended up in Hitler Youth with the ultimate goal of making them into soldiers to fight and kill other Slavs.
This book is a collection of first person accounts, plus interviews with experts and it would likely be tough reading for anyone picking it up thinking it was a narrative nonfiction. However, this book documents the vast untold horrors of the Nazi regime, and also exposes the fact that the perpetrators of this mass system of child abuse went unpunished. Germany had little stomach for prosecuting their own, so many of the child hunters, brainwashers and killers got not much more than a slap on the wrist.
The authors stress the importance of exposing buried history, particularly something as heinous as this. That the perpetrators were never brought to justice only emboldens other genocidal regimes, like the current Russian Federation and their system of kidnapping children and processing them much the same as the Nazis did.
On a personal note, this book shook me to the core. I wish it had been available when I wrote Stolen Child (published by Scholastic Canada in 2010, later published as Stolen Girl, Scholastic Inc 2019). That novel was inspired by mother-in-law's account of losing her classmates to the Lebensborn program and her own ordeals as a slave to Nazi officers who occupied her house. There was not much new for me in The Stolen Children of Poland, but it provides more documentation for what I had already heard from my mother-in-law and was able to find out from sparse sources.
This book is a collection of first person accounts, plus interviews with experts and it would likely be tough reading for anyone picking it up thinking it was a narrative nonfiction. However, this book documents the vast untold horrors of the Nazi regime, and also exposes the fact that the perpetrators of this mass system of child abuse went unpunished. Germany had little stomach for prosecuting their own, so many of the child hunters, brainwashers and killers got not much more than a slap on the wrist.
The authors stress the importance of exposing buried history, particularly something as heinous as this. That the perpetrators were never brought to justice only emboldens other genocidal regimes, like the current Russian Federation and their system of kidnapping children and processing them much the same as the Nazis did.
On a personal note, this book shook me to the core. I wish it had been available when I wrote Stolen Child (published by Scholastic Canada in 2010, later published as Stolen Girl, Scholastic Inc 2019). That novel was inspired by mother-in-law's account of losing her classmates to the Lebensborn program and her own ordeals as a slave to Nazi officers who occupied her house. There was not much new for me in The Stolen Children of Poland, but it provides more documentation for what I had already heard from my mother-in-law and was able to find out from sparse sources.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
During WWII, Nazi Germany systematically kidnapped up to 200,000 Polish children for "Germanisation." Driven by the quest for Lebensraum (living space) and a desire to crush Polish resistance and independence, the regime targeted Poland as a geographic bridge to the East. Nazi racial experts screened children for Aryan/Nordic traits, falsely claiming those deemed "racially valuable" (gutrassig) were descendants of German settlers.
The Network of Assimilation
Stolen from their families, children were stripped of their names and sent to brutal institutions to erase their Polish identity. Key centres included:
Gaukinderheim Kalisz: A primary evaluation and transit camp.
Pałac Bruczków & Reich Schools: Severe assimilation hubs where children were beaten for speaking Polish.
Schloss Oberweis (Austria): A centre preparing children for forced adoption.
The Lebensborn program orchestrated the placement of these children into SS households. Conversely, children from the Zamość region who failed racial screenings were deemed "inferior" and sent to specialised youth concentration camps (Kinderlager) or murdered at Auschwitz.
Trauma
The psychological scars were catastrophic. Many children witnessed their birth families being murdered, only to be told later by their adoptive German parents that they had been abandoned. Decades later, discovering their entire life was a lie triggered profound trauma. Survivors faced endless, often fruitless searches for their origins due to falsified Nazi birth certificates. Today, the Arolsen Archives serve as a vital repository, helping the few remaining survivors piece together fragmented wartime records.
Repatriation Battle
Postwar, Polish lawyer Roman Hrabar spearheaded relentless efforts to locate and bring these stolen children home, rescuing thousands. However, repatriation faced severe roadblocks. In the chaos of the immediate postwar era, international authorities often lacked the resources or political will to investigate thoroughly. Many families and institutions hid the children's true backgrounds, leaving thousands to grow up never knowing their true Polish identities.
The Network of Assimilation
Stolen from their families, children were stripped of their names and sent to brutal institutions to erase their Polish identity. Key centres included:
Gaukinderheim Kalisz: A primary evaluation and transit camp.
Pałac Bruczków & Reich Schools: Severe assimilation hubs where children were beaten for speaking Polish.
Schloss Oberweis (Austria): A centre preparing children for forced adoption.
The Lebensborn program orchestrated the placement of these children into SS households. Conversely, children from the Zamość region who failed racial screenings were deemed "inferior" and sent to specialised youth concentration camps (Kinderlager) or murdered at Auschwitz.
Trauma
The psychological scars were catastrophic. Many children witnessed their birth families being murdered, only to be told later by their adoptive German parents that they had been abandoned. Decades later, discovering their entire life was a lie triggered profound trauma. Survivors faced endless, often fruitless searches for their origins due to falsified Nazi birth certificates. Today, the Arolsen Archives serve as a vital repository, helping the few remaining survivors piece together fragmented wartime records.
Repatriation Battle
Postwar, Polish lawyer Roman Hrabar spearheaded relentless efforts to locate and bring these stolen children home, rescuing thousands. However, repatriation faced severe roadblocks. In the chaos of the immediate postwar era, international authorities often lacked the resources or political will to investigate thoroughly. Many families and institutions hid the children's true backgrounds, leaving thousands to grow up never knowing their true Polish identities.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The Stolen Children of Poland was an intense and difficult book to read as real life atrocities of World War II are chilling and disturbing. But the book is extremely important and powerful and ought to be required reading. I have read hundreds of World War II books but this one is told from a different perspective, the collective voice of the up to 200,000 Polish children (and up to 300,000 across Europe) who were cruelly ripped out of the arms of their families by the Germans for Germanization. It grew apparent this plan was inefficient and ineffective, though it completely destroyed thousands and thousands of lives, all to "purify" the Aryan race and rid the world of those who were deemed impure. Meticulous records were kept by the Germans of the children's features and measurements and some were reserved for horrendous experiments. Punishment for being Polish and speaking the language was severe. The immobilizing fear, humiliation, and anguish they faced is unfathomable. And the parents...oh, what sorrow.
Photographs are haunting, heartbreaking, and sobering but some are also joyous as a few were taken during happy times and circumstances. Some children were reunited with family after the war, others were successfully Germanized and stayed in Germany, some were adopted into happy homes, many sent to working camps designed for children and brutal orphanages where they were left to die, sometimes in dying rooms. Along with other information, the method of changing Polish names into Germany is riveting. But so confusing for some who do not know (or wish to know) their true identities. Many family members were murdered so children often did not have a home to return to. Other topics include PTSD and identity. I appreciate the incredible effort to put this book together from testimonies, copious records, and interviews, very thorough and an excellent way to honour those who were affected.
My sincere thank you to Histria Books and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this impactful book, one which will stick close to my heart.
Photographs are haunting, heartbreaking, and sobering but some are also joyous as a few were taken during happy times and circumstances. Some children were reunited with family after the war, others were successfully Germanized and stayed in Germany, some were adopted into happy homes, many sent to working camps designed for children and brutal orphanages where they were left to die, sometimes in dying rooms. Along with other information, the method of changing Polish names into Germany is riveting. But so confusing for some who do not know (or wish to know) their true identities. Many family members were murdered so children often did not have a home to return to. Other topics include PTSD and identity. I appreciate the incredible effort to put this book together from testimonies, copious records, and interviews, very thorough and an excellent way to honour those who were affected.
My sincere thank you to Histria Books and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this impactful book, one which will stick close to my heart.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The Stolen Children of Poland
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 Stars
The Stolen Children of Poland doesn't just tell stolen stories — it details the Nazi war machinery behind them. It exposes the major players, the facilities, the bureaucratic coldness of it all, and perhaps most heartbreaking: the families who never got answers.
The book covers GeneralPlan Ost — Himmler's Master Plan East — commissioned to ethnically cleanse some 50 million people from central and eastern Europe's agricultural heartland, replacing them with those deemed to have "recovered German blood" and to repatriate Polish children into good Germans.
😶 The casual, managerial language used to discuss infant lives is one of the most chilling things I've read in a long time. Equally infuriating is the postwar response — the German government essentially told survivors that what happened was simply wartime. The orphans this program deliberately created were denied even the dignity of acknowledgment.
"It was decided that simply disposing of the infants risked unpredictable reactions from their mothers, hurting their motivation and productivity at work."
I received an advance reader's copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 Stars
The Stolen Children of Poland doesn't just tell stolen stories — it details the Nazi war machinery behind them. It exposes the major players, the facilities, the bureaucratic coldness of it all, and perhaps most heartbreaking: the families who never got answers.
The book covers GeneralPlan Ost — Himmler's Master Plan East — commissioned to ethnically cleanse some 50 million people from central and eastern Europe's agricultural heartland, replacing them with those deemed to have "recovered German blood" and to repatriate Polish children into good Germans.
😶 The casual, managerial language used to discuss infant lives is one of the most chilling things I've read in a long time. Equally infuriating is the postwar response — the German government essentially told survivors that what happened was simply wartime. The orphans this program deliberately created were denied even the dignity of acknowledgment.
"It was decided that simply disposing of the infants risked unpredictable reactions from their mothers, hurting their motivation and productivity at work."
I received an advance reader's copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you Netgalley and Histria books for the ARC of The Stolen Children of Poland.
Wow. As an avid reader of history and especially World War II, I was floored to learn so much from this book. An area that is rarely talked about and so much is unknown. I appreciated the pictures, quotes, and collected stories of those who lived through that time and/or trying to find their lost family member(s). From all angles this book will take you through the history and also the devastation of lost/mishandled/destroyed data. There is no shying away from the realty of this time and the astronomical number of victims. I also appreciated the capturing of some individuals desire to forget about the past as a means to move forward; the level of trauma and survival screams through the pages. Going into depth about the lengths that were gone to for eugenics was both well researched and also conveyed in a layman's manner. I highly recommend this book.
Wow. As an avid reader of history and especially World War II, I was floored to learn so much from this book. An area that is rarely talked about and so much is unknown. I appreciated the pictures, quotes, and collected stories of those who lived through that time and/or trying to find their lost family member(s). From all angles this book will take you through the history and also the devastation of lost/mishandled/destroyed data. There is no shying away from the realty of this time and the astronomical number of victims. I also appreciated the capturing of some individuals desire to forget about the past as a means to move forward; the level of trauma and survival screams through the pages. Going into depth about the lengths that were gone to for eugenics was both well researched and also conveyed in a layman's manner. I highly recommend this book.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This book uses interviews, personal testimonies, and archival research to examine the lives of children stolen during wartime & raised under false identities. I can’t imagine the disorientation of believing you were a German child, only to learn that you were born Polish; “because they never knew, they weren’t trying to find out.”
Along those lines, the book’s most affecting element is its urgency: few of the stolen children are still alive, and even fewer remember enough to reconstruct what happened to them. I appreciated the author’s attempts to show how identity can be erased & reclaimed, especially in the lives of those never given the choice to know who they were.
I struggled immensely with the book’s structure, however. It feels fragmented; the narrative jumps between voices & timelines of varying lengths and I was never sure where the book was going.
Along those lines, the book’s most affecting element is its urgency: few of the stolen children are still alive, and even fewer remember enough to reconstruct what happened to them. I appreciated the author’s attempts to show how identity can be erased & reclaimed, especially in the lives of those never given the choice to know who they were.
I struggled immensely with the book’s structure, however. It feels fragmented; the narrative jumps between voices & timelines of varying lengths and I was never sure where the book was going.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Firstly, thank you to NetGalley and the author for allowing me a copy of this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I learned a lot from this one. I just have no words, this is incredibly heartbreaking.
I learned a lot from this one. I just have no words, this is incredibly heartbreaking.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to #Netgalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
My Interest, The Story, and My Thoughts
I have struggled for over a month on how to review this book. How do you find fault--even kindly, with the stories of children stolen by an aggressor and forciblychanged into children of another nationality" Children selected because of their looks--those with the desired blonde hair [or light brown], mostly with blue eyes and "Air-y-an" [not writing the word] features? How do you review this when today--almost a century later this type of horror is still being perpetrated--and by a man who the president of my own country somehow admires?
I've read and watched a lot over the years on the "Lay-beens-born" [not writing the word]--the organization of the Not Sees [not writing the word] created to take stolen children and "re-wire" them into a new way of thinking, speaking, and believing. They are not the only ones to have done this, of course--just the best know.
This small book collects interviews, with some additional text, that tell the story of what happened to certain children taken in Poland and sent back to that country to become perfect little "Not Sees." Some were fostered, others adopted. At the end of the war some knew no other parents. Some parents did not know the true origins of their children. Just like with some international adoptions today--the parents found out the truth later. [I am grateful that as my one child has investigated and found family in "the old country" we've learned that what I was told when I adopted them [23 years ago today] was true. The kids--in their way at such a young age--led me to believe it was true, but hearing it now, when they are adults helped]
My own status as a mother through an international adoption made me sensative to the plight of these children--and of their birth parents and adoptive parents. Of course in such a situation the children MUST be returned to their rightful parents. But what a lot of trauma--all for political ends. Some children did not find out until late adulthood what their true history was. I feel for those children held hostage like this today. If only my own country would get back to supporting freedom and democracy and championing the cause of the nation from which today's hostage-children were stolen.
This book is such a valuable resource for those studying this horrific crime against humanity. It was heart-wrenching to read in spite of my previous research.
I highly recommend this book.
My Verdict
4.0
The Stolen Children of Poland by Agnieszka Was-Tureck et al, Translated by David McQuaid
My Interest, The Story, and My Thoughts
I have struggled for over a month on how to review this book. How do you find fault--even kindly, with the stories of children stolen by an aggressor and forciblychanged into children of another nationality" Children selected because of their looks--those with the desired blonde hair [or light brown], mostly with blue eyes and "Air-y-an" [not writing the word] features? How do you review this when today--almost a century later this type of horror is still being perpetrated--and by a man who the president of my own country somehow admires?
I've read and watched a lot over the years on the "Lay-beens-born" [not writing the word]--the organization of the Not Sees [not writing the word] created to take stolen children and "re-wire" them into a new way of thinking, speaking, and believing. They are not the only ones to have done this, of course--just the best know.
This small book collects interviews, with some additional text, that tell the story of what happened to certain children taken in Poland and sent back to that country to become perfect little "Not Sees." Some were fostered, others adopted. At the end of the war some knew no other parents. Some parents did not know the true origins of their children. Just like with some international adoptions today--the parents found out the truth later. [I am grateful that as my one child has investigated and found family in "the old country" we've learned that what I was told when I adopted them [23 years ago today] was true. The kids--in their way at such a young age--led me to believe it was true, but hearing it now, when they are adults helped]
My own status as a mother through an international adoption made me sensative to the plight of these children--and of their birth parents and adoptive parents. Of course in such a situation the children MUST be returned to their rightful parents. But what a lot of trauma--all for political ends. Some children did not find out until late adulthood what their true history was. I feel for those children held hostage like this today. If only my own country would get back to supporting freedom and democracy and championing the cause of the nation from which today's hostage-children were stolen.
This book is such a valuable resource for those studying this horrific crime against humanity. It was heart-wrenching to read in spite of my previous research.
I highly recommend this book.
My Verdict
4.0
The Stolen Children of Poland by Agnieszka Was-Tureck et al, Translated by David McQuaid
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
It has taken me sometime to get through this book. I've had to pause, process what I was reading and then resume my reading.
THIS BOOK NEEDS to be read. A part of the horrific history that is Nazi Germany is not as well known. In all of the WWII books I have read, I am ashamed to say that I never stopped to think about what happened with the children that lost their families and I NEVER stopped to think about this aspect either.
This book is written in diaries, journal entries and historical documents, which makes it all the more real. I really enjoyed the format it was written, but new readers coming in expecting a "story" might be a little surprised to find that, nonetheless, it is a book that is well overdue.
THIS BOOK NEEDS to be read. A part of the horrific history that is Nazi Germany is not as well known. In all of the WWII books I have read, I am ashamed to say that I never stopped to think about what happened with the children that lost their families and I NEVER stopped to think about this aspect either.
This book is written in diaries, journal entries and historical documents, which makes it all the more real. I really enjoyed the format it was written, but new readers coming in expecting a "story" might be a little surprised to find that, nonetheless, it is a book that is well overdue.
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