U.S. Officials Search Germany For “Ghost” Children

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22890, 9 March 1949, Page 4

U.S. Officials Search Germany For “Ghost” Children

(From a Reuter Correspondent.)

BERLIN American authorities have begun a widespread search tor a ghost population Of 65,000 children. They are the missing cmidren who came lrom other nations into Hitler's Germany and have never been identified. The drive to locate them was announced by the United States Military Government, which worked out the plans with German authorities. The number has been estimated from a master list, submitted by United Nations members, of the names of missing children during the war years. The search will be concentrated on boys and girls of under 17 years of age. It will be conducted among those now in foster homes, those in institutions and those who have been adopted by German families since September i, 1939.

German agencies will register all children in these three categories, and make a detailed study of the history of children who are not clearly German. The results will be checked with the master file.

Many thousands of displaced children were re-united with their parents in the immediate postwar period. The Nazis had an entire organisation devoted to kidnapping racially desirable children from conquered countries. A dozen officials of this unit are serving sentences, ranging from 10 years to life as war criminals. Among the children they kidnapped and pressed into labour service in Germany were the survivors of Lidice, the Czech town that was razed in retaliation for the slaying of Gestapo Chief Heydrich.