'Boche babies' trace German roots
So-called "Boche babies" - the illegitimate offspring of occupying enemy troops - are speaking openly for the first time about their family secret and hunting for long-lost German fathers.
Spurred by a 2004 investigative book, Enfants Maudits (Accursed Children), and a television documentary that came out at the same time, hundreds of men and women in their 60s have contacted the army archives department in Berlin to find out more about their lost parents.
The association was set up in 2005 following a visit by a small group of "enfants de la guerre" (war children) to the Wehrmacht Information Office for War Losses and Prisoners-of-War (WASt), where some 18 million index cards on World War II German soldiers are stored.
Today, ANEG has 335 members and has helped more than 130 of them locate paternal families in Germany. A handful have even found fathers who are still alive.
In all, it is estimated that as many as 200,000 French children were born to illicit liaisons during the German occupation between May 1940 and December 1944, though the figure is impossible to verify.
Read entire article at BBC
Spurred by a 2004 investigative book, Enfants Maudits (Accursed Children), and a television documentary that came out at the same time, hundreds of men and women in their 60s have contacted the army archives department in Berlin to find out more about their lost parents.
The association was set up in 2005 following a visit by a small group of "enfants de la guerre" (war children) to the Wehrmacht Information Office for War Losses and Prisoners-of-War (WASt), where some 18 million index cards on World War II German soldiers are stored.
Today, ANEG has 335 members and has helped more than 130 of them locate paternal families in Germany. A handful have even found fathers who are still alive.
In all, it is estimated that as many as 200,000 French children were born to illicit liaisons during the German occupation between May 1940 and December 1944, though the figure is impossible to verify.