Forced Infant and Child Removal among Polish Forced Laborers in Lower Saxony: A Reproductive Violence Frame

• In Event: Gendered Experiences of Forced Labor during World War II: Polish and Polish-Passing Laborers in the German Reich

Abstract

Building on recent archival research on war crimes investigations in postwar Poland and Great Britain and postwar testimonials, this paper documents the practice of forcibly removing infants and children from female and male Polish forced laborers in 1944-1945 and contextualizes this practice within the local community policies of controlling gendered labor availability. Pregnancy was common among Polish, Ukrainian, and Belarussian laborers; past scholarship has shown that the local German citizens who hoped to exploit forced labor sought to control laborer reproduction through abortions and birthing centers. This paper contributes to this scholarship by using a reproductive violence frame to demonstrate the specifically gendered nature of “foreign” labor exploitation in the Reich and its specific concern with childbirth and reproduction.

Author

• Janine P Holc, Loyola U Maryland