The topic of Children Born of War (CBOW) is at the core of this research project, and has been at the centre of my artistic practice since 2013. That was when I started working on a documentary film project about the Norwegian Lebensborn children, called "Wars Don't End" (Akolkar 2018). The film describes how they fought for visibility and recognition, and to regain their dignity by suing the Norwegian government almost 70 years after World War II had ended. At the time, I was vaguely aware of the ‘German children’ in Norway, or ‘German brats’ (‘tyskerunger’) as the children of German soldiers and Norwegian mothers were usually and derogatively called. I was totally unaware of the fact that these Norwegian citizens had recently sued the Norwegian government for lack of protection, both in Norway and in the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg (Associated Press 2007), which was an event that received minimal coverage in the Norwegian press.
These Norwegian Lebensborn children are one of many groups of Children Born of War– a term that is defined as: “[…] children who receive a stigma as a result of being born by women who had a relationship with enemy or allied soldiers or peacekeeping personnel, or children born as a result of politicised violence/rape used as sexualised war strategy” (Mochmann 2008). These children generally struggle to be heard and recognised. The term CBOW was created by Mochmann in as late as 2008.
There are several potential reasons for this stigma. In my view, the strong emotions connected with the conflict and occupation mean that the focus quickly shifts from the situation of the children to discussing the actions of the mothers and the enemy. The children will often be young and traumatised, without having the emotional distance to process their experiences, and without having a language with which to describe them. Thus, it takes a long time for to be able to tell their stories. During the intervening years, the attention of the press and public will often have been lost to more current affairs.
For the Norwegian Lebensborn children, it was also a struggle for them to understand that they were part of a group and could organise themselves. According to my dialogue with Thorleif Blatt (the chairman of the Norwegian Lebensborn Association, in 2016), it was not until the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II that they became aware of each other and understood that they belonged to a group that shared similar experiences. It had taken many of them that length of time to deal with their traumas and to understand that their fates were not only individual. The anniversary led to the foundation of the Norwegian Lebensborn Association and the Norwegian War Child Association.
Not war children, but Children Born of War
Precisely defining Children Born of War has been important in order to create visibility for this group of children. Previously, they were often referred to as ‘war children’, which placed them in a category together with all other children who suffer during and after war and conflicts.
“All children are usually affected by wars in several different ways. They can be affected as civilians, both physically, and psychologically as well as emotionally. Physically they can be affected for example through the lack of food, water and medical supply, and injuries. Psychologically they can be long life traumatised by having been exposed to bombings and fighting and emotionally affected, for example, by having family member directly involved in the war or having lost family members in the war. They might have had to leave home town or even country, having being separated from parents etc. Children can also be directly involved in the war, for example, as member of the army, serving as soldiers or by having another occupation in the forces not directly involved in the fighting.” (Mochmann 2008, 2)
The visibility of war children is in itself important, in aiming to reduce the damage done to children during wartime. However, the challenges faced by CBOW are different. They might suffer during war like other children, but the main difficulties for children born of war occur after the war has ended, when many of them experience being seen as symbols of the enemy in their local communities. The challenge they face is being excluded from the protection and support of the local community – often making them ‘free game’ for bullying and abuse.
“With regard to children of rape, particularly where mass rape was used as a military strategy of ethnic cleansing with the aim of impregnating women and girls, whole societies were left traumatised and the children become the symbol of the trauma the nation went through and society prefers not to acknowledge their needs (UNIFEM Report 2003, here in Carpenter 2005:4). The expressions of these children as ‘devil’s children’ (Rwanda), ‘children of shame’ (East Timor), ‘monster babies’ (Nicaragua) show how these children are perceived in the home country.” (Mochmann 2008, 5)
The same objectification and exclusion were experienced by the Norwegian CBOW, although they were conceived as part of consensual relationships[1].
“There were no worse words to be called than ‘German brat’. No other terms were needed”, Thorleif Blatt told me. His mother put him in a children’s home when she married, because her in-laws demanded that the boy was removed before they would accept her.
“I should not have been born. I understood at an early age that there was something wrong with my blood”, Tove-Laila Strand told me. She was beaten repeatedly by her mother, and molested by her stepfather.
According to Ingvill C. Ødegaard (formerly Mochmann, nee Ødegaard), research has not been able to show any differences in the treatment of CBOW with regard to whether their conception was forced or voluntary. The main challenges for these CBOW are post-war prejudice and feelings of hatred towards an enemy, which lead to the long-term shaming, harassment and isolation of those children who were conceived by the enemy.
Read more about this topic in the text “Prejudice and Symbolic Violence” in the library.
Typically, there are no other signifying features that define this group beyond carrying the enemy’s genes. The group members belong to their local communities in all other considerations, being the children of local mothers, and only knowing the culture and religion of the place in which they were born and raised. Norwegian research has, however, shown that they typically belong to low-income households, and have poorer health, economic conditions and education than their contemporaries throughout their lifetimes (Ellingsen 2004). This is probably due to the mothers having less access to well-paid jobs or reduced chances of marrying well due to the stigma they carry. Many such mothers transfer their frustration to their CBOW, seeing them as the living evidence and constant reminder of their contact with the enemy.
A hidden population
The late recognition of CBOW also means that, for a long time, they could be considered to be a hidden population. Many of the Norwegian CBOW have worked hard to keep the identity of their fathers a secret. A population is 'hidden' when “no sampling frame exists and public acknowledgment of membership in the population is potentially threatening” (Heckathorn 1997). During my collaboration with Thorleif Blatt, he always insisted that we should sit at a table where we could not be overheard. During the court case in Oslo, they experienced that an elderly person at a neighbouring table came over and spat on them. Tove-Laila Strand (drawing) told me that she keeps a distance from others.
“I don’t go to the centre for the elderly because I am afraid that they know what I am. I keep to myself, and prefer to sit on a bench outside my house.”
She also told me how frightened she had been that she would lose her job when a rumour was spreading at her place of work in the 1980s. She felt that she had to talk to her boss in order to ‘confess’ to her background, and was very relieved when her boss accepted and protected her. Lately, she has since then proudly stood up and increased the visibility of the Lebensborn children.
The growing visibility of the Lebensborn children and CBOW had not been enough to generate public attention when I contacted both Save the Children Norway and the British/Dutch War Child organisation in 2016. I asked whether they were interested in participating in a project to help the children born of war. Although both organisations specialise in helping children affected by war, both answered that they were not aware of the CBOW group, and that they focused their work on children suffering during conflicts. After a long and unsuccessful process of searching for established NGOs that would agree to conduct targeted activities to help CBOW, I ended up founding a new NGO in order to do this work. This organisation is called The Children Born of War Project, and has Prof. Dr. Ingvill C. Ødegaard as chairperson.
Increased attention
The recent conflict with the terror organisation ISIS has finally led to a change and created awareness of CBOW. The press began covering the topic of the children conceived by ISIS soldiers when many nations were facing the issue of female citizens returning from the conflict areas with children conceived with ISIS soldiers. This group included both women who had been kidnapped and raped and women who had voluntarily travelled to the conflict areas and often ended up marrying ISIS soldiers.
Sadly, the press coverage mostly reported that many nations tried to avoid the return of these women and children (Chulov 2017). Many of the comments about these children have echoed the derogatory and critical comments that were heard in Norway in 1945, expressing concern that these children might grow up to become future terrorists or spies.
The UN has now publicly acknowledged CBOW as a group that is in need of protection(Boezio 2022). Unfortunately, so far they are only focusing on CBOW that are the result of rape, excluding those children who were born as a result of consensual contact. The EU has funded a major research project to document the history connected to all CBOW groups in Europe, called EuroWARCHILD:
“EuroWARCHILD is the first research project to comprehensively examine different groups of war children in the European context; across different conflicts, security settings and generations. EuroWARCHILD will affect policy development and increase attention to children born of war in many European countries, and beyond.”(‘EuroWARCHILD’ 2023)
There is a great need for more research and documentation of the situation facing CBOW throughout the world. This data would enable research and insights that are needed in order to explain the children’s situation and to lobby for recognition and better protection.
The current knowledge about CBOW is actually based on the Norwegian Lebensborn children’s struggle to be heard. They managed to organize and found the strength to go to court. Although their cases were dismissed by both the Norwegian court and the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg for being outdated, their efforts did lead to the Norwegian government’s funding of research into the situation of the Norwegian CBOW. This funding has generated the most comprehensive data on a CBOW group to date. The report from the Norwegian statistical bureau SSB documented that this group of children were worse off than any other comparable group – including children living in single parent families. This is the first known research to document that CBOW comprise a distinct and specific group with unique challenges, and it also documents how the single fact of being objectified on the basis of one’s genes has severe, measurable consequences. Interviews were conducted with many of these children, and the results of this quantitative work can be read in Kjersti Ericsson’s book The Children of World War II: The Hidden Legacy (Ericsson 2005). The book describes horrific incidents of bullying and sexual abuse.
The Norwegian Lebensborn
The Norwegian CBOW from World War II have had an additional challenge to contend with. Around 8,000 of the estimated 10,000–12,000 ‘German children’ who were born in Norway during the war were entered into the Nazis’ Lebensborn register. This was part of the ‘Lebensborn programme’, which Heinrich Himmler established with the sinister aim of ensuring that there would be ‘Aryan’ children who could inhabit the Nazis’ idea of the ‘Third Reich’. Lebensborn homes were established, which served as children’s homes. Any child who was born to a German soldier and a Norwegian woman who was considered to be of ‘Aryan’ descent through three generations was entered into the register, while a small minority were placed in the homes.
There were many stories connected to this programme, with rumours and speculation that the Nazis had arranged the meetings between Norwegian women and soldiers. No such activity has been documented, according to Thorleif Blatt. Instead, most of the mothers were teenagers. During the war, the Norwegian population was around 3 million, and there were at times more than 300,000 German soldiers posted in the country. Many of these soldiers were 18-year-old boys who would have been executed if they had not agreed to be drafted or had refused orders. In Northern Norway, there were no military camps. The soldiers were billeted in private houses and homes, often helping the families with farming and other chores. This close contact between teenagers led to the conception of many of the Norwegian CBOW.
It is important to these children that they can think of themselves as ‘love-children’. For some, their father was not an enemy soldier but a figure who they dreamt would one day come and rescue them. Sadly, the story of the Nazis’ horrible acts and racism overshadows what life was actually like for these children. The children’s exclusion and dehumanisation began as the war ended.
War victims in peacetime
In 1945, women who were known to have had, or were suspected of having had, relationships with German soldiers were interned in camps for a period of months. Many were shamed publicly or had their hair cut by mobs. The Norwegian government withdrew the Norwegian citizenship of women who were married to any Germans, although there were no laws restricting such marriages. A study of the court cases in the aftermath of the war shows that these women were treated more harshly than women who had voluntarily been working for the Nazis (Papendorf 2015).
The Norwegian government issued a formal apology for the state’s mistreatment of these women in as late as 2018 (Rivrud 2018). Many of the Norwegian CBOW told me that they are grateful for this apology to their mothers, but they still feel insulted by the treatment they experienced from the Norwegian government when they were trying to be heard. They were given a short mention by the Prime Minister in a New Year’s speech in 2000, and the Judiciary Committee issued an apology in 2002 (NRK 2002).
Compensation was offered, which many of the German children saw as a new insult. They would have to submit to an individual evaluation of their personal experiences. If they were able to document instances of abuse, they could be compensated by up to 200,000 Norwegian crowns. If not, and their stories seemed believable, they could only receive compensation of up to 20,000 Norwegian crowns (Justis- og politidepartementet 2004). Many of the German children refused to have their suffering evaluated, weighted and compared against that of others. The demand that the victims should be able to document the abuse they had suffered as children was also considered harsh.
Expanding to become a transmedia project
My meeting with the Lebensborn children in Norway made a profound impression on me. I met resilient women and men who had managed to find strength in each other in order to fight to regain their dignity through the court cases. I was also intensely aware that I only met with the ones who had survived. The individuals I met were in their mid-seventies. They told stories about abusive mothers and hostile local communities, but also about others who had committed suicide because their experiences were too much to bear.
It shocked me to realise how little I had heard about this large group of Norwegian citizens. Working with this topic, many conversations have also given me a vague, gnawing feeling that many people dislike the idea that this part of Norwegian history receives attention. It is perhaps an unspoken unwillingness to look at this chapter of Norwegian history that is the reason why the Oslo court case was given more attention in British newspapers than in Norwegian, according to the Lebensborn (BBC News 2001).
During the interviews for the documentary film, I asked Gerd Fleischer what she still believed in – after a lifetime of hardship and the rejection by the courts.
“Nothing. I don’t believe in a god or in Norway or Norwegians. But if our suffering can be made to help those children in the same situation today, then maybe it will have had some meaning”, she told me.
I was also told that the story of the Norwegian ‘German children’ is not taught in Norwegian schools, and that the Lebensborn were worried that their story would be forgotten when they were gone and could not keep repeating it themselves. This, together with my personal experience of the lack of awareness among Norwegians, motivated me to expand the project from a feature documentary to a larger-scale transmedia project, with three clear goals:
1. To tell the story of the Norwegian Lebensborn children so that it would not be forgotten.
2. To create reflection on the challenging situation of a child born with the genes of a hated enemy.
3. To try to translate the awareness generated by the activities linked to goals 1 and 2 into actual help for today’s children of enemy soldiers.
I also decided to try to reach 13-year-olds, hoping the material could rectify the lack of focus on the topic in the school curriculum. This would also mean that young teenagers would learn that the stereotypical idea of ‘the good guys winning the war’ was untrue, at the same time as they would be taught about World War II and the Holocaust.
I realised that the format of the documentary film would not be sufficient. The film consisted mostly of ‘talking heads’ – showing interviews with old people talking about their childhood. It would be hard to grab the attention of teenagers without any material that actually showed the children in the 1950s.
Documentary film is also a medium that currently reaches an older demographic, typically shown on linear TV. It does have a growing audience on streaming platforms, but mostly because their algorithms present documentary content to viewers who have already shown an interest in feature films and series linked to the topics being discussed. Linear TV is currently not a popular form of media among teenagers, and the topic of CBOW is, to my knowledge, not covered by streamed feature content targeted towards teenagers. Instead, this age group comprises active users of mobile phones and computer games (Atske 2022). I concluded that the story about the Lebensborn needed to be told in the form of an engaging mobile game that teenagers would enjoy and recommend to their peers. When they had learned about the CBOW, they might also become interested in the film featuring the interviews with the actual children.
The mobile game “My Child Lebensborn” (2018) was developed together with Sarepta Studio, with me as creative producer. It launched in 2018 and has received international attention and favourable reviews. The game has consistently had a player rating in AppStore and Google Play between 4,5 and 5 stars. Players report that they reflect on their own experiences of bullying and their own country’s history with CBOW. The game was mentioned as one of the world’s 50 best games of 2018 by Polygon.com and as one of the world’s nine best games by The New Yorker (Polygon staff 2018)(Parkin 2018). It has won several prizes, culminating in winning the 2019 BAFTA for Game Beyond Entertainment (‘BAFTA’ 2019). As of January 2023, it has sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, and has been played more than 20,3 million times. It also resulted in an invitation to a high-level UN conference at UNODC – Education 4 Justice, where I participated in workshops on the use of interactive storytelling and game development for the rule of law and the empowerment of young people on topics such as sexual violence, corruption and human rights.
In addition to these two productions, I bundled the film and game into a web-based educational package tailored for use in the classroom, called “My Child Lebensborn EDU” (2021). Finally, after the game had won several awards and sold several million copies worldwide, it made me able to fund the founding of the new NGO mentioned above with the Children Born of War international research network. This debuted in 2021. I have also been able to create more public awareness in Norway on the topic of CBOW by organising a launch of the foundation for the Lebensborn which resulted in a 14-page feature article in the Aftenposten, a leading national newspaper in Norway (Aarnes 2022).
From My Child Lebensborn to NUMB
The mobile game allows the player to experience the situation of a 7-year-old Lebensborn child in 1951 – aiming to create empathy through emotionally laden interactions and ethically challenging situations.
The game can be described as a kind of historicsimulator, recreating the challenges of a single parent in Norway in 1951. The player experiences the history in the role of an adoptive parent instead of being a passive recipient of the historical facts. In addition to this nurturing element, the player is challenged to answer the child’s ethically difficult questions by choosing answers from three different parenting profiles.
The main focus of the development process was to create an experience that was representative of what the Lebensborn children had experienced and I worked closely with the Lebensborn children to ensure this. However, it became evident that the game’s interactions had a very emotional effect on the players[2]. It succeeded in stimulating reflections on the situations of these children. One example is the scene in which Karin is in the bath tub, and asks, 'What is a Nazi kid?' What should one answer in such a situation? What can one say to make things better? Is Karin old enough to hear the truth and to process it? Is it kinder to lie? The game waits until the player has chosen one of the three suggested answers. The player is forced to make ethical choices in order to progress the narrative, selecting answers that influence the branching storyline. The player is then presented with the child’s reaction to their decision, knowing that they are partly responsible for it. This triggers more reflections – was their decision the wrong one? Seeing that this format created a very emotional situation made me interested in exploring the potential inherent in emotionally laden interactions for generating empathy and change.
This became the starting point for this artistic research project, which explores this aspect of the CBOW that I hadn’t been able to cover in the transmedia project. Both the film and the game focus on presenting the Norwegian CBOW and their specific situation in post-war Norway.The reason why the exclusion of the CBOW was able to happen was not included. The artistic research question, 'how is it that an adult can look at a child and see an enemy?' is, for me, at the core of the suffering of the CBOW. Many adults adopted and accepted the view that these children were unwanted and should be excluded.
Read about the exclusion of CBOW and the effects of dehumanisation in the text “Prejudice and Symbolic Violence” in the library.
Read about the game inspiring the artistic exploration in the “Kitchen Journal”.
