Lebensborn

Although it sits almost directly on the main road, many people may not be aware that there is a castle in Bofferdange, in the commune of Lorentzweiler. Today it forms part of a retirement home, but during the Second World War the building served a very different purpose. Small children and teenagers were housed in Bofferdange Castle, though the facility bore little resemblance to a children's home as one would understand it today.

"Lebensborn Moselland" was the name of the children's home run at Bofferdange Castle. Lebensborn e.V. was founded at the end of 1935 on the initiative of SS chief Heinrich Himmler and was integrated into the SS. The aim was to ensure that as many children as possible, classed as racially superior, could be brought into the world, explained historian Jérôme Courtoy of the National Museum of Resistance in Esch-sur-Alzette.

Germanisation

Women had to register, and were only admitted once a check had established that they met the specific racial criteria. In Germany itself, there were nine maternity clinics and two children's homes, later joined by 13 more in the occupied territories. The first aim was to gain control over children born from relationships between German soldiers and women in the occupied territories.

Bofferdange Castle was among the sites used. The property had previously belonged to Luxembourgish writer Marcel Noppeney, who was deported by the Nazis to Dachau concentration camp. "Lebensborn Moselland" only operated between 1943 and 1944. By 1944, around 20 children and young people were housed on the premises. There were Polish children who had been deported to Luxembourg to be Germanised, and children from other Lebensborn homes arriving in growing numbers.