My Enemy's Cradle

by Sara Young
2008

 

My Enemy's Cradle has been on my “must read” list for almost five years now.

Why?  

I attended a writer’s conference in Los Angeles and listened to a session given by author, Sara Young (aka Sara Pennypacker). I thought the book, as she described it, sounded interesting.


Interesting it was.

Set in the early 1940’s, this novel explores the Nazi Lebensborn program.

The main character is sent to a Lebensborn maternity home under false pretence and things heat up when someone from her past shows up.

Someone that knows her secret.

 

 

My Enemy's Cradle opened my eyes to a little known part of history.

 

I had never heard of Lebensborn.

 

Have you?

 

Lebensborn, translated “wellspring of life” or “fountain of life”, was a program established by Heinrich Himmler - head of the SS and one of Hitler`s closest confidantes - in 1935 under the Nazi SS Race and Resettlement Office.

 

The official goal was to increase the population of the “Master Race”.

In brief,

Lebensborn consisted of three phases.

 

The first...
Incentives were given to German women to bear many children.  

With or without the benefit of marriage.

Maternity homes were set up all over Germany where "racially pure" women and

girls could spend their pregnancies in comfort, safety and secrecy. 

 

The second...
Lebensborn expanded into occupied territories and maternity homes for "suitably Aryan” girls, pregnant by occupying German forces, were established.

 

Children born in these homes were considered Nazi at birth and taken away

from their mothers to be raised in Nazi homes or institutions.

 

The third...

The kidnapping of “suitably Aryan” children from eastern occupied countries,
most never to be returned to their families after the war.

Those that did return were often ostracized.

 

Apparently, even today as adults, many Lebensborn children suffer from elevated rates of depression, alcoholism and suicide. 

 

To say Lebensborn is devastating is an understatement, but I remember God's

promises...

Jeremiah 29:11

            “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

 

Even the children born out of Lebensborn,  

God was,

and is,

still in control.

 

He knew each of these children intimately.

 

He loved them.

 

He had great plans for their lives.


He still does.

 

 

Reading on...