The Stolen Child. During the Second World War the Nazis snatched 200,000
Aryan-looking Polish children from their mothers to replenish the "master race" back in Germany. This film tells the extraordinary story of two cousins who were stolen on the same day, 4-year-old Alojzy and 10-year-old Leon. Alojzy was adopted by a "good" Nazi family and soon forgot his Polish past, becoming a model German.
The older Leon was less easily brainwashed and eventually returned to Poland. But when
Alojzy, then 12, was finally told of his Polish parentage he was horrified, believing the Poles to be Untermensch ("less than human"). He, too, returned to Poland but it was years before he could accept his real mother and years before the Polish people forgave him his German identity.
Producer Catrine Clay Editor Laurence Rees
The journey back from hell - one survivor's story SEE FEATURE page 22