02

A Childhood Behind Barbed Wire

When the women were brought from Sachsenhausen to Hoheneck, the East German authorities were not informed by the Soviets, that there were babies and children among them and so they were not prepared for that fact. To find a solution, one day all the children were ordered to a medical examination. But in truth they were took in cars and brought to a children's home in the city of Leipzig, while their mothers were waiting for them to return to the cells. The children were to become the unknown and nameless "children of the State Government".

Children who were born later in the prison of Hoheneck were also taken from their mothers after a short time and brought to children's homes. All they had with them was a paper with their name and date of birth on it and the note exempting them from living expenses.