Over a period of five years, documentary photographer Angeniet Berkers (1985, Nijmegen) researched the Nazi Lebensborn programme, which was aimed at increasing the number of ‘Aryan’ children born in the Third Reich. She published her findings in the book Lebensborn. Birth Politics of the Third Reich. Accompanying the Dutch 80 Years of Freedom celebrations and commemorations, the Kunsthal will be presenting her work in the exhibition Lebensborn from 28 March.
The exhibition recounts this unusual history in an impressive way, using photography, archival material, and interviews, and specifically focusing on the programme’s most decisive events and its personal impact on the people involved. Berkers documented the experiences of nine people who are now in their eighties. The Kunsthal showcases the stories of three of them: Gisela, Michael, and Ingrid.
During her research, Berkers came across objects and documents that revealed how, in an eerily orchestrated way, the National-Socialist ideology infiltrated all aspects of the so-called Lebensborn homes. Included in the exhibition are measuring devices that were used to determine ‘Aryan’ ancestry at that time. Berkers also visited former Lebensborn homes where she made photographs of both the buildings and the surrounding landscapes. Although today all these locations have been repurposed, they will always remain silent witnesses of a turbulent history.
Lebensborn programme
In 1935, Germany started a programme to supply the Third Reich with a new generation of leaders and a future elite: Lebensborn (‘Source of life’). The architect behind this plan, Heinrich Himmler, intended to use the children born within this programme to ‘improve the racial quality’ of the population of the newly established Nazi empire. Due to sharply declining birth rates, abortion and birth control methods were banned, while families with children were given financial incentives. And before setting off to the front, SS officers were encouraged to father as many children as possible, also outside of marriage.
In Lebensborn homes spread across Europe, both married and unmarried women who met the characteristics of the ‘Aryan race’ could give birth to their children. But when it became clear that the programme did not yield the desired results, the Nazis also decided to start kidnapping Eastern-European children with blonde hair and blue eyes who they subsequently ‘Germanised’. After the war, the children from these homes and their families were often stigmatised and sometimes even assaulted or abused. Many of them grew up surrounded by secrets.
Lebensborn. Birth Politics of the Third Reich
In 2024, Angeniet Berkers published her long-term research in the book Lebensborn. Birth Politics of the Third Reich (40 EUR, 272 pages, EAN 9789083357164). Available at the Kunsthal Shop and Kunsthal Webshop.
About Angeniet Berkers
Angeniet Berkers (1985) is a Rotterdam-based, socially engaged photographer who graduated from the Royal Academy of Art The Hague. For many years she also worked as a sociotherapist, among others helping veterans and refugees with complex PTSD symptoms and young people with acute psychiatric problems. As a photographer she seeks out sensitive subjects that she wants to represent in an honest and nuanced way. Through her works she tries to come to grips with the extremes of contemporary society, thereby challenging the spectator’s frame of reference.
