More than 11 million children were sent to convalescent homes between 1951 and 1990. The so-called "deported children", many of whom were of pre-school and primary school age, were actually supposed to recuperate during their stay in a residential care centre. However, a study commissioned by theformer home providers Deutscher Caritasverband, Diakonie Deutschland and Deutsches Rotes Kreuz as well as the Deutsche Rentenversicherung on children's health cures between 1945 and 1989 shows that many children did not have a restful or healing time in the health resorts. Many reported bad experiences and conditions, including violence.
Structural shortcomings in the spa centres
"Even if children and adolescents report positively or neutrally about their cures, the reality in the homes was often different. Up until the 1980s, children's health cures proved to be a very stable mass phenomenon. This makes it all the more serious that considerable structural grievances can be identified, from which numerous children in convalescent homes suffered," says Alexander Nützenadel, Professor of Social and Economic History at the Department of History at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin and head of the research project.
Together with his team, he has now comprehensively investigated the structures of the German children's spa system between 1945 and 1989 in the present study. In order to do justice to the complexity of the topic, many parts of which have hardly been researched scientifically to date, it was examined from different perspectives and differentiated and multi-methodological approaches were used. The behaviour of key players in children's health cures was examined in detail: medical professionals, health authorities, parents, schools, health insurance companies, pension funds, supervisory authorities, the providers of the convalescent homes and the home staff. As part of the study, numerous contemporary witnesses were interviewed by the researchers, including many of those affected. In addition, people from the nationwide "Verschickungskinder" initiative were involved in the scientific advisory board that supported the research project.
Further information
To the joint press release and to download the final report