University of Vermont ScholarWorks @ UVM Graduate College Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses 2018 Between Extermination and Child-Rearing: The Foreign Child-Care Facilities of Volkswagen and Velpke Lauren Elizabeth Fedewa University of Vermont Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Fedewa, Lauren Elizabeth, "Between Extermination and Child-Rearing: The orF eign Child-Care Facilities of Volkswagen and Velpke" (2018). Graduate College Dissertations and Theses. 946. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/946 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks @ UVM. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate College Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ UVM. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. BETWEEN EXTERMINATION AND CHILD-REARING: THE FOREIGN CHILD- CARE FACILITIES OF VOLKSWAGEN AND VELPKE A Thesis Presented by Lauren Fedewa to The Faculty of the Graduate College of The University of Vermont In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Specializing in History October, 2018 Defense Date: July 30, 2018 Thesis Examination Committee: Jonathan Huener, Ph.D., Advisor Lutz Kaelber, Ph.D., Chairperson Francis Nicosia, Ph.D. Cynthia J. Forehand, Ph.D., Dean of the Graduate College Abstract During World War Two, approximately 400 to 450 Ausländerkinder- Pflegestätten, or foreign child-care facilities, were established across the German Reich as collection centers for the infants born to Polish and Soviet civilian laborers employed in the German war economy. My thesis examines two such foreign child-care facilities, the Volkswagen and Velpke children’s homes, where over 450 Polish and Soviet infants perished.