Between 1938–1945 a sanatorium in Połczyn-Zdrój (or Bad Polzin, as it was called during its German period) was one of the many centres of the Lebensborn (Spring of Life) organisation, which existed in the Third Reich and the occupied countries. It was founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1936. It functioned within the structures of the SS. Its aim was to give birth to and raise precious Aryan children through: caring for unmarried Aryan mothers, impregnating Aryan women – German and of occupied countries – by the police or SS officers, taking the children who met Aryan requirements away from their parents living on the occupied territories. Today people who, in their childhood, experienced the sick ideas of Heinrich Himmler meet in Połczyn-Zdrój.
About the artist
Kinga Wołoszyn-Świerk, born 1979, studied journalism at the University of Wrocław (Poland) and Lüneburg (Germany) and is a lecturer at the University of Wrocław’s Institute of Journalism and Social Communication. She is the director and screenwriter of many TV productions from Poland and abroad – such as the Polish-German “Kowalski and Schmidt” show. She has won prizes for many of her TV programs, reportages and documentaries, nominated twice for the Polish-German Journalist Award for her reportage “Jestem Karla z Breslau” (“I Am Karla from Breslau”) and the documentary film “Dziewczęta z Auschwitz” (“Girls from Auschwitz”). She was also a scholar of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Robert Bosch Foundation, Medien Campus Bayern and the Journalistinnenbund.
