‘Boche Babies’

A new book gives voice to children born of the affairs between French women and Nazi soldiers or, as they were once called, Boche babies.

According to research cited by author Jean-Paul Picaper, a staggering 200,000 were born between 1941 and 1945 – a long-neglected generation of people now entering their 60s, who are at last able to speak out about the shame and trauma they went through. (…) Michelle Colin for example, who was handed over to an orphanage when she was a few weeks old, recalls being made to write out over and again in her jotter the words, “I am the daughter of a Boche.”

The book is called Enfants Maudits.