Propaganda and Politics. The Problem of the Revindication of Polish Children from Occupied Germany in the Pages of Selected Titles of the Nationwide Press in the First Years after World War II

Abstract

One of the painful losses inflicted on Poland by the Third Reich was the theft of children for the purpose of Germanization. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, a restitution campaign was launched. Its effectiveness depended not only on the involvement of the state apparatus, but also on the involvement of the Polish society in the search for the lost children. In the contemporary realties, it was the press that shaped the attitude of the general public. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask how the Polish press addressed the problem of the restitution of Polish children from occupied Germany. Did it really support the search, or were these activities primarily a tool of politics and propaganda? Given the fact that Łódź was a leading centre in the Nazi policy of Germanization of Polish children, it was necessary to check to what extent the Łódź press – “Dziennik Łódzki”, “Express Ilustrowany”, “Głos Robotniczy”, “Kurier Popularny” – joined the activities for the search for the lost children. The information obtained from them was then confronted with selected texts from nationwide newspapers. The analysis of the content of the press in terms of searching for and reclaiming Polish children gave a surprising result. It turned out that the newspapers took up this problem more broadly only in 1947. The articles demonstrated that the sources of the poor effectiveness of the reclaiming action were always abroad, in countries and institutions that were political opponents of Warsaw. Hence, it should be stated that the pro-reclaiming activity of the Polish press was not an independent action of individual newspapers’ editorial offices but a function of the foreign policy of post-war Poland.