‘Brown babies’ long search for family, identity |
‘Brown babies’ long search for family, identity
Indianapolis Recorder
2011-11-23
(CNN) — Daniel Cardwell’s obsession consumed three decades of his life and $250,000 of his money, he estimates. His energy has been devoted to answering one basic question: “Who am I?”
Cardwell was a “brown baby”—one of thousands of children born to African-American GIs and white German women in the years after World War II. Inter-racial relationships still weren’t common or accepted among most in the United States or Germany, and they weren’t supported by the military brass, either.
Couples were often split apart by disapproving military officers. Their children were deemed “mischlingskinder”—a derogatory term for mixed race children. With fathers forced to move way, the single mothers of the African-American babies struggled to find support in a mostly white Germany and were encouraged to give their kids up.
Thousands of the children born from the inter-racial relationships were put up for adoption and placed in homes with African-American military families in the United States or Germany. Images of black, German-speaking toddlers with their adoptive American families were splashed across the pages of Jet and Ebony magazines and African-American newspapers.
Their long-forgotten stories have recently been shared in new films, “Brown Babies: The Mischlingskinder Story,” which was released last summer and “Brown Babies: Germany’s Lost Children,” which aired on German television this fall…
…For the thousands of children who are now adults and seeking their biological families, time is running out. Henriette Cain, a “brown baby,” from Rockford, Illinois, knows this all too well.
“People’s mothers are passing away, their fathers are passing away, and people are starting to wonder who they are,” Cain said from her home. “Now even we are passing away, and it’s a story that needs to be told.”
Since beginning her search in the 1970s, the 59-year-old retiree has been fortunate — she located and met her biological sister, who was living in Darmstadt, Germany, and her biological mother, who had married a white U.S. soldier and moved to Virginia. The family now enjoys a close relationship. She tracked down her biological father, as well, but he died before they could meet…
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Tags: Afro-Germans, CNN, Daniel Cardwell, Germany, Henriette Cain, Indianapolis Recorder, Stephanie Siek, World War II