Sunday, October 21, 2012

Renate’s album (continued)

renate teacher

Renate Schmidt’s inscription on the back of this photo identifies the woman as “My beloved teacher, Fraulein Essen,” along with the notation “K.L.V. Lager Buchdovnetsch (sp?) 1942.”

KLV stands for Kinderlandverschickung and Lager means “camp.” The KLV camps were created for two purposes – to provide safe refuges for children from German cities that were being bombed and also for the indoctrination of youth by the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls.

I haven’t been able to pinpoint the location of the camp Renate references here, probably because I can’t be sure of the spelling, but I suspect it was in Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic.

KVL

Kinderlandverschickung
In September 1940, the National Socialist regime launched a program of “Sending Children to the Countryside” (Kinderlandverschickung, or KLV). The main goal was to get children out of cities and away from strategic bombing, much similar programs in Britain. But the KLV also served the revolutionary transformation of youth: at KLV-run camps and hostels, children were exposed to paramilitary drills and political indoctrination, often for months on end, well away from the influence of parents, teachers, school principals. The National Socialist Welfare (NSV) was charged with arranging the transportation children in the first four grades of school; the Hitler Youth took in children in the fifth grade and higher.

This poster dates from 1943 and was published by the Reich Youth Leadership (Reichsjugendführung). The original is 60 x 40 cm.
Source: Deutsches Historisches Museum, http://www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/20001281/index.html

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