Boy Soldiers

Shining a light on the largely untold story of elite-schooled child and youth soldiers under the Nazi regime.

Schooled by Barbarians documents the untold story of how the Nazis abused their own children, the sensitive topic of elite-schooled youth soldiers under the Nazi regime. Teachers were conflicted between educating children in good faith and the authorities' demands to turn students into mini Nazis, whether at the more common Napolas, or at Feldafing, for the most elite pupils, as for Helene Munson's father who was then sent to train for the SS at 17 years old. This moving book explores the long-lasting effects of Nazi elite schooling, when young minds were brainwashed, and children who could not yet vote forced to sign membership to a party they did not understand.

Helene's father's sufferings cast a long shadow over her own childhood, and when she read his wartime diaries after his death she embarked upon a mission both to retrace his steps and shine a light upon this taboo subject, meticulously researching what happened to ten million German children who attended Nazi-dominated schools and 300,000 German child soldiers sent into WWII. This is partly her father's story, but it is also the story of a whole generation of German children who silently lived with the shame of what had been done to them.

50 b/w illustrations

About the Author

With a Chilean-born father and a German mother, Helene grew up in Brazil, Liberia and Germany, spending most of her adult life in New York and Berlin. She has journeyed to over 75 countries, her longest trip sailing on a cruise ship four times around Cape Horn. She writes short stories in English and German which have been published in magazines and anthologies, and inspired by her family history, her Masters' degree was partly about the impact of armed conflicts on children. She lives in New York.