Recognition of the Injustice
The residential care system in the GDR 1945-1990 and problems of today's rehabilitation
In the time after the second World War until the German reunification in 1990 half a million children went through the system of residential care in the German Democratic Republic. – Their fate has gained increasing public attention in recent years.
To understand the experiences of these children, start here:
Today, legal recognition of wrongfully ordered imprisonments is possible for former GDR institutionalized
children under the 1st SED Injustice Rectification Act, the Criminal Rehabilitation Act
(Strafrechtliches Rehabilitierungsgesetz, StrRehaG). Find out more:
When is a child instutionalized?
If there is no one to care for the child, the state takes over the responsibility and places the child in a residential care home.
If the state thinks the child is not safe anymore in its family surroundings, it places the child in residential care. But watch out! Sometimes this was used to hide political reasons for taking a child away from their parents.
If for example your mother tried to flee the GDR or applied for emigration to West Germany, opposing the East German state, and was on top of that a single parent, the authorities could think a “re-education” of her child was necessary.
There are two main types of care homes.
Find out more about them here:
