FRANCE'S KOUCHNER SEEKS RECOGNITION FOR WWII 'BOCHE' CHILDREN
Received Thursday, 24 April 2008 19:51:00 GMT
BERLIN, 24 avr 2008 (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner Thursday called for a "recognition" of the suffering undergone by tens of thousands of illegitimate Franco-German children born during World War II.
"France and Germany have until now remained deaf to the suffering of these innocent victims of a conflict that they did not know," he said during a speech to students at Germany's Humboldt university.
"I speak of the children of war, those who were damned in France as the offspring of the Boches," he said, using a derogatory war-time French term for Germans.
"This identity borne of war and suffering, of love and hatred is also the identity of Europe," he said, calling for a "recognition of those who belong to both" France and Germany.
"Not all of them are seeking double nationality, most want a symbolic gesture," he said.
Kouchner said he would propose that historians, archivists, lawyers and philosophers and others from both countries examine together how this could be effected.
"I am far from waking up the ghosts of the past," he said, but stressed "that no person in France or Germany should have to hide his origins on the grounds that they lie on the other side of the Rhine."

France's Kouchner seeks recognition for WWII 'Boche' childrencrapo

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.