An estimated eight million children were sent to so-called children's recovery homes on the advice of doctors between the 1950s and 1980s, returning disturbed or traumatized. What many of these children experienced there continues to affect them to this day: homesickness, loneliness, coercion, and violence. Their fate has long been a taboo subject. It is time to open the door to the past wide: How was this possible, and who was responsible?

Historian and journalist Hilke Lorenz has spoken with many former children sent away. She shares their stories and follows their leads. Some memories are fragmented, often more of a feeling or a suspicion than certainty. Many adults are speaking about their experiences for the first time and are just beginning to understand the impact that the weeks and months spent in these children's clinics had on their later lives. What Hilke Lorenz discovers in the archives is shocking. It is not only about the Nazi educational methods that continued due to the personnel's continuity. Her research also uncovers the profitable business that was made from sending children away, involving doctors, home operators, health insurance companies, and associations.