BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY What Happened to the Babies Fathered by Black GIs and German Women After WWII?

Few people bat an eye when they see German supermodel Heidi Klum hand in hand with the biracial children she has with black British husband Seal. But during the years after World War II, the German women who had children with African-American GIs ended up putting them up for adoption for fear that the babies would be stigmatized in German society. As it was, their white mothers faced hostility from the community for giving birth to children known as "mischlingskinder," a slur for biracial children, CNN reports. And when the black GIs moved out of Germany or were reassigned to other military bases after their romances with white women came to light, the women left behind had few people to turn to for support. Ultimately, thousands of mixed-race German children were put up for adoption. Many ended up in the homes of African-American military families.

As adults, many of the so-called "brown babies" have reconnected with their birth parents, but some are still searching or lost the opportunity when their birth parents died.

"People's mothers are passing away, their fathers are passing away, and people are starting to wonder who they are," former "brown baby" Henriette Cain told CNN. Cain now lives in Illinois. "Now even we are passing away, and it's a story that needs to be told."