Her daughter, Émilie, kept searching. In the spring of 2026 she contacted a man who confirmed that her mother had also been born in a Lebensborn home.
Édith spent most of her life unaware that she had been born in a Nazi-run home in France. Until a few months ago, she had never seen a picture of herself as a baby.
The photograph was taken at the Indersdorf orphanage in Germany in 1945."It has my first name and surname on it,"Édith said, holding the black-and-white image.
She was born in a manor house in Lamorlaye, near Chantilly. There, the Nazis opened Westwald in February 1944, the only Lebensborn home on French soil.
Twenty-three children were born at the facility in France. Nothing is known about Édith's mother apart from the surname de Vicar and the fact that she was French.
Her father's identity is a mystery. It is also unknown whether her mother had a relationship with a German soldier.
The French state later changed the children's recorded places of birth. All of them were listed as having been born in Bar-le-Duc.
Édith was formally adopted in 1951. Her adoptive parents kept her original first name, a decision she said still causes problems at routine administrative appointments in France.
"It took me a little while to take it in, and certainly to accept it,"Émilie said. Despite the upheaval the discovery brought to the family, she kept digging, and Édith has let her daughter carry on the search.