Wolf children

Wolf children ( _de. Wolfskinder) was the name given to a group of orphaned German children at the end of World War II in East Prussia.

When the Red Army conquered East Prussia in 1945, thousands of German children were left unattended with their parents killed during bombing raids or during harsh winters without any food or shelter. Older children tried to keep their siblings together and survival, searching for food and shelter became number one priority. Many went on food-scrounging trips into neighboring Lithuania. There many were adopted by the rural farm population where they often worked on the farms. Most made these trips back and forth many times in order to get food for their sick mothers or siblings. They were called “wolf children” because of their wolf-like wandering through the forests and along railroad tracks, sometimes catching rides on top or inbetween railroad cars, jumping off before reaching Soviet control stations. Helping the German children survive had to be hidden from the Soviet occupation authorities in Lithuania. Many German children's names were changed to hide their identity and only after the collaps of the Iron Curtain could they reveal their true identity since the 1990s.

It had been forbidden by the Nazis for anyone to evacuate as the Soviet Red Army proceeded to invade — it was seen as a sign of capitulation if the Germans were to evacuate [http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the_trek_out_of_east_prussia_1945/ Retrieved on 2008-04-16] . As the Red Army got closer many prepared to evacuate, but at the last minute orders were given by NS Governor Erich Koch that fleeing was illegal and punishable by death [http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the_trek_out_of_east_prussia_1945/ Retrieved on 2008-04-16] . The invasion prompted thousands of men, women, and children to flee; however, the parents of many children were killed or dying. The killings of the parents left many children orphaned. The children also fled and travelled into the wilderness of the surrounding forest and were forced to fend for themselves. The German children that were not fortunate enough to escape were killed by allied bombs during the war. Thousands more found themselves abandoned, orphaned, raped or kidnapped [http://www.exulanten.com/murder.html Retrieved on 2008-04-16] .

At the end of World War II the Soviet Army told the German population "Wojna kaput- damoi" to go back home, the war is over. They needed people to work for them and to farm for food to feed their troops in the occupied territories. The homes however had nearly all been destroyed by British and Soviet bombardment and the Soviet ground assault on East Prussia. In 1946 the Soviets began emptying Samland of Germans. In October 1947 the Soviets decided to "resettle" 30.000 Germans from Kaliningrad Oblast by trains to Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany (later GDR) and by Ministerial Council of USSR on 15.February 1948 it was decided to send all Germans, declaring them illegal (when they had remained in their homeland). According to Soviet sources 102.125 Persons were sent 1947 and 1948 of those 99.481 arrived (Communist GDR sources attribute this to 'perhaps a Soviet calculation error'). In Mai 1951 another 3.300 East Prussian "Umsiedler" came to the GDR.

Soviets eventually began to put German children, who they could get hold of, in orphanages, commanded by Soviet military officers, but staffed mostly with remaining Germans. In Fall 1947 4.700 German orphan children were officially registered in Kaliningrad. The Soviet Union sent train loads of orphans to the communist GDR, train rides took more than four days without food, heat or toilet facilities and many did not make it. In 1948 the children's village of Pinnow, then Kinderdorf Kyritz was opened. All these ongoings were not reported in the press and are only known to the public after 1990, because the official Communist line in Russia as well as Poland was as early as the [Potsdam Agreement in August 1945, that there are no Germans remaining. Historian Ruth Leiserowitz researched, lived in Lithuania and published books about the "Wolfkinder of East Prussia" under her maiden name Ruth Kibelka and her married name.

The Lithuanians that aided the children, who remained in their homeland of East Prussia, called them "vokietukai" (little Germans). They adopted some of the youngest ones and all took great risks of being sent to Siberia by Soviet authorities.

The Communist Regime and the Iron Curtain lasted from 1945-1991. Once the Iron Curtain fell, people were able to travel back and research or reclaim their identity as Germans. The story of one survivor can be read in “ABANDONED AND FORGOTTEN: An Orphan Girl's Tale of Survival in World War II by Evelyne Tannehill”, in which Evelyne and her family fell victim to the Russians who invaded her parents farm by the Baltic Sea in East Prussia. Her family was torn apart and separated [Tannehill, Evelyne (2007). ABANDONED AND FORGOTTEN: An Orphan Girl's Tale of Survival in World War II.Wheatmark.ISBN 9781587366932] . It was not until after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that she was able to return back to East Prussia to revisit her childhood homeland.

The German Red Cross has a tracing program that is helping to locate the identity and the whereabouts of family members that may have lost contact with one another, such as the wolf children, who originate in East Prussia. “It was only the politics of Gorbatschow which allowed the opening of the Russian archives. Since the nineties, about 200,000 additional fates of missing persons have been clarified. More information about the fates of Germans who were taken prisoners and deceased still remain in unopened archives in Eastern and South-eastern Europe [http://www.drk-suchdienst.eu/content/categoryshow.php?CatID=53 Retrieved on 2008-04-16] .

The President of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus, stated that an exhibition will be opened in Bad Iburg which will be named “The Lost History of East Prussia: Wolf Children and Their Fate”.

ee also

* Evacuation of German civilians during the end of World War II
* Evacuation of East Prussia
* Feral child

References

External links

* [http://www.politische-bildung-brandenburg.de/publikationen/pdf/wolfskinder.pdf Wolfskinder of Eastprussia] , Ruth Leiserowitz aka Ruth Kabelka.