Wolf children
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wolf children (German: Wolfskinder) were the gangs of abandoned 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 or with their parents killed during a harsh winter without any food. Children formed gangs, who tried to flee from East Prussia. Many fled into Lithuania and were adopted by the local population where they often worked on the farms. They were called “wolf children” because of their wolf-like wandering through the forests. This had to be hidden from the Soviet authorities. Many Germans had to hide their identity and could only reveal it in the 1990s.
It was forbidden by the Nazis for anyone to evacuate as the Red Army proceeded to invade — it was seen as a sign of capitulation if the Germans were to evacuate[1]. 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[2]. The invasion prompted thousands of men, women, and children to flee; however, the parents of many children were killed. The killings of the parents left many children orphaned. The children also fled and travelled into the wilderness of the surrounding forest, forcing them to fend for themselves. The German children that were not fortunate enough to escape, approximately 75,000, were killed by allied bombs during the war. Thousands more found themselves abandoned, orphaned, raped or kidnapped[3].
The Lithuanians that adopted some of the children had to keep this a secret from Soviet authorities.
The Iron Curtain lasted from 1945-1991. Once the Iron Curtain was disassembled people were able to travel back and 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[4]. 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.
The German Red Cross has a tracing program that has 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 fled 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[5].
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”.
