In the Parliament – a proposal to declare September 14 as the day of remembrance of the children of the Wolf | Culture

This amendment to the Memorial Days Law was approved by 81 members of the Seimas following its presentation this week, none were once morest, four abstained. Next, the project will be considered by the committees of the Seimas.

“Vilko’s children are the smallest members of society who were forced to leave their homes in the former North East Prussia in 1946-1947 due to the famine that ravaged that region,” said MP Jurgita Šiugždinienė when presenting the project.

“It’s hard to imagine how children traveled alone on freight trains or on foot to a foreign land in order to survive. The long-term consequences of this are difficult to understand, difficult to comprehend. The children of the wolf also experienced the loss of their loved ones, which irreversibly affected them psychologically, not to mention that they had to temporarily or permanently hide their identity and assume a new identity for safety reasons,” she said.

According to J. Šiugždinienė, it is estimated that there might have been 6,000 such children in Soviet Lithuania. up to 8 thousand.

According to the member of the Seimas, September 14 was chosen as their memorial day, because on that day in 1991, the first meeting of German children of the former East Prussian region took place in Klaipėda, and later the organization “Edelweiss – Wolfskinder” was registered.

“This date became a symbolic turning point that allowed wolf children to seek social recognition and justice for their traumatic experience in Germany,” said the parliamentarian.

According to her, the draft law was initiated by the organization “Edelweiss – Wolfskinder” and prepared by the Freedom Struggle and State Historical Memory Commission of the Seimas.

Conservative member of the Seimas, Emanuel Zinger, called this proposal the restoration of historical justice.

Social Democrat Kęstutis Vilkauskas drew attention to the fact that during the war in Ukraine and the abduction of children there, this topic is becoming more relevant.

The children of Little Lithuania who were separated from their families or remained orphans in 1944-1948 are called Wolf’s children. Some of them came to Lithuania starving, others were brought back to Lithuania by Lithuanian farmers selling in the markets of Karaliaučius region (children were left to them by their mothers or relatives), sometimes women took them when they went to beg. Most of these children worked on peasant farms.

Many wolf children who were born in 1940 and later and ended up in Lithuania were adopted, older children who were not adopted were often given forged documents with a different name, place of birth and Lithuanian nationality in order to get a job.