Wolf children

Wolf children or Little Germans were German and Prussian Lithuanian street children that existed in East Prussia at the end of World War II. Wolf children were mostly orphans left behind in the Evacuation of East Prussia and Red Army invasion in early 1945, with many living homeless in the forests of East Prussia or adopted by Lithuanian families. Evacuation of East Prussia By the end of 1944, as World War II had irreparably turned against Nazi Germany, civilians were forbidden from evacuating the eastern territory of East Prussia even as the inevitable invasion of the Red Army came closer. The Gauleiter of East Prussia, Erich Koch, gave orders that fleeing was illegal and punishable ("strenges Fluchtverbot" – flight strictly forbidden), but as the Red Army approached Königsberg many Germans prepared to evacuate anyway. In January 1945, the Evacuation of East Prussia began at the last moment and flight from the territory was allowed. The Red Army's East Prussian Offensive prompted millions of German men, women, and children to flee; however, many adults were killed or wounded during bombing raids or during harsh winters without any food or shelter. Thousands of orphaned children were left behind and fled into the surrounding forest, forced to fend for themselves and facing harsh reprisals if caught by Soviet soldiers. Condemned to live through "begging, drudging, stealing", older children often tried to keep their siblings together, and survival—searching for food and shelter—became their number-one priority. Lithuanian aid Many German children went on food-scrounging trips into neighboring Lithuania, where they were adopted by rural Lithuanian farmers who called them vokietukai (little Germans) and often gave them food and shelter for free. Most of these children made trips back and forth many times to get food for their sick mothers or siblings, travelling along railroad tracks, sometimes catching rides on top of or in between railroad cars, jumping off before reaching Soviet control stations. After the 1990s, the children were branded "wolf children" because of their wolf-like wandering through the forests. Lithuanian farmers who sold their products in the townships of East Prussia in 1946 looked for children and young people to support them in their daily work, and thus many children streamed regularly to the eastern Baltic region to receive food in exchange for products or their labor.