Figure 1.--

Soviet children were affected in countless ways by the War. And this included the children in both the occupied and inoccupied areas of the country. Just how to define Soviet children is a little complicated. The Soviet Union in the first year of the war while still a NAZI ally has seized large areas in the West, including parts of Finland Poland, and Romania as well as all of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Thus the children in the countries have to be considered. The children most affected were Jews in occupied countries tageted by the German Einsatzgruppen and Wehrmacht. Unbeknownst at the time was the much larger NAZI killing plans--Generaplan Ost. Other children in the unoccuplied area suffered because their parents were targetted by the NKVD because of ethnicity and/or social class. Many children were killed or wounded as a result of the widespread fighting. Bombing was less a factor in the East, in part because the Red air Firce was largey destroyed in the first week of Barbarossa and the Luftwaffe had less of an impact because of the sheer size of the country and then had to be largely withdrawn to defend German cities from the Allied strategic bombing campaign. Food was a problem in both the occupied and unoccupied sections. In the German occupied areas the NAZI Hunger Plan went into affect. The Wehrmacht found it impossible to immediately implement the plan in full force, but obtauning food was a serious problem in the German occupied areas. The food situation was also serious in the unoccupied asreas. Stalin had seriou damaged Soviet asgriculture before the war. After Barbarossa, the Germans occupied much of the prime agricultural land of the cojntry, including all of the Ukraine. This significantly reduced the food supply for the rest of the war. Special rations were authorized for young childen, but this dispensation ended at age 12 years. Another interesting topic is children's art.

Created: 1:00 AM 10/10/2016
Last updated: 1:00 AM 10/10/2016