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World War II left large numbers of people homeless are far removed from their homeland. Millions of homes had been destroyed. Whole populations had been removed. The Soviets transported large numbers of people from the Baltic Republics to Siberia. Poles were moved west. Chechens and other peoles were also transported. The NAZIs of course targeted the Jews for death camps. Many Poles were transported from the areas of Poland incorporated into the Reich. The Germans brought millions to the Reich for slave labor labor. Many were young people without children, but some had children which were left behind. Many parents
were killed in the bombing and shelling. Among the displaced were huge numbers of children. The children were of course the least likely to survive. If separated from their parents their chances were not good. Jewish children were among the first to be killed by the NAZIs because they had no economic value which could be exploited. One can not forget the images of the starving Jewish children in the Warsaw Getto whose parents had been killed and they were left alone. Even non-Jewish children were unlikely to survive without their parents. But many did survive and at the end of the war there were hundreds of thousands of displaced children. Adding to the human tragedy were millions of Germans streaming back to the Reich to avoid the Red Army. After the War German populations in Poland and other countries were forcibly transported to occupied Germany.
The experience of children during World War II dependened on where they lived and in NAZI occupied Europe, their ethnicity. For American and Canadian children, their primary problem was that they were separated from their their fathers and brothers. The experience in Europe was far different. Britain was not occupied, but large numbers of children were evacuated to the countryside and separated from their families. Even so many civilians, including children, were killed during the Blitz and later V-1 and V-2 attacks. Rationing was very strict. In NAZI occupied Europe, the situtation was far bleaker. The situation of displaced children and the situation concerning children generally varied greatly from country to country. This was primarily because of the radically different policies that the Germans persued in different countries. Race or actually a perception of race was a factor which strongly affected German attitudes. It was the Jews that the NAZIs targeted with a vengence, but large numbers of other children were also killed, especially Slavic childern in the East. After America entered the War and the strategic bombing campaign intensified, large numbers of German civilians, including children, were also killed. Massive number of displaced persons, many of them children, after the War were left in desperate circumstance.
As boundaries were altered large regions and provinces were transferred from one country to another.
Unlike regions along Germany's eastern border, when France regained control of Alsace-Loraine, there was not a whole-sale transport of Germans back to Germany. The French who were relocated by the Germans got their property back, but there was no large-scale repatriation of Germans.
NAZI Germany's invasion of Poland launched World War II (September 1, 1939). Britain and France declared war (September 3). Grand Duchess Charlotte joined King Leopold III of Belgium and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands maintained their neutrlity and urged a negotiated settlement. The Grand Duchess ordered the recruitment of an additional 125 man company of volunteer reservists. The Grand Duchy's military had no idea of resisting the Germans. The Commandant, Major Emile Speller began planning a campaign of passive defense. Speller sought to minimize any civilian casualties by evacuating border villages and to delay German units a few hours so that those wishing to flee could reach allied lines. As part of the German Western Offensive, Wehrmacht units entered Luxembourg for a second time (May 10, 1940). The NAZIs justified the attack, as they did in 1914, as a military necessitated by Allied war plans. The Germans claimed that the Allies were
planning to attack Germany through the Low Countries in cooperation with the Belgians and Dutch In the ensuing NAZI ocupation, the Jewish children were the most affected. Many youths were deported for forced labor. Some of the firt were the school children that had demostrated against the Germans. Other youths wee conscripted after the Grand Duchy was annexed to the Reich (1942). There was little damage and loss of done during the German invation (May 1940), but considrable damage was done after the American loberation when the Germans recooupied the Grand Duchy as part of th Battle of the Buldge (December 1944-January 1945)
Slovenia was occupied by Italy and Germany as part of the invasion of Yigoslavia (April 1941). The german sector of Slovenia was annexed to the Reich.
The Sudetenland is German term for a frontier region of German-speaking people, meaning the "southern lands" in German. The Sudetenland is the area bounded by the Sudeten Mountains on the north the Erzgebirge Mountains on the northwest and the Bohemian Forest to the west. The Sudetenland was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1919 when it was awarded to a new Czecheslovakian nation created as part of the Versailles Peace Treaty. The population before World War II largely consisted of Sudeten Germans. NAZI agitators in the 1930s brought about the Munich crisis. As a result, Britain and France at Munich acceded to awarding the Sudetenland to the Germans. Prime Minister Chamberlin returned to London and proclaimed that he had achieved "Peace in our times". Hitler if he had stopped here would have probably been regarded by Germans as one of the greatest leaders in German history. The Sudentenland was critical as it constituted a natural barrier without which, the defense of Czecheslovakia was impossible. The NAZIs proceeded to dismember the rest of Czecheslovakia in 1939 during the months leading up to World War II. The Sudentland was annexed by the Reich. The NAZIs proceeded to Germanize the population, forcibly removing Czechs. The region was restored to a revived Czecheslovakia in 1945 after World War II and the Sudeten Germans forcibly relocated to Germany. The Sudentenland is today part of the Czech Republic.
The Holocaust was a crime without presidence in modern history. The NAZIs targeted the Jews for death camps. Many were killed by SS Eisen??? Groups as soon as they entered Russian villages in the early stahes of the Russian campaign in 1941. Others Jews were concentrated in Gettos for slave labor and evential dispatch to the death camps. Tragically it was not just the Germans involved, but in many countries the local population led by Fascist groups were all to willing to participate in the robbery and killing. Jewish children were among the first to be killed by the NAZIs because they had no economic value which could be exploited. One can not forget the images of the starving Jewish children on the Warsaw Getto whose parents had been killed. A great body of litterature exists on the Hollocaust including the experiences of the children.
A counterpoint to the NAZI program of exterminating Jews and other groups considered to be sub-human was the Lebensborn program, a sectret NAZI program to enrich German racial lines with pure Nordic Aryan blood. The Lebensborn program was a pet project of SS Commander Himmler. The program was launched in Germany in a small way to incourage German girls to give birth to racially pure cgildren even if they were unmairred. After the Germans launched World War II and occupied large streaches of Eastern Europe, they proceeded to kidnap thousands of children who were deemed to be Aryan. Himmler indicated that these children had to be Germanized or killed because he though Aryan populations outside of the Reich were a threat. The Lebensborn program also affected other countries such as Norway--albeit on a smaller scale. Estimates suggest that 0.20-0.25 million children, mostly Polish, were eventually involved in this program. Only a small number were ever returned to their parents.
Perhaps the last tragic event of World war II occurred after the War. The Allies repsatriated about 1 million Soviet citizens that mannaged to make there way to Western Europe. This included men and women as well as children, often whole families. Much of this was done by the British. It was done 1-2 years after the war in 1946-47. Many believed that the British would never send them back. Some were the men Soviets who fought unfer Vlasov against the Soviet Union. There were also Krasnov Cossacks, and Moslems. Stalin ordered the aduilts committed to the Gulag where thgey perished. [Solzhenitsyn, Gulag, p. 85.] We are less sure whast happened to the children.
At the end of World War II there were millions of displaced persons around the world. The problem existed both in Europe and in Asia. The problem was especially severe in Europe. There were different clsses of DPs, including POWs, slave laborers, and people targeted for genocide, but not yet killed. Because a major support for the NAZI war effort was the use of slave labor, many of the DPs were the slave labor force. The NAZIs drafted most of the phsically fit German adult male population for military service. By the end of the war teenagers and old men were being drafted. Because the NAZIs refused to use married women in war industries, the only available source of labor was POWs and slave labor from occupied countries. Some workers from neutral countries like Spain were actually paid, but most of the labor was slave labor conscripted from occupied countries. Thus there were million of foreign workers brought nto the Reich to work in factories, mines, and farms. Children were also involved because of the Holocaust and Lebensborn programs. As a result when the NAZIs surrendered (May 7, 1945) there were millions of foreign displaced persond (DPs) ers in the Reich from every country in Europe. Many were abused and mistreated and by the end of the war large number had persished because of outright murder or the apauling conditions. There were also Jewish survivors of the Holcaust. Of course only a small fractions of the Jews deported to camps survived,
The Allies set up displaced persons camps to provide emergency assistance to the DPs as to help them return to their home countries. Some of the DP camps were established in former NAZI concentration camps. One of the most notable was the Jewish Camp set up in the former NAZI Bergen Belsen conentration camp.
Laura Pringleton has prepared an excellent overview of the World War II from a children's perspecrive. She explains, "My rationale for choosing this subject is found in the aim of the course itself. World War II, although enduring only four years for Americans, has played a sizable
part in the history of American Children’s Literature, both in itself and in its preparation and wake. There have been many books written about the war that pertain to the people who were children at the time of siege and about their coping and survival. I myself was a child during the war years and remember quite keenly that at the time my reading habits were being formed and becoming fixed. I thought that there was very little literature then about the war and that most, if not all of it , had been written immediately after and beyond the war itself. However, Jean Wood Garrison’s survey shows that over 300 books with war-related themes were published for children during World Wars I and II in England and over 400 in the United States. She categorizes her plots as follows: (a) home front, (b) home front in other countries, (c) evacuation, (d) flying, (e) sea action, (f) spies, (g) land fighting, (h) animals, (i) sabotage, (j) girls in action, (k) training and (l) miscellaneous or
undetermined. Garrison found that there is no significant difference in the English and American books. She found very few books of quality and only a few that are now still in print. [Garrison, 1981] "
The heart rending human drama involved with the Hollacaust and displaced people has been the subject of many films. Often these films deal with children and in some cases the film centers on the child. "Watch on the Rhine" is set in the period leading up to the War. A film about the German invasion of France is "The Pied Piper (1942)". One particularly notable film in the U.S. film The Search (1948) about a boy from an unidentified country who an American G.I. helps unite with his mother who survived the War. Anothger important film is "Europa, Europa" (1990). Films concerning the Pacific theater include: "Empire of the Sun" (1987) and "Three Came Home".
HBC has archived several accounts about individual boys in various sections of the site. They cover both the European and Pacific theater. Not all come to mind at the momment, but we will begin to list them here. Jim Ballard was the British boy in "Empire of the Sun" (1987), the film version of his book. Stephen Brooks was a Burmese-British boy caught in Burma during the Japanese invasion. Tsvi Nussbaum was the Polish boy with his arms raised in the famous photograph from the Warsaw Getto. Solomon (Solly) Perel, was the boy whose War-time experiences was the basis for "Europa, Europa" (1990). There are many accounts from the evacuations of British, but relatively few about German children. There are many accounts from the Hollocaust.
Garrison, Jean Wood. "A Comparison of Selected Factors in Children’s Realistic Fiction Having War-Related Plots Published in England and the United States during World Wars I and II." Ed.D. dissertation, Temple University, 1981, 193 pp., DA 42:1930A.
Rhodes, Richard. Masters of Death (Knopf, 2002).
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. The Gulag Archipelago (Harper & Row, 1974), 660p.
Stueck, Rudi. E-mail message, Aoril 22, 2003.
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