00:00Luisa Kvitsch and Johanna Rüger are among the last surviving wolf children, the forgotten
00:06children of Germany's exclave East Prussia, who struggled to survive in the aftermath
00:11of World War II.
00:12I remember once again that I struggled with a handful of people, and I was alone, I was
00:21alone.
00:22Just me.
00:23In 1944, as the Red Army advanced, it took brutal revenge on Nazi Germany for its invasion.
00:29of the Soviet Union and the atrocities German forces had committed there since 1941.
00:37Families in East Prussia were torn apart, homes destroyed, and a mass flight began.
00:43Children there, shielded up until then from the horrors of war, suddenly found themselves
00:48alone.
00:49Around 20,000 German children fled starving to neighbouring Lithuania.
00:56Alone in a hostile world, they became known as the Wolf Children.
01:02Luisa was four years old when she had to flee Königsberg.
01:06In Lithuania, she was taken in by a family, although it put them in danger.
01:10During the German occupation, the Wehrmacht had devastated the country, and German had become
01:15the language of the enemy.
01:16Luisa was given a Lithuanian name and forbidden to speak her mother tongue.
01:19When I was already in this family, the first was forbidden to speak German, only Lithuania.
01:28Luisa was given a Lithuanian name and forbidden to speak her mother tongue.
01:35When I was already in this family, the first was forbidden to speak German, only Lithuania.
01:42But at the same time, I made it heimlich, with my teddy bear, the same thing I became.
01:49There were many ost-preußische children in Lithuania, and we were all as if fascists.
01:58As they fled, they witnessed the sexual violence committed by Soviet soldiers, experiences
02:04that, along with hunger, marked them for life.
02:07I never wanted to marry Nini, because everything was happening here for me.
02:14I don't belong to this group, I am a foreign person, and at the same time, something has
02:21changed.
02:22After the war, Johanna was taken to East Germany, while Luisa stayed in Lithuania.
02:28Eighty years later, they came together in Lithuania, the country that had once saved their lives,
02:35to remember, and to grieve.
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