Childhood in war refers to children who have been affected, impaired or even injured during and in the aftermath of armed conflicts. Wars affect all areas of involved persons' life, including physical and mental-emotional integrity, social relations with the family and the community, as well as housing. More often than not, these experiences affect a child's further development.
The Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research estimated that there were 226 politically motivated armed conflicts (of which 38 estimated as highly violent: 18 full-scale wars, 20 limited wars) worldwide during 2016. [1] According to a Spiegel TV documentary in early 2016, estimated 230 million children live in war and crisis areas, experiencing everyday terror. [2]
Children are generally the first to come to mind when victims of war and the aftermath of war are considered. They remain hidden behind the focus on political and material outcomes of war, even when war-induced injuries or disabilities become visible. The term war child takes on almost immeasurable significance when it is used consistently worldwide for all children of war across time.
In Germany, the concept of war child developed in the beginning of the 1990s when the generation that had experienced the Second World War during their childhood began to break their silence. [3] Since then the concept of war child has received broad media attention, especially in Germany. At the same time, science and research have examined the phenomenon of the childhood of these war children. [4]
Internationally, the concept of war child can take on interpretations that are different in other languages and can be associated with very different meanings. Differences, for example, become apparent when it relates to the war children in occupied Poland during the Second World War. [5] The English term war child [6] as well as the French term enfant de la guerre are used in some countries as a synonym for children who have one native parent and one parent from a member of an occupying military force. [7] While that definition of war child is different from the definition in this article, they both refer to the Second World War. In France alone, the number of children of German occupying soldiers from the Second World War is estimated to be 200,000. [8] Although these are children who grew up during war, they are usually associated with the deprivation and humiliation that is part of their origin which they, as well as their mothers, have experienced. [7] While these experiences may lead to considerable impairment of identity and self-esteem, some of these children perceive the option of dual nationality as liberating. [9] [10]
Additional aspects arise when considering children of war outside of the European region or those of the 21st century. Conflicts like the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the Vietnam War between 1955 and 1975, the 1971 Bangladesh genocide during the Bangladesh Liberation War, or the Syrian Civil War since 2011, all brought specific implications for the children of these wars. In Japan, the war children of that time still suffer from radiation-induced mutations. Regarding the Vietnam War, different consequences arose, depending on whether Napalm or the defoliant Agent Orange was used. The long-term effect on the war children in Syria, in Afghanistan or in Eastern Ukraine since 2014 are not yet foreseeable – with the exception of the numerous mutilations caused by land mines. [11]
Occasionally the public becomes aware of symptoms that have been observed in refugee children from war zones. In April 2017, for example, unusual reactions were reported in Sweden: "Children fall into permanent unconsciousness when their families are threatened with deportation." [12] Swedish physicians have been dealing with this phenomenon "for years" without being able to explain why there are no similar cases in other countries.
With respect to military use of children, [13] of whom there are an estimated 250,000 around the world, additional issues come into focus. Events like the International Day Against the Use of Child Soldiers cannot help against the fact that every year "tens of thousands of children and young people are recruited as soldiers" [14] – "some of them are only eight years old". [15] On September 2, 1990, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child came into effect which is intended to provide protection to children, including during times of war. It has been ratified by almost all member states and some non-member states. In 2002, an additional protocol came into force which ostracized the use of minors as child soldiers in armed conflicts. However, many states do not adhere to it. In Germany as well, minors are recruited for military service. [16]
Individual war children who gain attention in the media and thereby bring the issue of war children into public view, represent exceptional cases. Those include Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan or Phan Thị Kim Phúc from Vietnam. Malala received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, jointly with her father. While Kim Phúc survived the use of Napalm in the Vietnam War in June 1972, she suffered severe burns. A photo of press photographer Nick Út made her known all over the world. [17]
"No one wants to see children in war", states UNICEF. [18] Yet, they are constantly at risk of being used for various, at times untrustworthy, purposes, and they are almost daily in the news. In the arts, however, they are seldom visible, even in times when painters, for example, created countless works dealing with war. [19] There are isolated exceptions – in music, [20] fine arts, [21] and literature. [22] The documentary treatment of the subject is different. Numerous documentary films and reports have emerged which bear witness to past and present wars and the children affected by them. Furthermore, many of the projects on this topic are based on materials by contemporary witnesses.
The Protestant Adult Education center in Thuringia, Germany (Evangelische Erwachsenenbildung Thüringen) created a contemporary witness project in which war children have also found recognition. As part of the project, a traveling exhibition by historian Iris Helbing shows drawings by Polish war children from 1946. [23] The drawings originated from a drawing contest for children 13 years and younger. The contest was arranged by the magazine Przekrój one year after its founding in 1945 and on the occasion of the anniversary of the liberation of Poland:
At that time, the drawings were regarded as important material in the investigation and documentation of crimes against Polish children by the National Socialists. The greatest number of these drawings is now in the Archiwum Akt Nowych in Warsaw. About 100 pictures are in the Polish Embassy in Copenhagen.
— Iris Helbing, Ausstellungen (Exhibitions) [24]
World Vision in Germany has dedicated a still up-to-date traveling exhibition to war children. The exhibition, called "ich krieg dich" – "children affected by war" [25] – has so far been shown in New York, Brussels, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Bremen, Rostock and Münster. In 2015 it was shown in Tröglitz, [26] a small town in Saxony-Anhalt (Germany) whose mayor had resigned in March 2015 to protect himself and his family from right-wing Neo-Nazi attacks. A month later, a planned refugee shelter was ignited [27] and in June the exhibition came to the town. It documents the life and world of children in war zones, highlighting four themes: home, everyday life, school and health. The exhibition's aim is to show "how violence, displacement and destruction" affect children and adolescents, [26] focusing on Syrian refugee children. The singer Kirk Smith and a six-person gospel choir from Florida gave a benefit concert at the opening of the exhibition. [28] World Vision has produced two videos, one on the topic of war children [29] and one on the opening of the exhibition. [30]
In 2009, the Museum of Military History (HGM) in Vienna had begun to address the subject of war children. This project was conceptualized when it was observed that some young people had begun to glorify war and that children used language about war weapons without being able to understand the meaning of the words. A video, published in November 2016, became part of a special exhibition Children in War – Focus: Syria. It tells the story of the project, the experiences of the witnesses – children and adolescents – from Syria, as well as the reactions of the students and their teachers who had attended the exhibition. [31] They had the opportunity to speak with the witnesses, watch documentary films from Syria, and view the drawings of Syrian children, who – with children's naivety – had brought the cruelty of war to paper. In order to avoid possible traumatization of the visitors, the exhibition was limited to youth over the age of 13, as recommended by military psychologists. In February 2017, the HGM organized a week of action, on the topic of children in war, focusing on South Sudan. The aim of this exhibition was to provide "young people with insight into the problems of the present and to position the subject historically". [32]
In 2011, a Global Conference was held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, " Childhoods in the War. Testimonies of Children about War" and an exhibition, "I Have Drawn Pictures of the War. The Eye of Françoise and Alfred Brauner ", showcased a selection of children's drawings from the exceptional "Alfred and Françoise Brauner" Collection of children's drawings in wartime from 1902 to 2001 (including the World War I, the Spanish Civil War, the World War II, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, the Algerian War, the Lebanese Civil War, the Vietnam War, the First Chechen War etc. ) which allows us to witness the major wars of the 20th century through the eyes of the children. [33] [34] The "Brauner" Collection of children's drawings was considered as being part of the common heritage of mankind, in a previous UNESCO touring exhibition held in 1999 and entitled "I've drawn the war. One century of children's drawings in the wars (1900-1999)", under the patronage of Simone Veil, which was shown in Paris, Hiroshima, Jerusalem, Vienna and more than 40 cities in Germany. [33]
In January 2017, the War Childhood Museum , [35] founded by Jasminko Halilović, opened in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The ambassador of the museum is the Bosnian tennis player Damir Džumhur who, as Halilović, experienced the Bosnian War as a child. The museum collects every-day items of these war children, including clothes and toys, drawings and letters, but also photographs and diaries. In addition, there are audio and video documentaries of interviews by those who witnessed the war as children. Part of the collection was exhibited in 2016 at the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
UNICEF estimated that of the 70,000 children who were living in Sarajevo at the time, 40% were shot at, another 39% watched as family members were killed, and 89% were forced to live in hiding in order to find shelter from the bombing. [36] In 2013, as a preamble to the founding of the museum, Halilović published a book that tells the stories of these war children. [37] It has now been translated into six languages. In German, it was published by Mirno More, [38] an organization for socio-educational peace projects. [39] The Center for South Eastern European Studies presented the book in November 2013. [40]
Halilović dedicated his project – which inspired the book and the museum – to his friend Mirela Plocic, who was killed in 1994. [37] In December 2015, he provided further insights about his motivations regarding his engagement in the children of the Bosnian War to the magazine Guernica . [41]
The titles of the following publications have been translated from German or French into English and have been put in brackets.
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)War children are those born to a local parent and a parent belonging to a foreign military force. Having a child by a member of a belligerent force, throughout history and across cultures, is often considered a grave betrayal of social values. Commonly, the native parent is disowned by family, friends, and society at large. The term "war child" is most commonly used for children born during World War II and its aftermath, particularly in relation to children born to fathers in German occupying forces in northern Europe. In Norway, there were also Lebensborn children. The discrimination suffered by the local parent and child in the postwar period did not take into account widespread rapes by occupying forces, or the relationships women had to form in order to survive the war years.
The Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt) was a German government agency based in Berlin which maintained records of members of the former German Wehrmacht who were killed in action, as well as official military records of all military personnel during World War II as well as naval military records since 1871 and other war-related records. Formerly called the Wehrmachtsauskunftstelle für Kriegerverluste und Kriegsgefangene (WASt), the agency also provided information about the fate of foreign and German soldiers as well as prisoners of war in Germany. Such information is used for civil proceedings, for an official register of war graves, for historical research and as biographical and genealogical purposes.
Carl Albrecht Oberg was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He served as Senior SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) in occupied France, from May 1942 to November 1944, during the Second World War, Oberg came to be known as the Butcher of Paris. From May 1942, under orders from Reinhard Heydrich, Oberg ordered the execution of hundreds of hostages and the roundup and deportation of over 40,000 Jews from France to extermination camps, most infamously during the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup with the assistance of the Vichy French police.
Klaus Peter Brehmer, was a German painter, graphic artist and filmmaker. From 1971 to 1997 he was professor at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg.
The Latin phrase bellum se ipsum alet or bellum se ipsum alit, and its German rendering Der Krieg ernährt den Krieg describe the military strategy of feeding and funding armies primarily with the resources of occupied territories. It is closely associated with mass starvation in the population of these territories. The phrase, coined by Ancient Roman statesman Cato the Elder, is primarily associated with the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).
Military brothels were set up by Nazi Germany during World War II throughout much of occupied Europe for the use of Wehrmacht and SS soldiers. These brothels were generally new creations, but in the west, they were sometimes expansions of pre-existing brothels and other buildings. Until 1942, there were around 500 military brothels of this kind in German-occupied Europe, serving travelling soldiers and those withdrawn from the front. According to records, a minimum of 34,140 European women were forced to serve as prostitutes during the German occupation of their own countries along with female prisoners of concentration camp brothels. In many cases in Eastern Europe, teenage girls and women were kidnapped on the streets of occupied cities during German military and police round ups called łapanka in Polish or rafle in French.
Das Hilfswerk für die Kinder der Landstrasse, more commonly known as Kinder der Landstrasse, was a project implemented by the Swiss foundation Pro Juventute from 1926 to 1973. The project aimed to assimilate the itinerant Yenish people in Switzerland by forcibly removing their children from their parents and placing them in orphanages or foster homes. Approximately 590 children were affected by this program.
Enfants Terribles also Nana ET Matvey is an artist duo consisting of Nana Rosenørn Holland Bastrup and Matvey Slavin. The duo was founded in Hamburg in 2012 and named after their installation Enfants Terribles which, in May 2012, was exhibited on the large paved area outside the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg. The installation Enfants Terribles was a homage to the spider sculpture Maman by Louise Bourgeois, and consisted of sixteen baby spiders around Bourgeois' existing sculpture.
Ernst Heinrichsohn was a German lawyer and member of the SS who participated in the deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz during World War II.
Carltheo Zeitschel also Carl Theo,, was a German physician, diplomat, Nazi functionary and SS-major (1940).
German childhood in World War II describes how the Second World War, as well as experiences related to it, directly or indirectly impacted the life of children born in that era. In Germany, these children became known as Kriegskinder, a term that came into use due to a large number of scientific and popular science publications which have appeared increasingly since the 1990s. They describe the same phenomena from different perspectives, using diverse methods and various stylistic means. The literature on this subject has not yet been able to produce a universal and binding definition. However, there is consensus that the impact of war on children can be felt decades later, often increasing with advancing age, and that at times the impact can be passed on mute to subsequent generations.
Peter Lieb is a German military historian who specializes in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. He held positions at Institute of Contemporary History, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr. Widely published in the field, Lieb specializes in the Western theatre of World War II.
The Bayerisches Armeemuseum is the Military History Museum of Bavaria. It was founded in 1879 in Munich and is located in Ingolstadt since 1972. The main collection is housed in the New Castle, the permanent exhibition about the First World War in Reduit Tilly opened in 1994 and the Armeemuseum incorporated the Bayerisches Polizeimuseum in the Turm Triva in 2012. Today, part of the former Munich Museum building is the central building of the new Bayerische Staatskanzlei.
Barbara Stambolis is a German historian and university lecturer.
Alfred Brauner was an Austrian-born French scholar, author and sociologist, who was a volunteer in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War and an Austrian Resistance member during Occupied France. He has devoted his life to educating refugee, displaced and maladjusted children, participating in the welcoming of Jewish child survivors of the Kristallnacht and of the Nazi concentration camps of Buchenwald and Auschwitz from 1939 to 1946. An early writer on infantile autism, he also pioneered the analysis of children's drawings in war, creating from 1937 the first collection of drawing-testimonials to offer a unique perspective of the major conflicts of the 20th century through the eyes of children.
Ulrich Pfeil is a German historian based in France.
Ernst Friedrich was a German anarcho-pacifist.
Franz Brendle is a German historian and scholar teacher.
The war guilt question is the public debate that took place in Germany for the most part during the Weimar Republic, to establish Germany's share of responsibility in the causes of the First World War. Structured in several phases, and largely determined by the impact of the Treaty of Versailles and the attitude of the victorious Allies, this debate also took place in other countries involved in the conflict, such as in the French Third Republic and the United Kingdom.
Françoise Brauner, born Fritzi Erna Riesel was an Austrian-born French pediatrician and child psychiatrist who was part of the medical contingent of International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War and was an Austrian Resistance member during Occupied France. She has devoted her medical career to educating refugee, displaced and maladjusted children, participating in the welcoming of Jewish child survivors of the Kristallnacht and of the Nazi concentration camps of Buchenwald and Auschwitz from 1939 to 1946 and working on autism in France since 1956. She also pioneered the analysis of children's drawings in war, creating from 1937 the first collection of drawing-testimonials to offer a unique perspective of the major conflicts of the 20th century through the eyes of children.
200,000 so-called "German Children" are said to live in France. Today, they are between 59 and 64 years old. At an age when one looks back at one's life, they are searching for the other half of their identity. [...] Yet, it is believed that there are still harmful consequences, like lack of self-esteem, tendencies of self-hate and self-destruction [...]. (Original: 200.000 so genannte ‚Deutschenkinder' soll es in Frankreich geben. Heute sind sie 59 bis 64 Jahre alt. In einem Alter, da man gern Lebensbilanz zieht, suchen sie nach der anderen Hälfte ihrer Identität. [...] Dennoch gäbe es noch immer Folgeschäden wie mangelndes Selbstbewusstsein und Tendenzen des Selbsthasses und der Selbstzerstörung [...])
Enfants maudits: Ils sont 200,000, On les appelait les, enfants de Boches
Experts agree that these symptoms are not faked. However, there are no known cases outside of the country, and there is no explanation for these events. (Original: Der Konsens unter Fachleuten herrscht, dass diese Symptome nicht vorgetäuscht werden. Jedoch gibt es keine bekannten Fälle außerhalb des Landes, ein Umstand, der bis heute nicht erklärt werden kann.)
Every year, tens of thousands of children and adolescents are recruited as soldiers and forced to fight. [...], a 'less costly alternative to adult soldiers' (Original: Jedes Jahr werden Zehntausende Kinder und Jugendliche als Soldaten rekrutiert und zum Kämpfen gezwungen. [...] ‚Preiswertere Alternative zu erwachsenen Soldaten'.)
In the civil wars in South Sudan and the Central African Republic, 22,000 children and young people were deployed as soldiers last year, according to estimates by the International Children's Fund UNICEF. In Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State terrorist militia recruits minors and trains them for combat – some of them only eight years old. (Original: In den Bürgerkriegen im Südsudan und in der Zentralafrikanischen Republik waren im vergangenen Jahr nach Schätzungen des internationalen Kinderhilfswerkes Unicef 22.000 Kinder und Jugendliche als Soldaten im Einsatz. Auch in Syrien und im Irak wirbt die Terrormiliz Islamischer Staat gezielt Minderjährige an und trainiert sie für den Kampf – manche von ihnen sind erst acht Jahre alt.)
The German Military continues to recruit about 1,000 minors each year, providing weapon training to them. According to the valid UN definition, these are child soldiers.) (Original: Die Bundeswehr rekrutiert weiter jedes Jahr etwa 1000 Minderjährige und bildet sie an der Waffe aus. Nach der gültigen UN-Definition sind dies Kindersoldaten.)
Die Zeichnungen galten damals als wichtiges Material um die nationalsozialistischen Verbrechen an polnischen Kindern aufzuklären und zu dokumentieren. Der größte Bestand dieser Zeichnungen liegt heute im Archiwum Akt Nowych in Warschau. Circa 100 Bilder befinden sich in der polnischen Botschaft in Kopenhagen.
The War Childhood Museum opened in Sarajevo in January 2017. The Museum's collection contains a number of personal belongings, stories, audio and video testimonies, photographs, letters, drawings and other documents, offering valuable insight into the unique experience of growing up in wartime.
UNICEF estimated that of the approximately 70 000 children living in the city during the period, 40 percent had been shot at, 39 percent had seen one or more family member killed, and 89 percent had been forced to live in underground shelters to escape the shelling.
After two and a half years of work on the project, the ultimate aim was achieved – illustrated book on 328 pages brings stories of generations that grew up during the war.
The book is the result of an inter-active project. Its goal was to collect common experiences and memories of children in Sarajewo. (Original: Das Buch ist Resultat eines interaktiven Projekts, dessen Ziel es war, kollektive Erfahrungen und Erinnerungen von Kindern in Sarajevo zu sammeln.)