Corner Books #4
By Steve Watkins
[A recent Scholastic Press interview for my forthcoming historical novel Wolves at the Door, about the thousands of so-called Wolf Children, or Wolfskinder, orphaned or abandoned and forced to fend for themselves in the border forests of East Prussia and Lithuania at the end of World War II.]
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You often find lesser-known pieces of history and use those as a starting point for your stories. What was it about the Wolfskinder that drew you to them and their history?
In part it was because so many people, governments, and institutions worked so hard to erase the history—really, the very existence—of the Wolf Children of East Prussia. First, of course, there was the war itself, and the assault on all fronts by the vengeful Red Army. Many of the Wolfskinder were so young at the time that when they were orphaned or separated from their families, as happened to tens of thousands of children, they literally lost their identities. They didn’t know the address where they once lived, or the full names of their relatives. They often didn’t know where they were, or what had happened to their parents. Those who survived were forced out of East Prussia, which was later annexed by Russia and is now known as the Kaliningrad Oblast, and their identities were erased even further when they were “adopted” by Lithuanian families—essentially taken in as free labor, in almost all cases denied the chance of an education because of their illegal status. Others were captured and transported to work camps in the Soviet Union, or loaded onto trains and sent to orphanages in what became Communist East Germany. In Lithuania and the Soviet Union they were forbidden from speaking German or even mentioning their past lives. In East Germany they weren’t allowed to speak of the atrocities committed by the Soviet Red Army on East Prussian civilians. In telling the story of Asta and Pieta and their Wolfskinder friends, Wolves at the Door is part of a larger effort by historians and others to reclaim this buried history, and in some small ways the lives, of these youngest victims of war.
This is a story about survival first, but it’s also very much a story about sisters, sisterhood, and found family. What was the process for creating Asta and Pieta? Did they arrive fully formed for you? Or did you write your way into getting to know them? How did you capture their sisterhood so deeply, both the love and the bickering?
I’m the proud father of four daughters, two older and two younger, both sets of sisters only a year and a half apart from one another—the same age difference between Asta and Pieta in Wolves at the Door. Watching my own daughters grow up together in pairs as they did was a great education for me. I got to see how naturally close they were, a closeness that’s grown stronger over the years, but I’ve also had a front-row seat for observing (and refereeing) their fights and disagreements and other complications of their sibling rivalries. Both sets of daughters have numerous similarities that mark them as sisters, while at the same time their emerging personalities couldn’t have been more different—in some ways subtle, in other ways strikingly opposite. All this and so much more helped me get to know, and to write, the characters of Asta and Pieta, to understand their relationship and what gives them the strength, through one another, to survive. Enormously helpful, too, of course, was considerable research into children their ages growing up during wartime in East Prussia, and my own work over the years with abused and neglected children—the deep and painful effects of childhood trauma, and most importantly our growing understanding of the necessary conditions for, and the nature of, resilience.
What kind of research did you do to capture so much detail and authenticity in Wolves at the Door? It’s not just the historical events and the timeline, but it’s also the characters and how they talk, the clothes they wear, how the setting looks, and the atmosphere of the place. Especially because East Prussia no longer exists.
An essential reference work for my research, which led to other invaluable sources, was The Wolf Children of the Eastern Front: Alone and Forgotten, by Sonya Winterberg with translation help by Kerstin Lieff. Sonya Winterberg has spent years tracking down Wolfskinder who are still alive today, collecting their stories, and when possible helping them connect with long lost, and even long forgotten, family members. The website Deep Baltic introduced me to Lithuanian author Alvydas Slepikas, whose novel In the Shadow of Wolves, published a dozen years ago but only recently available in English translation, was the first to shine a light on the lost children of East Prussia to the wider world. Deep Baltic was also where I first encountered the photographer Claudia Heinermann, whose haunting photographs of the Wolf Children and their world, both then and now, were deeply helpful as well. Archival reporting in National Geographic and Smithsonian Magazine filled in important gaps in the Wolfskinders’ story—the siege of Königsberg and the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. And I can’t begin to tell you how many research rabbit holes I fell down, or dove into, to find just the right authenticating details from the 1940s for an article of clothing here, a farming method there, the lyrics to popular German lullabies, on and on and on!
This story must have been challenging to write at times—there’s a lot of hardship that Asta and Pieta (and the other kids) experience. And yet, even as they struggle and witness unimaginable things, they keep hold of hope. Enough to keep them going and moving toward a better place. How do you balance the tragedy without losing that important piece of hope?
Reading the stories of those who survived, and are still alive today, has been both heartbreaking and inspiring. For a great many, even among those who did manage to survive, life has been a never-ending struggle. I didn’t want to turn away from the reality of all the terrible loss and suffering—and violence—that the Wolf Children were forced to endure. At the same time, it was important that I always remind myself that part of my job as a writer of historical fiction for young readers is to honor the light that still shines within some, however faint at times, and embrace the hope it can give us all.
[You can pre-order Wolves at the Door on Amazon here. Official publication date is December 2024.]
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Steve Watkins is co-founder and editor of PIE & CHAI, a professor emeritus of English, a longtime tree steward with Tree Fredericksburg, an inveterate dog walker, a recovering yoga teacher and co-founder of two yoga businesses, father of four daughters, grandfather of four grandsons, and author of 15 books. His author website is http://www.stevewatkinsbooks.com/.
