Tara Zahra’s book, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after World War II is a heartbreaking account of displaced and impoverished children lacking national identities. In the introduction and first chapter, parallels are drawn between both the physical reconstruction of post-war Europe and the reconstruction of childhood identity. These children were at the center of political conflicts and were the social problem that dominated Europe from the onset of World War I. The state of Europe’s children represented the civilization itself in chaos. Organizations after World War 1 sought to supply these children with immediate material needs. After the Spanish Civil War and World War II, however, humanitarian efforts were ideologically transformed. While some intense nationalistic and political goals still lay underneath the surface, the primary function of these social organizations were now to serve the psychological needs of a child with an incomplete family, empty stomach, and no national identity.
The responses to World War 1 and the Armenian Genocide set the stage for future humanitarian endeavors. These interwar campaigns focused on the obvious immediate needs to a child. Food, shelter, water, and so on. However, they also largely focused on reuniting parents with their children that were sent away for their safety. With this came a larger issue; the denationalization of children. Children that were sent away during the Armenian Genocide were largely sent to to Turkey and learned Muslim practices. Efforts to reclaim these children and to “renationalize” them were crucial to these international organizations. After World War 1, children were exiled and then reclaimed again for “their own good”. However, “all the improvements in a child’s life may dwindle down to nothing when faced with the fact that it has to leave the family to get to them”. (18) This was the major issue governments were missing. People believed that the memories and possible psychological traumas would be minimal as long as the were physically safe and healthy, but we know today that that is not true.
This idea changed dramatically after the Spanish Civil War. While the aftermath left the Spaniards wanting their children back from exile in France to be reassimilated back into Spanish culture, the individual’s psyche was beginning to be taken into account. These loyalist approaches to repatriation wouldn’t go away until well after World War 2 when identities were no longer defined by where they came from, but rather where they called home. Still, strides were being made to get these “lost” children psychological help along with their material needs. Light was now shedding on the moral and social risks of a divided family and after World War II, in an effort to move forward from the depths of depravity found in the Nazi Regime, and to reclaim democracy, the child’s individual welfare was now being focused on far more than the countries desire for a unified nation. Each war and genocide set the the foundation for new improvements in humanitarian efforts.
Much of this content relates to Hoffman’s ideas on social welfare and the modern state. Children were the objects of popular politics all throughout the first half of the 20th century. After they were exiled for their safety, the children were sought after to become assimilated members of a homogenous society. Hoffman’s main idea is that social welfare is for the good of country far more than for the good of individual. The countries wanted a healthy person to increase economic output in an industrial society. Industrial society was the modern state. In the book the reader learns that the countries sent away their children and then brought them back for family stability which was a core value of Europe at this time. Leaders believed that children wouldn’t grow up to be functioning members of society if they don’t have a normal family upbringing. Eventually, they moved to a practice in which these agencies and governments did what was psychologically best for the child. This reconstruction of childhoods mimicked the reconstruction of Europe itself.
This is a well structured blog which concisely summarizes the entire chapter well. One particular highlight was your ability to seamlessly integrate Hoffman’s and Zahra’s ideas despite the time difference in both subject matter and publication date. The only criticism is that the citations are not complete, especially regarding Hoffman.
This is a very good post. Your introduction is strong and shows the reader what you are going to discuss in the rest of your post. I liked your analysis of the changing attitudes toward “lost children” and what should be done with/for them. Also, good connection to Hoffman and the modern state, explaining why countries wanted “lost children” to become their citizens. One small thing: the reader doesn’t know where you got Hoffman’s ideas from, so I would just state the article name. Other than that, very strong and well written post.
The description of the plight of interwar European children that you put forth in this blog post is both informative and poignant. Your prose was creative but never distracted from the purpose of summarizing and commenting on Zahra’s text. I thought that your choice to discuss the introduction and first chapter of The Lost Children in the context of Hoffman’s thesis on social welfare was prudent. My sole recommendation is that you could perhaps end your post with an original conclusion that expounds on the texts you discuss rather than simply closing with a basic summarization of the aforementioned ideas.
This post shows a great understanding of the chapters read, and is quite informative without resorting to simply summarizing the information too much. I especially liked the connection you drew between the psychological reconstruction of childhood and the reconstruction of Europe after both World Wars in your final paragraph. My only criticism would be that the prose becomes repetitive at times.