Wolves at the Door
As the German army retreats from the Eastern Front in 1944, hundreds of thousands of German civilians endure aerial bombing and the besiegement of their cities. Among them are 12-year-old Asta and nine-year-old Pieta, sisters who live with their mother in the East Prussian city of Königsberg. Their attempts to escape lead them first to the Romincka Forest where their grandparents once lived, and then to a trip on the doomed Wilhelm Gustloff, an evacuation ship torpedoed by the Russians, where their mother loses her life. Following their rescue, the girls return to the forest along with a 10-year-old boy who sticks to them like a barnacle, thus giving the girls his nickname. But Barnacle, whose real name is Gerhard, has a knife and decent survival skills. The three children join forces with other orphans to survive both the winter and brutal Russian soldiers bent on revenge for the Nazi invasion of their country.
The fast-paced first-person narrative alternates between bold Asta and cautious Pieta. It explores the impact of war on children whose survival instincts remain despite losing the adults in their lives. The two girls are among the thousands of Wolf Children—orphaned German children and teens who populated the forests of Eastern Europe, only a fraction surviving the harsh winter of 1944-45 and some of them continuing to live in the forest long after the end of the war. The rapid succession of disasters that befall the protagonists doesn’t give readers much opportunity to rest and reflect, mirroring the constant crises Asta and Pieta face. This novel for middle-grade readers pairs well with those of Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, also set in Eastern Europe during and after the Second World War.
