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The Story of Leni Freiwald

  Published Date: September 6, 2016  3 Comments on The Story of Leni Freiwald
"They Called Me Leni," a book about a kidnapped Checoslovakian girl, sent to be raised in Germany.

“They Called Me Leni,” a book about a kidnapped Czech girl, sent to be raised in Germany.

Leni Freiwald is a fictional character from Czech writer Zdenka Bezdekova’s book entitled, “They Called me Leni.” She was born in Czechoslovakia in 1946 and named Alena Sykorova. Kidnapped from her home in Czech, she was taken to Germany to be adopted as Leni Freiwald, a pure blood German, to increase the German population. Her adoptive parents withheld her true identity from her and it was not until she found a suitcase in the attic full of her possessions from when she lived in Czech that she realized she had a family in Czechoslovakia. With the help of the UNRRA, Leni returned home to her mother, with whom she did not speak the same language (summary obtained from Scholar Tara Zahra’s article entitled “’A Human Treasure’: Europe’s Displaced Children Between Nationalism and Internationalism”). This story may be fictional, but Leni’s plight sheds light on the very real, and the very many kidnappings that occurred during and after World War II. The war left devastation in Europe. Children lost their fighting fathers, women were raped by occupying Russians, bombed cities were left in crumbles, etc. Population decreases became a major problem. With less people in each country, authority figures fought to move children from their countries of origin to places where they could fill the populations gaps left by the war. Oftentimes this meant international arguments over orphans and unfortunately this problem also led to kidnapping children, such as Leni. In the story, Leni’s parents withheld her identity. It was better for Germany as a whole to raise good German children who shared the German pride. Other countries adopted the same ideology as well. It all comes down to nationalism. How could a country full of displaced persons have a sense of unity? The solution was to move children. Tara Zahra describes children as being valuable as they were the easiest to assimilate (Tara, pg. 340). When Leni returns home and cannot speak the language of the land she was born in, it shows the disconnection the displaced children had with their motherlands.  Reading this book summary, I have to wonder how the need to be patriotic to one’s country could lead to this epidemic. Children were bound to be relocated, but to change their names and birth certificates so that they would not know their true identity seems unnecessary. Doesn’t everyone have a right to know their roots? I cannot help but be reminded of a quote from the popular film The Truman Show saying,“we accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.” Leni from They Called me Leni may not have accepted her reality, but many of the real kidnapped children most likely did. It is impossible to find out just how many people across Europe never had the chance to learn their true identities, or even find their real families if they were still alive. How could a German girl raised in France danger French patriotism simply because she knew she was born to a German woman? I ask this: was nationalism as a driving force good or bad? As humans, can we ever say that displacing children was a good thing? People were taken from their homes and their families to live in foreign lands. Some people died along the way. Was the recovery from the war better for it- as in did filling in some of the population gaps help progress? Or is this simply another dark piece of history we wish to bring to light? I believe the relocation of orphans aided in the rebuilding process many countries went through after the war. I cannot find any benefits in changing their identities or kidnapping children to have more valuable population additions.      Resources: Cohen, Gerard Daniel. In War’s Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. 3-34. Zahra, Tara. “’A Human Treasure’: Europe’s Displaced Children Between Nationalism and Internationalism.” Past and Present 210, supp.6 (2011): 332-350.

Author: Katie Anderson

3 thoughts on “The Story of Leni Freiwald”

  1. The story of Leni sets up a story that was all too common about DPs post-WWII, awesome pick! To answer your question, I think nationalism as a driving force is bad although in this case the outcome seemed to be positive. European countries became much more united through the process of rebuilding, and, as you said, I do believe that assimilating displaced children was one of the keys to successful rebuilding. However, I recognize the harms of promoting nationalism so whole-heartedly. With the war being fought over racial purity and ultra nationalism, it seems dangerous to play in these waters again.

  2. Leni’s story shocked me when I was reading the article. I think everyone should be able to know where they came from even if they were adopted, parents should not hide their origins from their adoptive children. It is not morally right for children to not know who they are and where they came from. I think that nationalism is good as long as it is not taken to the extreme. Nationalism helps bring people with similar backgrounds and cultures together. For example, in Switzerland they had the children separated into groups based on their countries and they seemed to do better in that setting. Even though they were not in their homeland they were at least surrounded by people who shared similar culture with them so they could feel a sense of unity.

  3. You did a really good job of highlighting the struggles that these children went through. So often the people who were in charge chose to look out for their own interests instead of the the children’s. I think that the wave of nationalism that made countries feel like they needed to kidnap and lie to children about their past was ultimately destructive and not the best way to handle the displaced persons problem.

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