Cirrus@Austlit

'Children and young people from across Ukraine are being killed, physically and psychologically maimed, bereaved, orphaned, evacuated, displaced, forced into existence underground, separated from loved ones—perhaps most commonly their male relatives who must stay to fight under martial law—rendered translators and spokespeople for those who cannot express their experiences or needs in the languages of major news corporations, and made carers for injured or vulnerable relatives, as I write. They are also at risk of being trafficked by those who would exploit the chaos for profit (Eglinton). Suddenly, the items in our last issue on refugee children’s experiences during the First World War seem less distant, less historic, as comparisons are nightly drawn between the impacts on children then and now. For instance, comparisons between the kindertransport scheme and those to support children fleeing Ukraine have peppered television news in the UK. From babies in utero in Mariupol’s bombed maternity hospital, to kindergartens hit, to school-aged children whose places of learning have closed and reopened as places of shelter, to teenagers whose tertiary studies have been suspended so that they can join the Ukranian army or—in the case of international students—return to their home countries, young people and “children are not near the front line, they are the front line” (BBC News, BBC News at Six [9 Mar. 2022]).'  (Editorial introduction)