After World War II, the welfare workers of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and International Refugee Organization took care of refugee children in post-war Germany and assisted them in returning to their home countries. This article analyses the changes in welfare workers’ decisions about the future of unaccompanied displaced children of presumably Ukrainian origin in the light of the post-1945 transformations. It explores the relationship of transformations in the humanitarian approach to child resettlement with geopolitical ruptures between the former Allies after 1945. It aims to demonstrate that by 1947, welfare workers’ preconceived notion that the ‘best interests’ of Ukrainian children were served by reconnecting them with family and homeland, wherever possible, had given way in the face of political transformations that welfare workers confronted on the ground during the transition from war to peace. Despite their deep commitment to restoring children to their national and familial roots, they soon began to consider that allowing Ukrainian refugee children to emigrate was better for them than their repatriation to Soviet Ukraine.

二战后，联合国救济与康复署和国际难民组织的福利工作者在战后德国照顾难民儿童，帮助他们返回祖国。本文根据 1945 年后的转变，分析了福利工作者关于可能是乌克兰血统的无人陪伴的流离失所儿童的未来的决定的变化。它探讨了 1945 年后前盟国之间的地缘政治破裂与儿童重新安置人道主义方法的转变之间的关系。它旨在证明到 1947 年，福利工作者的先入为主的观念，即通过重新连接乌克兰儿童的“最佳利益”与家人和祖国，只要有可能，在从战争到和平的过渡期间，福利工作者在实地面临的政治变革面前让步。尽管他们坚定地致力于让儿童回归他们的民族和家庭根源，但他们很快就开始考虑让乌克兰难民儿童移民对他们来说比遣返苏联乌克兰更好。