Rūta Matimaitytė

Rūta Matimaitytė is a doctoral student at the Lithuanian Institute of History writing her doctoral dissertation on the topic of ‘Migration of Children to Soviet Lithuania (1944-1960): History, Memory, Trauma’.  Her research on the German children of East Prussia was awarded the Prize of the Department of National Minorities. During her Master’s studies, Matimaitytė went on internship at the German Historical Institute Warsaw. The researcher is actively engaged in the promotion of memory of the German children of East Prussia in Lithuania: she gives public lectures, and contributes to various projects involving schoolchildren.

In her dissertation Matimaitytė investigates the experience and destinies of the famine-driven children who after World War II migrated from East Prussia and Soviet Union – Ukraine, Russia and Belarus – to the Baltic States. In her research, Matimaitytė reveals various views and policies of Soviet authorities aimed at solving the problem of child-beggars in postwar Lithuania. Memory research also plays an important role in her research. One of the research problems is related to the impact that the silence on the topic in the Soviet period had on memory and why the German children of East Prussia are remembered today in Lithuanian public discourse, and memory of the Russian-speaking ones is ousted. Matimaitytė’s research interests span across the fields of migration, children, memory and trauma, as well as the application of oral history.