Children of the Enemy

Recently a young sister and brother named Sofia and Daniel learned many shocking things about their lives. Their last name was not Mayer, like their mother, nor Gisch, like their father. Their real last name, like their parents, is Dultsev. Furthermore, neither they nor their parents were citizens of Argentina who happened to live in Slovenia to escape crime in Argentina, as they had been taught. They were Russian citizens flying on their way to Russia, a country about which they knew almost nothing.

This is not unlike the case of Alexander and Timothy Foley who, upon their parents arrest for espionage in 2010, learned that they were not Canadian citizens even though the boys were born in Canada. Their real last name wasn’t Foley. It’s Vavilov.

In both cases and so many more the children of enemy foreign agents arrested for espionage discover that they are not who they were told they are by the people they trust the most. They don’t even have citizenship in what is supposed to be their homeland, although Alexander Vavilov successfully regained his Canadian citizenship after long court room battles.

These children do not speak the language of what is supposed to be their homeland. They may not even know anything about their parents’ country, their parents’ families, friends and customs and traditions of their native lands.

These people are innocent victims of the crimes committed by their parents. Worse, they are all too often seen as enemies of the countries they were told were their own.