By the time the Soviet army captured Stettin on 27 April 1945 , inmates and patients from the children 's home and the nearby children 's hospital had been evacuated to the Island of Rügen a short distance to the west , where an abandoned barracks building was reassigned to accommodate them . The " Children 's Barracks " , as it became known , also accommodated the smaller infants . Meanwhile , following a redrawing of frontiers , Stettin had become part of Poland , ostensibly to compensate for the Polish lands now incorporated into the Soviet Union . Evacuation to the island meant that Schnur would grow up , classified as a " parentless child " ( '' " elternloses Kind " '' ) in the part of Germany administered as the Soviet occupation zone . In April 1946 he was placed with foster parents at Natzevitz , a small village on the southern part of the island
redrawing of frontiers
Yalta Conference
Wolfgang Schnur