History 25/02/20 What Soviet citizens fled to the West after world war
the Problem of human losses of the Soviet Union in the great Patriotic war exists in our days. There is still no precise data, historians use figures from 20 to 64 million people. Even more the issue of “defectors” – those who, being driven to work in Germany or becoming prisoners of the concentration camps, chose to remain in the West. Moreover, in addition to Europe, the USA and Canada our former compatriots came right up to Australia.
“They chose freedom”
Hard to blame them in this: many, past the infernal circles of captivity or a little less monstrous working conditions of the Ostarbeiter, waiting for the return of the years of opinions in the Gulag.
During a meeting of the heads of the allied powers in Yalta repatriation to the USSR was declared mandatory. However, it was subject only to Soviet citizens, it has not spread to the former subjects of the Russian Empire. But at first, the British, seeking to satisfy the maximum claim Stalin gave the Soviet leadership, for example, several hundred thousand Cossacks. Forced repatriation was accompanied by the use of weapons from the British, there is evidence that did not spare even women and children. In the USSR of the Cossacks, especially serving ataman Krasnov, waiting for reprisals for participation in the war on the side of the Nazis. So red reached for the remnants of the white, still continuing the armed struggle.
the Commissioner of the Council of people’s Commissars (Council of Ministers) of the USSR on Affairs of repatriation counted 5 million deported Soviet citizens, of which over 3 million were in the zone of occupation of the allied forces, and about 1.7 million prisoners, including those who served in the police or the subsidiary of the enemy.
the Difficulty was the repatriation of the inhabitants of the Western Ukraine joined the Soviet Union only during the “liberation campaign of the red army” in the autumn of 1939.
the analysis of the written IPof sources, including letters and diaries, held by the historian Victor Zemskov, showed that up to 80% of Eastern Ukrainians and Belarusians returned to the Soviet Union quite willingly. Lived before the war in the Baltic States, Western Ukraine and Belarus, the right-Bank Moldova and Northern Bukovina were not torn in the Soviet Union. From the zone of Soviet occupation “Westerners” were repatriated by force. Allies also passed the USSR only those who agreed to it voluntarily.
At the beginning of the spring of 1946, were 5.3 million immigrants and about 0.5 million “defectors”. That’s how much the West could take without economic and other problems.
Machine repatriation
Moving and handling so many people demanded the establishment of an appropriate mechanism. And it was created.
the bulk of the returned were checked and filtered in camps and refugee and transit points (SPP) of the people’s Commissariat of defense and screening points (FAP) of the NKVD. Spare military unit was the site of filtration of prisoners of war. The identified perpetrators where suspicion was tested thoroughly already in the NKVD, from February 1945 at checkout and filtration camps (PFL) of the NKVD and of correctional labor camps (ITL) of the GULAG. Tested in PFL and the labor camp was considered a special contingent of the NKVD. They were policemen, Vlasov and others who voluntarily collaborated with the Nazis.
the work of the network receiving and filtering worked as scrutiny of displaced persons and to identify criminals, and provide centralized accounting, food and medical care. Returning to the arrival to the place of residence were fed on a normal the rear of the red army. In camps and SPP immigrants resided up to two months. In this case, the term “camp” describes not a place of imprisonment, and the Assembly point, located in Europe or Poland.
Konstantin Baranovsky
Source:
© Russian Seven
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