The Russian DPs

Abstract

ALMOST five years passed since VE Day-the day when the Russian prisoners of war, refugees, forced laborers, wholeheartedly rejoiced and thanked God for their liberation. Forced labor, gas chambers, the atrocities of the Germans, such as history will never forget, were behind. A new life in free countries, that was what these people were hoping for, but their joy did not last long. Words which were worse than death itself, spread like wildfire throughout the camps: Repatriation, Yalta Agreement. For once the great principles of the United expressed in the words of President Washington, who stated that and more a safe and propitious asylum for the unfortunates of other countries, would be given by the United States, were broken. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Russians were repatriated by force and sent back home. These Soviet citizens knew only too well the horrors that were awaiting them in their country; they knew that even if they were not shot at once, they would be chained like criminals and sent to forced labor camps in the Arctic where for many months they would not see the rays of the sun and would finally die of exhaustion, malnutrition, and cold. . . . Many preferred committing suicide. But they were even deprived of this privilege. The prisoners were watched day and night. Knives, scissors, ropes, anything that they could use to commit suicide were taken away from them. Only a few succeeded in hanging themselves or opening their veins with razor blades. Some three to four hundred thousand Soviet citizens succeeded in escaping. They hid in the forests of Germany and Austria, in the ruins of the cities, in the villages. Every one of these was eager to give up his country. Overnight they became Poles, Serbs, Ukrainians, or Balts. Thousands of Soviet Russian DPs were kept in camps-Russian prisoners of war, former Soviet citizens who were taken for forced labor by the Germans, and those who fled from Russia with the retreating Germany army. These people did not mind living in the cold, crowded barracks, they did not feel the hunger-their only wish was to escape to freedom. Soviet repatriation units were operating in all the zones of Ger-