WW11 – You thought it was over ?

[London_Calling]

So the war ended 55 years ago, eventually everyone went home and the Cold War started and ended. Or so we thought. The BBC news today included an interview with an Hungarian soldier who was captured by the Russians in 1944 and, because he seemed retarded, put in a mental hospital for 3 years. Then in 1947, the doctors realised he was just pretty simple so they sent him to a POW camp prison.

Because he wasn’t so bright he never managed to pick up the Russian language and so the guards just locked him up at night and fed him during the day. Since 1944.

All someone – one of the many prison doctors, for example - had to do was pick up the phone and speak to the Hungarian Embassy, ”Hey, come and take this guy home”, but no one ever did. Until this week.

I'm pretty sure I recall stories of Japanese soldiers wandering out of the jungle in the late 60's but this is a crazy story - the man must be at least 75 and wasn't ever accused of a crime. What do you all think - anymore people yet to go home ?

[triton277]

Yeah, I believe it. As a matter of fact, I am posting this reply from a Russian POW camp.

[Munch]

Damn. I must have missed the last 9. Curse this cryogenic freezer...

[BobT]

I think an episode of Star Trek dealt with World War 3. Wasn't that the Eugenics War that gave us Khan?

The sum total of genetic engineering gave us Ricardo Montalban?

[eyor]

actually, you only missed eight.
remember canada?
but then you were frozen, so you couldnt have

[Outrider]

Here's Cecil's column on the subject:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000310.html

[carnivorousplant]

Didn't Stalin kill his returned POWs because they had been subjected to Western ideas during their imprisonment?

[AWB]

Hell, LC, here in the US we had a war called The Civil War that was over 135 years ago. There's lots of people that don't realize that it is over. Just ask anyone of African descent how they feel driving through the South.

[Saint Zero]

Notice no one brings up the Spanish American war or WWI anymore? Korea has been mentioned recently, and Vietnam will always be around as long as their is a media to rub our face in it. The Civil War was a war no one really won in the long run.

Oh well..

[Outrider]

Originally posted by carnivorousplant
Didn't Stalin kill his returned POWs because they had been subjected to Western ideas during their imprisonment?

Yes, that's one of the reasons. A common tactic was saying that the returned POWs were guilty of espionage and collaborating with the enemy. That way they could be imprisoned/executed, resulting in the further intimidation of the general public. For an excellent work of fiction on this subject, try "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

[Lemur866]

Originally posted by carnivorousplant
Didn't Stalin kill his returned POWs because they had been subjected to Western ideas during their imprisonment?

Not exactly. During the war, returned POWs were put in punishment battalions. They were marched up to the front by NKVD guards with machine guns, issued rifles, and ordered to charge whatever German strongpoint needed to be taken. The guard troops followed after the punishment battalion softened up the strongpoint.

After the war, all returning POWs were sent to the Gulag for a variable number of years. This is what Solzenitzen was sent to the prison camps for. Although many many people died in the gulag, it wasn't always a death sentence, many people survived their terms and were released.

The idea wasn't that they were infected with western ideas (they were all captured by the Nazis after all), but that they had surrendered to the Fascists. Anyone who would do that was obviously a traitor.

[LouisB]

Originally posted by AWB
Hell, LC, here in the US we had a war called The Civil War that was over 135 years ago. There's lots of people that don't realize that it is over. Just ask anyone of African descent how they feel driving through the South.

How about all the people of African descent (I presume you mean African-Americans) who live in the South and love it?

How about all the African-Americans who have prospered in the South and who have as deep roots here as any white Southerner?

How about all the African-Americans who own businesses and property in the South?

Do you suppose they all feel--how? How do they feel when driving in the South?

[douglips]

Originally posted by Lemur866
Originally posted by carnivorousplant
Didn't Stalin kill his returned POWs because they had been subjected to Western ideas during their imprisonment?

After the war, all returning POWs were sent to the Gulag for a variable number of years. This is what Solzenitzen was sent to the prison camps for. Although many many people died in the gulag, it wasn't always a death sentence, many people survived their terms and were released.

There is a great song by Al Stewart (http://www.things.org/music/al_stewart) called Road to Moscow (lyrics/tablature) (http://www.things.org/music/al_stewart/lyrics/RTM) (history/lyrics discussion) (http://www.things.org/music/al_stewart/history/moscow.html) detailing the Russian war with Germany. In the end, the narrator is sent to Siberia (excerpt):

I'm coming home, I'm coming home, you can taste it in the wind the war is over
And I listen to the clicking of the train wheels as we roll across the border
And they ask me of the time I was caught behind their lines and taken prisoner
They only held me for a day a lucky break, I say, they turn and listen closer
I'll never know, I'll never know why I was taken from the line and all the others
To board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia
And it's cold and damp in the transit camp and the air is still and sullen
The pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I'll be home again, and the morning answers, never
And the evening sighs and the steely Russian skies go on forever.

By the way, I highly recommend 'The Best of Al Stewart' - it has this song and many other great tunes, many of a historical bent.

[Derleth]

<Minor nitpick>
London, you mean World War two (II), not World War eleven (11). That's the difference between the Roman system and the Hindu-Arabic system: The magic of place-value notation.
</Minor nitpick>
Carry on.

[London_Calling]

Hey thanks Derleth, I was pretty mystified by the cryonic freezer/Canada comments. Should have checked my OP – damn. I’d like to claim that maybe we had 9 WW’s in the known world before your neck of the woods started to appear on the map but that might be pushing it.

outrider, thanks for the link. Wonder if there's anymore lurking in a cave somewhere on Pacific island.

AWB – recently saw an interesting documentary about a black English journalist who took a drive through the ‘real’ South. Pretty amazing watching some people’s faces when he went to buy stuff – all their preconceptions of black people and English people suddenly got all confused – you could almost see the mental wheels coming off as they started twitching. And LouisB, I only said ‘some people’

Sorry for alarming everyone with the 9 extra big nasties.

[bibliophage]

The reason they didn't call the Hungarian Embassy was that no one knew he was Hungarian. No one knew what language he was speaking until a few days ago when a visiting doctor (from the Czech Republic, I think) recognized it as Hungarian. They had always assumed he belonged there. Remember that there were dozens of different languages spoken in the former USSR, and even in Russia itself.

That said, it can be argued that WWII has never ended. There has never been a peace treaty between Japan and Russia. The sticking point is what to do about the southern Kuril Islands (which are occupied by Russia but claimed by Japan).

[TomH]

For those of you who expressed scepticism about the content of the OP, the BBC news story is here (http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/monitoring/media%5Freports/newsid%5F863000/863501.stm).

recently saw an interesting documentary about a black English journalist who took a drive through the ‘real’ South.

I remember having an argument with a poster on these boards who expressed surprise that Black people from England spoke with English accents. Then again, I once had an argument IRL with somebody who insisted on describing Nelson Mandela as an "African-American".

[fredicus]

Just a thought ..

Do the russians on the Kuril islands send out for sushi ?

appys, slightly off topic ;)

[London_Calling]

Thanks, TomH (should have looked – it really is one hell of a web site).

Seems there is variance between the TV report I saw and the web site report. Web site is saying he was put in the fruit basket in ’47 (the Russians claim he might be schizophrenic – which might also mean he’s just slow and unable to communicate so they didn’t know what to do with him. Also, if they're not sure it's rather a long diagnosis.).

Biblophage – it’s not that difficult to recognise that someone is speaking a Slavic tongue. Just phone a few Balkan Embassy reception desks, put the POW on and ask if they recognise the language. Got to be better than feeding the guy for 55 years.

[carnivorousplant]

It seems to me that in fifty years they guy would learn eough Russian to say "There's a fish head in my soup" or something.

[TomH]

I think it's highly unlikely that during more than 50 years, the staff of the mental hospital genuinely never identified the langauge he was speaking as Hungarian. It's much more likely that nobody cared.

After all, "mental hospitals" were used as holding facilities for all kinds of undesirables during the Soviet period, many of them perfectly sane political dissidents.

[sailor]

I recently heard a kid reading pronounce World War I "World War EYE" <sigh>

Also just a couple days ago, visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (here in DC) I overheard a young man in his late teens ask if this was about Saving Private Ryan and his parents had to explain it wasn't... <deeper sigh>

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by TomH
After all, "mental hospitals" were used as holding facilities for all kinds of undesirables during the Soviet period, many of them perfectly sane political dissidents.

Good point, and it makes me wonder if there are any US Korean War vets in any 'hospitals' in Russia?

[nebuli]

it’s not that difficult to recognise that someone is speaking a Slavic tongue. Just phone a few Balkan Embassy reception desks, put the POW on and ask if they recognise the language. Got to be better than feeding the guy for 55 years.

Magyar, the language of Hungary, is not Slavic. It is not even an Indo-European language. English or Hindi are more closely related to the Slavic languages than Magyar is.

[Derleth]

Isn't Magyar an Indian (subcontinent) language transported there by invaders? I seem to remember the Magyars as being at least one of the tribes that invaded under Genghis Khan. It's interesting because the Gypsies speak Romany, another Indian tongue that got into Europe a long time ago. Side note: I wonder if Basque, one of the famous isolated languages, can be explained by some ancient Asian tongue transplanted by invaders.

[PaulGGa2]

There was a treaty dividing Korea into North and South Korea, effectivly stating that once the two were reunited and all the other treaties were carried out, WWII would be over. North and South Korea are still in a state of war...I wonder which side Patton is on. On a lighter note, this is only of interest to historians and diplomats, and has little practical implication as most people think the war ended when we got u-571 thus saving private ryan.

[Lemur866]

Originally posted by Derleth
Isn't Magyar an Indian (subcontinent) language transported there by invaders? I seem to remember the Magyars as being at least one of the tribes that invaded under Genghis Khan. It's interesting because the Gypsies speak Romany, another Indian tongue that got into Europe a long time ago. Side note: I wonder if Basque, one of the famous isolated languages, can be explained by some ancient Asian tongue transplanted by invaders.

Magyar is not from India, it is an non-indo-european language. Indo-european languages are those from europe and india, right? The idea is that the proto-indo-european speakers where nomads from central asia. Some of them went west and settled in europe, some went south and settled in India.

The Magyars settled Hungary during the 1200s or so. They weren't part of the Mongols, but another group of nomads. The only language it is related to in Europe is Finnish, another non-indo-european language.

Basque is probably an indigenous language. You have to imagine that the original inhabitants of Europe had their own languages. The protoIE speakers moved in and assimilated the natives. Most of the original languages died out, but a few (like Basque) remained. Think of what's happening with native american languages. After 500 years most indians speak english. Even if they know their tribal language most don't use it every day. Now imagine the same thing happening, but without written records of the colonization.

[Lemur866]

Originally posted by PaulGGa2
There was a treaty dividing Korea into North and South Korea, effectivly stating that once the two were reunited and all the other treaties were carried out, WWII would be over. North and South Korea are still in a state of war...I wonder which side Patton is on.


No. WWII ended in Europe when Germany surrendered, and ended completely when Japan surrendered. Remember when they signed the surrender on the battleship Missouri?

It is true that the Korean War is still going on, no peace treaty was signed, only a cease-fire agreement. But the Korean War wasn't WWII.

[bibliophage]

Originally posted by Lemur866
The only language it is related to in Europe is Finnish, another non-indo-european language.
Hungarian, Estonian, Lapp, and Finnish are all Finno-Urgic languages. The best guess is the the original speakers of this language group lived somewhere near the northern end of the Ural Mountains. They apparently had both Caucasoid and Mongoloid ancestors. As they pushed west, the Finns, Estonians, and Hungarians interbred with Caucasians so they are now genetically mostly Caucasoid (maybe 90%), despite their language. The Lapps are genetically about half Mongoloid and half Caucasoid.