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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
<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.
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.
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).
For those of you who expressed scepticism about the content of the OP, the BBC news story is here.
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”.
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.
