# WWII MIA found alive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 26, 2017, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357 "2017-12-26T21:54:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![KMS94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ad7895/32.png) [@KMS94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KMS94)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357/21 "2017-12-29T16:32:42Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > The IRS would certainly consider it nice, anyway. Especially as it’s all paid in one year, putting it into a high tax bracket. I’m not sure if it would be retroactive to a WWII soldier, but I paid no income taxes on my Army pay when I was deployed to an overseas combat zone. ---
**Author:** ![Rutherford\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@Rutherford\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rutherford_B)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2017, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357/22 "2017-12-29T16:42:19Z")
> [@KMS94](#): > > I’m not sure if it would be retroactive to a WWII soldier, but I paid no income taxes on my Army pay when I was deployed to an overseas combat zone. good point ! I was stationed at NAS Moffett Field CA 1966-1967 . Our Squadron ( VR-8) would allow any sailor wanting to re-enlist to become a C-130 crew member for 1 flight to Vietnam. While on the ground unloading in Vietnam, the re-enlistment oath was given and thus the entire re-enlistment bonus was tax free due to combat zone. ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2017, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357/23 "2017-12-30T16:51:34Z")
Reminds me of the real life story of Hungarian soldier András Toma. After being captured by the Red Army in 1945, he ended up in a Soviet mental hospital where, due to bungled record-keeping, no one knew that he was Hungarian and assumed that he was an insane person chattering in an invented language. Over 50 years later, a visiting doctor finally recognized his language, and he was eventually identified and repatriated to Hungary, where he was retroactively promoted to sergeant-major and given his back pay. I also found a source that claimed he was given a pension on top of that, but I’m not sure. He only survived a few more years, cared for by his younger half-sister. > **[András Toma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A1s_Toma)** > > András Toma (5 December 1925 – 30 March 2004) was a Hungarian soldier taken prisoner by the Red Army in 1945, then discovered living in a Russian psychiatric hospital in 2000. He was probably the last prisoner of war from the Second World War to be repatriated. > Because Toma never learned Russian and nobody at the hospital spoke Hungarian, he had apparently not had a single conversation in over 50 years, a situation of great interest for the fields of psychiatry and psycholinguistics. > Toma lost... ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357/24 "2017-12-30T17:00:02Z")
> [@Loopus](#): > > After being captured by the Red Army in 1945, he ended up in a Soviet mental hospital where, due to bungled record-keeping, no one knew that he was Hungarian and assumed that he was an insane person chattering in an invented language. Over 50 years later, a visiting doctor finally recognized his language, and he was eventually identified and repatriated to Hungary, where he was retroactively promoted to sergeant-major and given his back pay. I assume he must have had some genuine mental problems if he made no attempt to learn Russian in 50 years. ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357/25 "2017-12-30T17:43:42Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I assume he must have had some genuine mental problems if he made no attempt to learn Russian in 50 years. Supposedly the Russians originally sent him there because he was suspected of suffering from schizophrenia. That said, how easy would it be for an adult to learn a foreign language if no one ever makes an effort to teach him or even talk to him at any great length? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357/26 "2017-12-30T23:53:33Z")
> [@Loopus](#): > > Supposedly the Russians originally sent him there because he was suspected of suffering from schizophrenia. That said, how easy would it be for an adult to learn a foreign language if no one ever makes an effort to teach him or even talk to him at any great length? In 50 years? Pretty easy to learn enough to tell them “I’m a freakin’ Hungarian, you bunch of goulash-heads!” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2017, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357/27 "2017-12-31T01:02:00Z")
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that a Soviet mental hospital in 1948 would not have been a customer-friendly experience. Times were hard on the outside. I wonder how often they fed their customers? I also would not be surprised to learn that poor Toma may not have been crazy when captured, but 5 or 10 years later he’d be in pretty poor physical and mental condition. The next 40 years are all downhill from there. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2017, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357/28 "2017-12-31T01:13:52Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > This movie is about a similar situation: [The Return of Martin Guerre - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Martin_Guerre). It was remade in the U.S. as _Sommersby_ and given a post-Civil War setting: [Sommersby - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sommersby). > > The _Star Trek_ novel _Ship of the Line_, inspired by the _ST:TNG_ episode “Cause and Effect,” had a starship stuck in a time warp for several decades. When it finally emerged, its captain found himself the senior-most officer in Starfleet, with his choice (after retraining) of new ships. No mention of back pay that I remember. Something similar happens in Jack Campbell’s “The Lost Fleet” series, with suspended animation instead of time travel, with the twist that the Captain (Jack Geary) had become a legendary hero while he was asleep. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2017, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357/29 "2017-12-31T02:36:50Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that a Soviet mental hospital in 1948 would not have been a customer-friendly experience. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2017, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357/30 "2017-12-31T03:01:23Z")
> [@Loopus](#): > > That said, how easy would it be for an adult to learn a foreign language if no one ever makes an effort to teach him or even talk to him at any great length? He doesn’t need to speak it with any proficiency, just learn some basics. Any reasonably intelligent person should be able to pick some up within a matter of months just from figuring out the context in which words are used. That is, if they don’t have mental problems. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-mia-found-alive/805357.md?page=1)