POW.

This is coolbert:

From a prior blog entry:

"Upon liberation, however, WAS NOT treated with great respect by the Soviet security apparatus. Rather, suspected of 'not having done her duty', being a spy, an agent of western imperialism, etc."

This the treatment meted out to Yegarova. Distinguished Soviet female combat pilot of World War Two [WW2]. A Soviet aviator, seeing 270 combat missions, then being shot down, captured by the Germans, held captive - - liberated, then subjected to harsh and unremitting interrogation by Smersh and NKVD security service types.

Repatriated Soviet POW's, Mistreated at the hands of their own government - - behavior that was typical - - standard - - beastly!

Soviet POW [prisoners-of-war], captured by the German, subjected to terrible and inhuman conditions, about two-thirds [2/3] perishing from a variety of causes - - upon liberation - - THEN treated as common criminals by their own government, bereft AGAIN of even the slightest amount of humane treatment, often executed or sentenced to terms in prison for which survival was an almost unheard of possibility!!

Even among them - - Yegarova - - a Hero of the Soviet Union!!

The paranoid world-view of Stalin prevailing - - the attitude being that if a person had been made POW, captured, THEY HAD NOT DONE THEIR DUTY, IN SOME MANNER COLLABORATING WITH THE GERMAN ENEMY, NOT SHOWING SUFFICIENT RESOLVE DURING COMBAT!! For the Soviet soldier in WW2, merely being captured by the enemy, quite often through no fault of your own, was considered to be TREASONABLE BEHAVIOR!!

Here with extracts from: "The Secret World" - - by the Soviet defector and security service officer Peter Deriabin.

"at least five million Soviet soldiers [were] taken prisoner by the Germans during World War Two [WW2]. The survivors, on their return from captivity, were individually judged, tried and - - almost automatically - - convicted of 'anti-Soviet' activity. They received sentences varying from immediate execution to imprisonment or deportation to Siberia."

"The actual fate of the returned war prisoners was regulated by authorities according to a rough sliding scale of their imagined 'complicity'."

Fates to include by percentage:

* "Twenty percent of them were either imprisoned for twenty-five years or shot."

* "Fifteen to twenty percent of them received jail sentences of from five to ten years."

* "Ten percent sent to frontier territories in Siberia for periods of not less than six years."

* "Fifteen percent went to industrial areas in need of work conscripts."

* "Fifteen to twenty percent were free to go back home [still with a blemish on their record!].

And for the small remainder:

* "The few who got off scot-free were those obviously too wounded or incapacitated to have prevented capture when it occurred."

[a sentence of ten years in the GULAG was the same as a sentence of death, so few prisoners could survive that long. Soviet authorities intended it to be that way. Poor and meagre diet, forced labor of the most strenuous type, disease, harsh conditions, etc. All took a toll that made a ten year sentence the same as a death sentence!!]

[According to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, during the times of Imperial Czarist Russia, a POW could be awarded with a title of nobility for having suffered under the duress of captivity and emerged from the ordeal with honor!!]

Hey, nobody ever said being a troop in the Red Army was ever easy!

coolbert.