Romanian prisoners in the USSR after the Second World War. Romanian prisoners in the USSR after the Second World War Liberation of prisoners from Romanian concentration camps

I have previously addressed the topic of the situation of Soviet prisoners of war in Romania during the Great Patriotic War:


The excerpt quoted below from the monograph of famous historians Pavel Polyan and Aron Shneer, “Doomed to Perish. The Fate of Soviet Jewish Prisoners of War in World War II: Memoirs and Documents,” allows us to dot many i’s in this issue:

“Romania acted as a typical junior ally, or satellite, coordinating with Berlin almost every step both in the Romanian occupation zone (Transnistria) and in Romania itself. This fully applied to the maintenance and labor use of Soviet prisoners of war, as well as forced labor of peaceful Soviet citizens on the territory of Romania.
In all operational matters of the military partnership with Romania, German dominance was completely obvious. With the exception of the battle for Odessa, which lasted until mid-October, when Romanian troops conducted an independent offensive operation, they were completely integrated into the German armed forces (for example, in the Crimea or in the Stalingrad direction).
The Barbarossa plan provided for the following distribution of areas of responsibility for captured Red Army soldiers: the OKW was responsible for the territory of the Reich and the General Government, and the OKH, represented in Romania by the German Army Mission (Deutsche Heeresmission Rumänien), was responsible for the operational zone in the USSR and Romania. Note, not the allied Romanian army, but the German body connecting it with the Wehrmacht.
That's how it really was. Questions about the fate of the Red Army soldiers captured in the east by the joint efforts of the Wehrmacht and the Romanian army or by the efforts of the Romanian army alone were resolved not in Bucharest, but in Berlin.
The territories occupied by German and Romanian troops subsequently formed three governorates, of which two (annexed in 1940 by the USSR) were annexed to Romania - Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, and the third - Transnistria with its capital in Odessa - was transferred to the Romanian protectorate under the Tiraspol Treaty of August 30, 1941 (this was a kind of compensation to Romania for most of Transylvania, which it had to cede to Hungary in 1940).
(...)
According to the encyclopedic dictionary “The Romanian Army in the Second World War (1941-1945)”, published in Bucharest in 1999, for the period between June 22, 1941 and August 22, 1944, i.e. during the fighting between the Soviet and the Romanian armies, the Romanians captured 91,060 Soviet troops.
Prisoners of war came from the zone of operation of the Romanian army, in particular, 21 thousand arrived from Transnistria and 19 thousand from Crimea. About 2 thousand prisoners of war were on the ship sunk by a Soviet submarine in the Burgas area, and only 170 of them survived.
Of the 91,060 Soviet prisoners of war, 13,682 people. were released from captivity (Romanians - and most likely Romanians and Moldovans - from Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia; Volksdeutsche Germans were transferred to the German side and, most likely, were not registered), 82,057 were delivered to Romania, 3,331 escaped and 5,223 (or 5, 7%) died in the camps. This is a disproportionately small value compared to the mortality rate of Soviet prisoners of war in Finnish and, especially, German captivity.
12 camps were created for Soviet prisoners of war, two of which were located outside Romania - in Tiraspol and Odessa. In Romania itself, according to Romanian historians, there were 10 camps, but the list of camps mentioned at least once in their text slightly exceeds this number. These are: Slobodzia, Vladen, Brasov, Abajesh, Corbeni, Karagunesti, Deva + Independenza, Covului + Maia, Vaslui, Dornesti, Radouti, Budesti, Feldiora, Bograd and Rignet.
Responsible for prisoners of war was the Gas Kommando der Streitkräfte für Innere Verteidigung under the command of General Haritan Dragomirescu. The camps were guarded by the Romanian gendarmerie with a strength of 4,210 people as of August 1, 1942. (216 officers, 197 non-commissioned officers and 3,797 soldiers).
Living conditions in the camps, in accordance with international law, varied significantly for officers and soldiers: the former lived in stone houses, the latter in wooden barracks, and in the fall of 1941, partially on the ground, in the open air (stoves for the barracks received only in 1942). In medical terms, the camps for Soviet prisoners of war were served by more than 150 doctors - 6 Romanian, 66 Jewish and 85 Soviet.
Of the 5,223 deaths, only 55 were officers and 6 junior officers. The rest are soldiers, with the most deaths in Budesti (938 people), Vulcan (841), Vaslui (799) and Feldoara (738). Among the causes of death are typhus (1,100 people), accidents at work (40 people), and escape - 18 people. Total 12 people. was shot, and 1 committed suicide.
One of its prisoners, Dm., spoke about the hell that actually lies behind the “leadership” in mortality of the camp in Budesti. Levinsky. Captured in July 1941 near Berezovka by the Germans, he was taken to a collection point near Chisinau, from there, in August, to Iasi, and in October to a transit camp in Budesti (first in quarantine, and then in the main camp), and in in all three cases the camps were guarded by the Germans.
“We quickly understood the essence of the concept of a “transit” camp: here no one beat us and, moreover, did not kill us on purpose, but the incredible conditions that awaited us caused a high mortality rate among prisoners of war in the winter of 1941-1942, which made it possible to equate this camp to the “extermination camps for the enemies of the Third Reich.” Many of us also had to become acquainted with such places. But in this camp everything was extremely simple: they won’t kill you - you will die yourself. If you survive, it’s your happiness, and if you don’t, that’s your fate. We could not change these conditions.
At first, for about a month, we were kept in “quarantine”: in a huge high barracks without windows or doors. It appears that this room was previously used to store hay or straw. The outside of the barracks was surrounded by barbed wire. No one “controlled” us, no one needed us and we could lie on the ground to our heart’s content and joke around. But soon life in the barracks became torture.
November came, and with it came cold weather. This winter promised to be frosty even in the very south of Romania. The barracks were drafty - there was no gate. Inside the barracks, ice icicles first formed, and then real icebergs. Cold became the second enemy after hunger. The only way to warm up was by jumping, but we didn’t have enough strength for that - we gradually turned into dystrophics. The diet deteriorated and decreased every day. Many developed gastrointestinal diseases. Others faced death from pneumonia. Furunculosis, rash, various phlegmons, bloody diarrhea, consumption developed - it’s impossible to list everything. With the onset of frost, frostbite began to develop on the extremities. Oddly enough, the majority greeted the death that decimated everyone calmly, as a matter of course: there was no need to come here!
In mid-November, when there were fewer and fewer of us, and it became completely impossible to live due to the onset of frosts, we were transferred to the main camp, considering that the quarantine had done its job...
The barracks in the main camp were wooden, one-story, and small. They usually housed no more than 200 people, but every day there were fewer and fewer people alive. There were shavings and sawdust on the plank floor on which we slept. During the day, these shavings were supposed to be raked into a corner so as not to walk with your feet “on the bed.”
We recognized another enemy - the typhoid louse. It was terrible: in a short time, the nasty creatures multiplied in such numbers that the pile of shavings in the corner of the barracks was moving. It seemed as if there were more lice in the pile than shavings. During the night we got up many times, went out of the barracks onto the street, tore off our clothes and frantically shook out the blood-sucking creatures into the snow, but there were so many of them that, naturally, we could not get rid of them right away. Therefore, we began the second stage of cleansing: we now long and persistently crushed those that were hidden in the seams of linen and clothes. This continued every night, but not everyone could afford such a luxury, but only those who still had strength left, and complete indifference to everything did not set in with only the expectation of death as a deliverer. Those who hoped to ensure a good night spent their entire daytime on the “lose-breaker.”
The air temperature in the barracks is outside. We were dying from the cold, but the insects were so tenacious that it seemed that they were not afraid of frost at all.
It was we who warmed them with our bodies, giving away the last warmth.
Typhus has come close to us. People were already running around in a fever, but we didn’t understand what kind of illness this was. They thought it was a cold or pneumonia, or something else. Since we were young, we have not encountered typhus...
We slept on the floor, on shavings, side by side in rows, huddled closely together for warmth. In the morning you wake up, and your neighbor is already “knocking” - he died overnight and is numb by the morning. Every night death took someone's life. In the morning we carried out the bodies of the dead and placed them in a drainage ditch running along the barracks. There the corpses accumulated for a week, the height of such “graves” reached the windows of the barracks.
The corpses were usually undressed - the living needed clothes... Once a week, we had to carry the bodies accumulated along the barracks 100 meters to the side and lay them in rows on top of each other in specially dug trenches. Each row was sprinkled with bleach, and then the next row was laid, and this continued all winter...
But, in general, we were so accustomed to the naked bodies of our compatriots lying around the barracks that dragging the corpses seemed like an ordinary job, and the end was clear to everyone. Why emotions?
This quote alone casts serious doubt on the complete reliability of the declared and comparatively favorable 6 percent mortality rate among Soviet prisoners of war in Romania. “Suspicions” grow into confidence after becoming acquainted with some documents of the Red Army that liberated Romania.
Thus, the “Act on the atrocities of the German-Romanian fascist invaders in the camp of Soviet prisoners of war (Feldiora camp, Brasov district, Romania)” speaks of 1,800 tortured and dead prisoners of war, which is 2.5 times higher than the official Romanian figure (738 people - see . higher). According to this document, dated September 7-13, 1944, the commandant of the camp was the Romanian Ion Nitsescu, and the head of the punitive section was the German, Lieutenant Porgratz. The camp was guarded by a company of Romanian gendarmes of 120 people, armed with rifles and batons (there were machine guns on towers along the perimeter of the camp, surrounded by barbed wire). The dead, tortured and murdered prisoners of war were thrown into a pit near the Vladeni-Faderas highway near the construction of the tunnel.
“For the slightest violation,” we read in this “Act,” “prisoners of war were punished with a “punishment cell” for 2-3 days (the punishment cell consisted of a box like a closet with an area for one person with windows), a man howled like an animal from exhaustion, every passing gendarme beat with his stick.
Those escaping from the camp were detained, subjected to beatings, in one case with 40 batons on their naked bodies, in another case - 15 batons in each section (barracks - P.P.), after which they were imprisoned in a damp basement for 20 days, and subsequently they were put on trial and sentenced to hard labor or execution. Thus, prisoners of war Sheiko, Gubarev and others were beaten and put on trial...”
Soviet prisoners of war in Romania were actively involved in forced labor. The same Romanian source speaks of approximately 21 thousand mining workers from among them (compare below with information about civilian workers). As of the beginning of January 1943, 34,145 Soviet prisoners of war were working, at the beginning of September 1943 - 15,098, and as of August 1944, when Stalags from Ukraine apparently began to be exported to Romania - 41,791 people. , with 28,092 of them working in agriculture, 6,237 in industry, 2,995 in forestry, 1,928 in construction and 290 in railways.
The above-mentioned “Act” tells about the conditions of their labor use: “Soviet prisoners of war, undressed, hungry, exhausted and sick, worked 12-14 hours a day. Those lagging behind in work were beaten with batons (sticks). Soviet people worked in the cold without shoes or clothing, made shoes out of straw, and put straw under their shirts to warm their bodies. The gendarme, who noticed this, took away the straw shoes, shook the straw out of the shirt, and beat the prisoner of war with batons... For failure to show up for work, sick prisoners of war were imprisoned in the basement for 10-20 days without the right to access the air and given 150 grams of bread and water per day.”
Jews were subjected to particular abuse: they were kept separately, and, as the document says, “there was no limit to abuse.” One prisoner of war, whose last name was Golva (or Golka), was recognized by the camp administration as a Jew and drowned in the latrine.
Thus, the genocidal orders of Keitel and Heydrich, aimed at identifying prisoners of war among the masses and the immediate destruction of the identified Jews, were also in effect in the area of ​​​​responsibility of the Romanian army, and almost until the very end of its military operations.
And yet, unlike Germany, Romania did not deny Soviet prisoners of war all the rights arising from the international status of prisoners of war. The camps for Soviet prisoners of war, although rarely, were visited by representatives of the IWC. Thus, on July 1, 1942, camps No. 4 Vaslui and No. 5 Independenza were visited by the nuncio Monsignor A. Casulo, the Vatican Ambassador in Bucharest and, concurrently, a representative of the ICC, and on May 14, 1943, an ICC delegation from Geneva (Ed. Chaupissant, D . Rauss) visited the camps of Bucharest, Maia, Calafat and Timisoara. They were not prohibited from postal correspondence either, although it was very limited: more than 2,000 postcards were sent to representatives of the ICC (although only 200 of these postcards were for the period before July 1, 1942). Beginning in 1943, special newspapers for prisoners of war began to be published: one in Russian and one in Armenian.
As of August 23, 1944, there were 59,856 Soviet prisoners of war remaining in Romanian camps, of which 57,062 were soldiers. As of August 23, 1944, 59,856 remained in Romanian campsSoviet prisoners of war, of which 57,062 are soldiers. Their national composition, according to the same source, was as follows:
Table 1 National composition Soviet prisoners of war in Romania .

Gusen concentration camp, also known as Mauthausen-Gusen. Austria.

As a result, the committee made a rather passive and not the best decision - in the event of a threat of mass execution, there was no other alternative for us but to throw the whole world at machine guns. Some will have to die, while others will survive. Otherwise everyone will die.
An organized uprising in Gusen could not be carried out. The committee understood this well: the Polish officers' league never coordinated its actions with the small international committee, but more often did the opposite, precisely in strict narrow national interests.
All this threatened at the last moment with civil strife. The Polish League was simply afraid of a prisoner uprising and would never have allowed it. This was confirmed by subsequent events.
In addition, the Poles worked in the economic support of the SS barracks and in other vital services of the camp and knew well where the weapons were stored.
They vigilantly ensured that no one in the camp, except the Poles, could get their hands on weapons at any given hour. This was Gusen's tragedy.
In Mauthausen, the nationalist Poles were opposed by a more united international brotherhood, and there were more supporters of the new people's Poland there.

The main purpose of the concentration camps Gusen I, II and III was "extermination through labor." The most cruel person was Karl Chmielewski, SS Hauptsturmführer (he is on the right in the picture). At one time he was the commandant of the Herzogenbusch concentration camp.
After the war he went into hiding for a long time. In 1961, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 282 people. In 1979 he was released due to health reasons. Died in 1991.

With us, everything was different, and therefore every night until the morning we stood at the wide open windows - each on his own block - without moving, sensitively listening to any sounds from the gate, waiting for everything.
We caught every drunken cry, random commands, every flapping, cracking, clanking of broken bottles, single shots. At any moment we are ready to rush to the machine guns - we have no choice! The entire camp did not sleep. Everyone was expecting any kind of outcome.
The SS men did not waste time: they drank at night and covered up the traces of their criminal activities during the day. They feverishly burned documents, “Books of the Dead” (“Totenbücher”), correspondence, reports, card index sheets, command orders, instructions and various brochures.

Soviet prisoners of war. Gusen, October 1941

Finally, on May 2, the day of the final fall of Berlin, our fate was decided: the Mauthausen leadership transferred the guard of the camps to other structures, and the SS men had to go to the front against the Red Army.
On the Enns River, the SS division “Totenkopf”, or rather what was left of it, was still trying to hold the defense. On the night of May 2-3, the SS men left the camp.
So, on May 2, Officer Kern from the Viennese security police became the new commandant of Mauthausen, and at the same time Gusen, and paramilitary police units of Vienna firemen began guarding the camps.
They turned out to be mobilized elderly people dressed in blue uniforms, and it immediately became clear to us that these “warriors” were not going to shoot at us.

The central "gate" (entrance) in the Gusen concentration camp.

In connection with the changed situation, the committee also made a new decision: we came into contact with each of these peace-loving elders and entered into a gentleman’s agreement with them - we undertake to sit in the camp as quietly as mice until the arrival of the Allied or Soviet troops, so that they, our guards, it was served calmly.
In return, they promised to fulfill our request so that not a single “mouse” would disappear from the camp, to which they immediately agreed.
There were still many SS accomplices left in the camp, and they should not have fled the camp - they were awaiting trial. By the way, the third battalion of the Volksturm, dressed in a yellow uniform, was not sent to the front in a hurry, and it was stuck in the camp. The “volunteers” themselves were not eager to go to the front, but they also felt uncomfortable in the camp.

The last day of Mauthausen and Gusen has arrived - May 5, 1945! It turned out to be sunny and bright. In the morning everyone felt that something was going to happen today.
Artillery cannonade rumbled very close, but only in the east. In the west, American troops advanced without a fight. Whose troops will liberate the camp? Many people care about this: some of us were waiting for the Americans, others for the Russians.
By noon, everyone who could climbed onto the roofs of the blocks and lay there, hoping to be the first to see their liberators. Kostya and I were on the roof of block 29.
No conversations could be heard. Everyone lay in silence. We weren't the only ones waiting. The Poles were waiting, the “greens” remaining in the camp were waiting, the capos, the blocs were waiting, the Volkeshturm “fighters” were waiting, the guards were waiting - everyone was waiting.

Austria. Liberation.

Who could practically survive in a concentration camp? The general opinion of eyewitnesses and participants in the events described above is as follows:
1. Individual prisoners from among the Germans and Austrians could survive, who were lucky enough to survive one or two months of camp existence and during this time achieve some privileged positions among the camp staff or get into a working team under a roof, which gave them a chance of survival.
2. Someone who himself was directly involved in the extermination of prisoners could survive, being involved in the camp administration within the framework of self-government.
3. Those prisoners whose professional suitability turned out to be necessary could survive: those who spoke various languages, knew typing, draftsmen, doctors, orderlies, artists, watchmakers, carpenters, locksmiths, mechanics, construction workers and others. They were involved in performing various tasks to service the SS and economic services of the camp.

4. Of the prisoners of non-German nationality in the period 1940-1942, only a few had a chance to survive this time: either they were very good specialists, or they were especially beautiful and young.
Then they got work under a roof and there they took refuge during the working day from constant surveillance by the SS men and capos. Basically in those years it could only be Poles and Spaniards.
5. In an act of national solidarity, the surviving Poles and Spaniards contributed at every opportunity to improve the situation of their compatriots, and thereby expanded the circle of prisoners who would subsequently survive the camp.
6. Individual Russian prisoners had chances; starting from 1943, Austrian and German communists began to actively help them, involving them in daily activities of anti-fascist resistance in the camp. If any of us survived, it was only thanks to these wonderful comrades who risked their lives to help us.
7. Finally, these prisoners should be included here who arrived in Gusen shortly before liberation. They survived because the camp was liberated. This category made up the largest percentage of those released.
These are participants of the Warsaw Uprising, Yugoslav partisans evacuated from Auschwitz, who were lucky to reach Gusen alive, and many others.

Austria. Liberation.

From the personal observations of many former prisoners who were lucky enough to be released, the following conclusions suggest themselves:

1. The Russians, Poles and Spaniards turned out to be the most resilient to the moral and physical difficulties of living in concentration camp conditions. They have a highly developed national identity.
They always tried to encourage and support each other. They knew where and who their enemy was, and they never compromised with the enemy. I'm talking about the majority whose life position was firm and unshakable.
In addition, the Russians and Spaniards together represented a single whole in their political beliefs. The Spaniards compensated for physical difficulties - climate - with strong moral qualities acquired during the brutal battle with fascism in 1936-1939.
For the Poles, the whole thing was spoiled by the officers' league, dividing them into a privileged class and ordinary people - in the conditions of a concentration camp this was not the best solution. Many Poles were helped by parcels from home, despite their theft by the camp authorities.

Austria. Liberation.

2. The Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks turned out to be somewhat weaker. The Greeks and Italians did not live in the camp for long due to what they considered to be the harsh climate. Guzen is located at the latitude of Dnepropetrovsk - for us Russians, this is the south. The French and Belgians had a hard time enduring the camp conditions and died from furunculosis and general degeneration.
3. It is more difficult to judge the Germans. The “greens” were still Aryans, and no one ever specifically destroyed them. It was more difficult for the “Red” Germans, the Nazis destroyed them, but this is their land, their language, fellow countrymen and relatives could be nearby - virtually everyone who lived until 1943 had hope of survival, and before that they lived not much better than and the rest.
The majority of our commanders and political workers, communists and Komsomol members served as an example of high moral spirit, no matter how much this statement grates on the ears today - you can’t remove the words from the song!
A lonely, confused man could not survive in the harsh conditions of a Nazi concentration camp. The ones who withstood the camp conditions better than others were those who knew how to live in a collective, obey it and participate in the common struggle.

Austria. Liberation.

Let's go back to May 5, 1945. By 1:30 p.m., most of the prisoners had gathered at the appel parade ground. By this time, those on the roofs had already noticed an American armored car approaching the camp.
The liberation of the camp happened unusually simply, completely prosaically and purely in an American way: an armored car drove onto the Appel-platz, either a soldier or another lower rank jumped out of it and shouted: “You are free!” made the appropriate gesture with his right hand and left.
True, the soldiers did one good deed, ordering the blue uniforms of our symbolic guard to go down, throw their carbines into the ditch and go home, which they willingly did.
A couple of minutes later, none of them were there anymore - the old guys were so playful that it was all they wanted!

Austria. Liberation.

Major Ivan Antonovich Golubev addressed us with a solemn speech. He congratulated everyone on their liberation, who had lived to see this bright day, and said that fascism is tenacious and will come our way more than once.
We all shouted joyfully in response to Golubev’s greeting, when one of our people reported the latest news: the Poles sent a machine gun to the camp, closed the exit from the camp, setting up their armed posts around Gusen.
As it turned out later, they quickly managed to pick up the carbines thrown by the guards into the ditch, but they also had other weapons.
Our euphoria ended instantly - the eternal question arose: “What to do?” Having formed a marching column led by Major Golubev, we resolutely moved to the appel parade ground and stopped there at a decent distance from the gate.

Golubev, taking two or three people with him, went to the Poles to clarify the situation: they had to make contact - there was nothing else left.
Ivan Antonovich was gone for a long time. Finally the envoys returned. We surrounded them closely, joyfully noting that they were not excited and were calm. “Everything is all right,” we thought, and Golubev, slowly, began to tell:
- The Poles received us quite friendly and explained the situation like this. While the chaos continues in the camp, it is better to keep the gate closed, at least for today.
The machine gun was installed “for the sake of it”, so that people would not be fooled in their joy and - who knows what anyone wants, but it won’t take long to deploy it.
We consulted with the French and Spaniards and made a joint decision - tomorrow everyone who wants to will leave the camp in an organized column. The French, Belgians, and Spaniards have already stated this.
We also invite you, Russians, to come with us to Linz: the Americans said that you will all be handed over for repatriation. The Soviets do not allow anyone to cross the demarcation line to their side, since the Vlasovites rushed in first, posing as former prisoners.

Memorial to the victims of the Gusen concentration camp.

After national anthems and rallies thundered on the Appellplatz, groups of young Russian and Polish prisoners who arrived with the last transports from other concentration camps, supported by many of the “old-timers” of Gusen, suddenly began a deliberate act of revenge.
For many of us who did not participate in this action, it was unexpected, disgusting, and terrible. Everything that the prisoners had accumulated during their stay in the camp spilled out, and people lost all control over themselves.
A wave of terrible lynching swept through the camp, falling mainly on the German and Austrian criminal camp personnel - against everyone who served the SS, against the capos and block workers.
They were dragged out from where they were hiding and literally torn to pieces. At the same time, some of the prisoners who spoke German suffered, as well as the “fighters” of the third Volkssturm battalion who were stuck in the camp.
They feverishly threw off their yellow uniforms and tried to hide even in cesspools, sewage and other similar places, but they were found everywhere and killed in the most merciless manner.

Memorial to the victims of the Gusen concentration camp.

Groups of former prisoners, who could barely stand on their own feet, brutally committed lynching. It came to monstrous scenes when everyone tried to reach at least one of the victim’s intestines and pull it out of the womb, after which they themselves fell from exhaustion.
God forbid we see what happened in Gusen: it was not for nothing that the Polish officers installed a machine gun on the gate. By the evening it became known that in Gusen-2, where there was no such machine gun, the Russians, along with the Germans, cut down some of the Poles who had offended them in other concentration camps.
Until nightfall, the Poles who were cut up in Gusen-2 were taken and carried to Guzen-1 for rehearsal. The more practical people, at the same time, took up something completely different: they broke blocks, made fires, dragged potatoes from underground piles and boiled them..." - from the memoirs of Sergeant of the 150th Infantry Division D.K. Levinsky.

Former prisoners of the Gusen concentration camp and soldiers of the US 11th Armored Division near the body of a murdered guard.

Soviet prisoners of war in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. Austria.

Romanian soldiers, 1943

The number of Romanian prisoners in the Soviet Union after World War II is not known with accuracy. Until August 23, 1944, when Romania joined the anti-Hitler coalition, approximately 165 thousand Romanian military personnel were missing, most of them being captured by the Soviets. After August 23, Soviet troops disarmed and captured approximately 100 thousand Romanian soldiers. According to official Soviet sources, which must be viewed with great caution, in 1946 there were 50 thousand Romanian prisoners in Soviet camps.

The history of these people, lost in the Soviet expanses, will most likely remain incompletely studied. Even though the Soviet archives have opened their doors, the huge number of documents, some of which have not yet been declassified, complicates the work of the historian. Romanian experts are trying to recreate the picture of the past as best as possible, one of them being Vitalie Varatek, author of the study “Romanian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union / Documents 1941-1956.”

Varatek told us about the difficulties he encountered in the Moscow archives in trying to establish the real number of prisoners.

“Today we don’t even know the exact number of Romanian prisoners of war. In the language of documents of that time, the term “missing” was used. If these people, while crossing some obstacle, such as a river, fell into the water, no one else knew what happened to them. One of my colleagues with whom I worked on research attempted to reconstruct the list of those killed in the Battle of Gypsy, and he told me that even to this day it is impossible to accurately determine the number of dead, captured and missing. These people are included in the category of missing persons, although no one knows what happened to them. And this is only in the battle on the Prut River. What happened on the Don, or during the crossing of the Dnieper, or at Stalingrad? "

The status of Romanian and other prisoners of war was determined by the Soviet interpretation of international law as it related to prisoners of war. Vitalie Varatek. “Prisoners of war in the USSR had a unique status, which in general followed the provisions of the Geneva Convention of 1929. However, there were also differences, given that the Soviet state was a state that was officially guided by the principle of class struggle, and a different approach was taken towards officers. The Soviet Union had its own interpretation of the issue of using the labor of prisoners of war. If the Geneva Convention established that the labor of prisoners could not be used in the military industry, or at any military installations, then the Soviet Union did not take this into account. However, Nazi Germany did the same.”

The toughest regime in the camps was the diet. Vitalie Varatek believes that, despite enormous ideological pressure, Soviet doctors argued that prisoners of war were subjected to a regime inappropriate for life.

“A lot of prisoners died from malnutrition. Russian historians paid very much attention to this fact. One Volgograd researcher, Dr. Sidorov, even published an extensive study on the evolution of POW rations throughout the war. He showed that decisions taken mainly in the second half of 1942 led to the death of many thousands of people. Being in an extremely difficult economic situation, and being forced to buy large quantities of grain from the United States, the Soviet state could not afford to provide prisoners of war with minimal rations. After the number of prisoners of war experienced a large increase, that is, after the battles of Stalingrad and the Don, a medical examination was even requested in the first months of 1943. Despite the cruelty of the political leadership, when every citizen trembled in the face of proletarian wrath, there were Soviet doctors who said that the officially provided food rations could not ensure a normal life. According to their calculations, the number of calories received by prisoners of war could only be enough to survive in conditions of immobility, lying down. What can we say about when they were forced to work?

Life for prisoners of war in Soviet camps was terrible. Despite the gloomy prospects, people continued to hope, and even tried, to do something. Vitalie Varatek.

“I saw the statistics of dead and sick prisoners of war. But there is also a more interesting statistic - those who escaped. Along with the names of those who escaped, there is also information about those who were caught and those who were not. 3.2% of those who fled were not caught, and most of those who were not caught were Romanians. I wondered why? An Italian researcher tried to answer this question and refers to the so-called Romanian mafia in the ranks of prisoners of war in the USSR. It is absolutely true that the first large batch, more than 30 thousand prisoners of war, consisted of Romanians captured at Stalingrad. We even found civilian evidence. An elderly woman says that in the morning, when she passed by the camp on her way to school, she stopped near the barbed wire fence and watched how the prisoners of war were lined up. The Romanians crossed themselves, and the Germans pointed and laughed at them. And then I realized that the Romanians adapted more easily to those harsh conditions, due to their Orthodox character. They found more understanding through this principle."

The generation of Romanian prisoners of war became a generation of harsh changes imposed on Romanian society by the communist regime, against the backdrop of the humanitarian crisis of the war. But the losses that Romania suffered in the USSR, and the suffering of its prisoners of war, have never been made up for.

The Germans began to fall into Soviet captivity in droves after the Battle of Stalingrad. In general, the conditions of their stay there could not be called favorable, but there were those who were kept in relative comfort and had a number of privileges.

Shock labor

According to Soviet archives, in total more than 2.3 million soldiers of the enemy army were captured. German sources claim that there were almost 3.5 million of them. Many of them did not return back to their homeland, unable to withstand the harsh life in the camps.

Enlisted men and junior officers were required to work, and their standard of living depended on how they performed their duties. The best lives were for the drummers, who received increased salaries and a number of other benefits.

There was a fixed rate of pay - 10 rubles, but a prisoner who exceeded the norm by 50-100% could receive twice as much. Brigadiers from among former Wehrmacht soldiers occupied a particularly privileged position. Their level of allowance could reach up to 100 rubles. They had the right to keep funds in savings banks and receive parcels and letters from their homeland.

In addition, the drummers were given free soap. If their clothes were worn out, the administration also changed them in a timely manner. From 1947, shops were opened in the camps where workers could buy milk and meat, as well as buffets where they were served hot meals and coffee.

Closer to the kitchen

Those prisoners who managed to get into the kitchen also enjoyed preferences. Usually Austrians, Romanians or Czechs were taken there, so the Germans tried to hide their origin. Wehrmacht private Hans Moeser recalled that those who worked in the kitchen tried to provide “their own” with the best food, tried to give them the best rations, and use good products when preparing food.

At the same time, for others, rations, on the contrary, could be cut. For example, the daily ration of a prisoner from among the rank and file was 400 grams of bread, 100 grams of cereal, the same amount of fish, as well as 500 grams of potatoes and vegetables. Anyone allowed into the kitchen increased the ration of bread and potatoes with vegetables for “his” by 200 grams, correspondingly reducing the portions for others by the same amount. Sometimes conflicts arose because of this, and then guards were assigned to the food distributors.

However, in most camps, rations were almost always less than stated and were not issued in full. Due to difficulties with food supplies, daily allowances were often reduced, but no one deliberately starved the Germans to death. Unlike the Germans, who abused prisoners of war in death camps.

With comfort

As the captured German pilot Heinrich Einsiedel recalled, staff officers and generals lived best in Russian captivity. The first representatives of the Wehrmacht's senior command were captured in February 1943 - a total of 32 people, including the commander of the 6th Army, Friedrich Paulus.

The vast majority of generals were kept in fairly comfortable conditions. As Boris Khavkin, editor of the Russian Academy of Sciences magazine “New and Contemporary History,” writes, the senior Wehrmacht officers were mainly stationed in Krasnogorsk near Moscow, in the Voikovo sanatorium in the Ivanovo region, in Suzdal and in Dyagtersk in the Sverdlovsk region.

Thus, in camp No. 48 in Voikovo by the beginning of 1947 there were 175 German generals. They had at their disposal spacious rooms where they lived in groups of three. The camp had a landscaped park with flower beds and walking paths, in which people were allowed to walk freely. Nearby there was a vegetable garden where the generals could work if they wanted. The vegetables grown there then ended up on their table.

In accordance with the “Regulations on Prisoners of War” of 1941, senior officers in captivity retained the right to wear uniforms and insignia, were provided with good medical care, and had the right to correspond with relatives.

The NKVD order of June 5, 1942 established a salary allowance for generals of 50 rubles per month. They received 600 grams of bread, 125 grams of fish, and 25 grams of meat per day. There are more than 20 products in total. In addition, the “privileged prisoners” were given 20 cigarettes and three packs of matches every day.

All these small joys did not concern those who served in the SS. Thus, the commander of the 1st SS Panzer Division “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler” Wilhelm Mohnke was first in Butyrskaya, then in Lefortovo prison, and then was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He served his sentence in the famous Vladimir Central Prison.

Important prisoner

Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus was also kept in the Voikovo sanatorium. The military leader's intestinal cancer was progressing, so he was provided with the best medical care and prescribed dietary nutrition. On holidays, the field marshal was allowed some beer. In addition, Paulus was engaged in creative work - wood carving, fortunately there was plenty of material around. It was in captivity that the military leader began writing his memoirs.