When World War II ended in Europe 70 years ago, it was a time of rejoicing for many prisoners of war, but not for all. American, British and most of the other POWs serving in the victorious forces of what was then known as The United Nations could look forward to repatriation and recovery. Russian troops unfortunate enough to be captured by the Nazis and sufficiently tough to survive the harsh treatment accorded to them because the USSR was not a signatory of the Geneva Convention could hope for little mercy from their own regime, which regarded them with contempt for surrendering to the enemy. So if not even all servicemen from the winning side had cause to celebrate, what about the defeated? For those German troops unlucky enough to find themselves in Soviet custody, the Gulag loomed; and it would be a decade before the last of them were released, an open wound in the collective German consciousness.
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