It is “rare to find so much as a single personal photo” of any of the 10,000 Soviet prisoners detained in Nuremberg, according to Lessau. Yet, like many Soviet POWs, the identities of Mehl’s rescuers remain lost to history as the soldiers were not treated with individual dignity. “I was happy that it didn’t get me,” he remembered many years later, “and I had the impression that the Russians were also glad to have found us alive.” Many enriched themselves from their labor.”Īfter a bombing raid in Nuremberg, a group of Russian slave laborers saved an injured nine-year-old German boy from the ruins of a hospital-frightened and buried under rubble, the young Otto Mehl was pulled from certain death by the hands of men who were supposed to be his enemies. “They worked in agriculture, in industry, at large locations and, although segregated from the rest of the population, even in small villages. “The Soviet prisoners of war forced to work in Germany were visible everywhere in everyday life,” said Preusse. Abuse of Soviet prisoners was an open secret. They were forced to clean rubble from streets. ![]() In Nuremberg they toiled at the Nazi Party Rally grounds to build Adolf Hitler’s Congress Hall, intended to be twice the size of Rome’s Colosseum. They were tortured in medical experiments. Penned together in open fields and without food, drink or shelter, they were forced to work in armaments factories to create weapons for their enemies. Western prisoners of war were allowed to do all of this-only Soviet and, later also the Italian military internees, were denied,” said Preusse.Ĭaptured Soviet soldiers were treated as slaves. They had the right to correspond with their families and engage in cultural activities. “Under international law at that time, prisoners of war had the right to be treated in the same way as German soldiers with regard to food, accommodation and medical care. Their mistreatment was largely due to racism, according to Preusse. Unlike many Western European POWs, Soviet prisoners were treated brutally by their German captors. The exhibit makes use of videos, photos, documents, maps and interviews to educate members of the public about the abuse of Soviet prisoners of war. Preusse is the curator of an online exhibit, “ An Unrecht Erinnern” (Reflect on Injustice), created in partnership with Memorial International Moscow and other human rights organizations. Ruth Preusse of the Haus der Wannsee Konferenz. “The Soviet prisoners of war are to this day hardly recognized as victims of National Socialism: the general public does not know that 3.3 million soldiers died in German captivity,” according to Dr. Ostracized by society, many were sentenced to die in gulags or ended their days in abject poverty. Yet Joseph Stalin and his regime condemned these survivors as traitors and cowards upon their repatriation. Some prisoners, like the pilot Mikhail Devyatayev, rose to extraordinary feats of bravery to sabotage German plans and escape. Hoping one day be reunited with their families, these men showed courage in their struggle to survive. Yet, unlike their surviving comrades celebrated in Russian victory parades and feted with heroic sculptures, these captives were disregarded both in Germany and in the former Soviet Union.ĭue to discriminatory treatment-which resulted in the deaths of over 60 percent of Red Army soldiers captured by the Germans during the war-Soviet POWs “had to fight for survival under catastrophic conditions,” wrote Hanne Lessau of the Museen der Stadt Nürnberg. Victims of forced labor and slavery, they number among millions of forsaken dead scattered throughout 3,500 known burial sites in Germany.
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