Repatriation
Jaroslav Lansky.
After the Second World War, the Allies gave Stalin at the massacre of about two million people
Operation Kilhol "- one of the most shameful pages of British military history. So-called operation to oust the two million people, mostly prisoners of war from the territory Austria in the Soviet zone of occupation. This was done in May and June 1945 in accordance with the Yalta agreements, in which the British Government has pledged after the war, the Soviet Union to give all displaced persons who, in 1939 were citizens of the Soviet Union. Very many of the issued were subsequently shot or died in Soviet prison camps (this is often betrayed Russian, who had no previous Soviet citizenship - from the number of white immigrants). In the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, this operation was the "last secret of World War II."
its most famous episode - the deportation of the Don, Kuban and Terek Cossacks participated in the war on the side of Nazi Germany. Total in the Austrian town of Lienz was issued about 50 thousand Cossacks, including women and children. Exerted resistance were shot on the spot. Many suicide immediately or on a train on the way home.
against the Soviets
Kazakov can not be called innocent victims. The German command has allowed them to form semi-independent units comprising of Hitler's army before Vlasovites. After Stalingrad Germans are quite tolerant of the possibility of using part of the traitors. In November 1943, they promised the Cossacks returned to their ancestral lands, and the red and Naumenko were appointed to command the Cossack troops in the German army.
Despite antiquated equipment, the Cossacks fought fiercely but the farther away from its own territories, the more they have a growing sense of desperation. At the end of the war, the Cossacks were sent to Yugoslavia to the north to fight the communist Tito's guerrillas: born riders, they were more suited to mountain conditions and to act more effectively than motorized German units. Unfortunately, they waited here a sad fame. Entering the village, which was thought Cossacks, sheltering the guerrillas, they compared it to the ground.
In the last year of the war, many Cossack units were under the direct control of the SS and the end of hostilities chose not to resist, but surrender to the Anglo-American troops. Of course, the least they could have imagined that the British will get to his mortal enemy. Giving, Cossacks has been stressed, that all his life devoted to the fight against the Soviets, but never fought with the regular units of the Western allies, because they thought the British and Americans my friends. They believed that the union of England and America with Stalin is a ploy, and were confident that the war will soon enter a new phase - the West against Soviet Union. And expected to take part in it.
work for the Irish
handling of the Cossacks in the train was accompanied by numerous excesses of group attempts to escape before the murder of wives and children - by some accounts, twenty or thirty Cossacks killed their children that they are not educated godless Bolsheviks. In cars that came in the Soviet zone, often found dead. One of the Cossacks in some way cut his throat with a piece of barbed wire. In other cases, they were hung on the scarf or a rope of twisted cloth. Their comrades in the cars could easily prevent these suicides but did not.
granted Cossacks Soviet soldiers quickly assembled into groups and taken away. According to the memoirs of a Briton, the station, where he arrived on his Echelon was spinny. From this grove resounded long bursts. Although most violence is not seen accompanying guess that happens It was not hard.
British soldiers, whose share has fallen the task to accompany the train of prisoners of war on Soviet territory, experiencing this acute disgust. In the early days of the job performed the 2 nd Battalion London Irish Rifles, probably because the battalion commanders for some reason thought Irish suited for this kind of work more than the British. The commander of the battalion recalled how he had received an order to repatriate all prisoners of war and how was surprised with some vehemence Cossacks insisted on the impossibility of his return to the USSR. At first annoyed by his charges, all these desperate appeal and the horror stories about what awaits the Cossacks in the homeland. Some of the soldiers advised the Cossacks did not fool around and do not exaggerate - it was hard to believe that such things are possible. But when the first detachments of support began to return back quickly spread rumors that the prisoners taken away and shot.
commander of the Irish shooters reported to superiors that the situation is serious and his men are on the verge of disobedience. Bosses do not become especially to go into the matter. It simply withdrew London Irish battalion and replace it with another unit.
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