Pawns of Yalta : Soviet refugees and America's role in their repatriation

Mark Elliot's Pawns of Yalta is refreshingly concise and well-written. It touches on many aspects of Russians (and other Soviet citizens) involved in some manner with Germany during World War II, including repatriation, forced labor, POWs, and Vlasov's Russian Liberation Movement. For anyone wishing to study one of those aspects in greater depth, Pawns of Yalta is an excellent sourcebook and has a wonderfully thorough bibliography. For anyone simply interested in history, it is enlightening reading. Very good.-AmazThe Western allies and the Soviet Union agreed at Yalta that nationals of each found behind the other's lines during the liberation of Europe from German control would be turned over without regard to the wishes of the individuals concerned. In practice, this meant that the British and Americans often delivered Soviet citizens for imprisonment or execution in their homeland. This account of a sickening episode in history is based on thorough research into American archives and a mastery of the existing literature in English and Russian. Reviewed by Gaddis Smith in Foreign Affairs Summer 1982 Contents Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations and Acronyms Introduction: “The Desperate Amuses Man” 1. “Subhumans,” “Slaves,” and the “Army of the Damned” 2. Negotiating Repatriation: Toward a “Tightly Drawn Contract” 3. Repatriation of American Prisoners of War: “The Difficulties . . . Would Fill a Book” 4. Living Up To Yalta: “It Just Wasn’t Human” 5. Forced Repatriation and Growing Reservations: “The Cries of These Men . . . Still Plague My Memory” 6. The Soviet Repatriation Campaign: “Many Times . . . Comrade Stalin Called to Mind You Who Languished in Fascist Camps’’ 7. The Nonreturners: Betrayers or Betrayed? 8. The Repatriates’ Reception: “In Hitler’s Camps There Are . . . Only Russian Traitors’’ 9. The Pawns and the Party Line: “Traitors” Turned “Resistance Fighters” Conclusion: The West—Inept The East—Vindictive Bibliography Index