My Russian Orthodox dilemma

[Maria]

Sad, isn't it? That the two of them had to escape their British heroes so as not to be sent in the wrong direction ...

Lord have mercy.

[Lydia]

Nikolai Tolstoy wrote a book called "Victims of Yalta." It details the story of the British and Americans who "returned" Soviet POWs to USSR.
As Sinok said they were greeted home by a bullet in the back.(or worse)
I am proud to say that the Canadian officers refused to participate in this atrocity.

[сынок]

Nikolai Tolstoy wrote a book called "Victims of Yalta." It details the story of the British and Americans who "returned" Soviet POWs to USSR.
As Sinok said they were greeted home by a bullet in the back.(or worse)
I am proud to say that the Canadian officers refused to participate in this atrocity.

Thank You Lydia! It's like you read between the lines ... they ended up on a Canadian boat going to Halifax then ultimately Chalk River.

[jgress]

Very interesting, Sinok! I should just say it helps readability if you use quote blocks to intersperse your responses with a previous post. Changing font color but keeping your responses on the same line makes it hard to read.

[сынок]

Very interesting, Sinok! I should just say it helps readability if you use quote blocks to intersperse your responses with a previous post. Changing font color but keeping your responses on the same line makes it hard to read.

I apologize for that. It was an exhausting day and I wasn't paying attention to much of anything except 'getting it done'.

[Maria]

It took a long time to format this exchange between Sinok and Barbara.
What I have done in similar situations is to edit out comments and only answer questions.
In forum talk, this strategy is calling "picking one's battles" as it is not necessary to answer all questions
or respond to all comments.

Hi, Sinok [?],
It's a great event when someone like you returns to the Church. After 42 YEARS at that !

I stopped attending at 16 years of age, left school, left family .. it was the 60's - our world was rapidly changing ...

May we ask what dream you were chasing ??

Singing songwriting guitarist in hard rock & roll became my career choice/vocation ... didn't want to do anything else.

My curiosity is piqued. Don't be embarrassed if it is material or other. A lot of people try those avenues and find they don't work when God is calling us.

I am not embarrassed, it was a wonderful time full of travel with a very hedonistic lifestyle

I wanted to hear about your parents' experience in the DP camps.

Mother was captured Belarussian when village was destroyed. Put in forced labor camp building walls, barriers and trenches for Nazi defensive positions. She actually received war reparations from Germany for the last 20 years of her life.

Was that in Germany or Austria?

Germany

What was the sotry of your father ?

was young tank captain who was given this higher rank because of his education and nothing else. He hated the communists but went to fight because he hated the nazi more. He was wounded and captured in Battle of Kursk. Ended up in same camp as mother. Life was spared because of ability to speak four languages. British freed camp in 1945. Parents were kept in Bremen area as the chaos of what to do with all these 1000's of people took place.

Was he one of the hundreds or actually many thousands of Russian prisoners kept in Germany, then released after the war ?

Yes ... could not return due to Stalin/Churchill pact to return Russian soldiers to homeland so that they could collect a bullet in the lower back of skull for free. Sad, isn't it? That the two of them had to escape their British heroes so as not to be sent in the wrong direction ...

Yes, it is amazing that your parents were able to escape their British heroes. Were they told that they were going to be sent back to Soviet Russia? Did everyone know this? That your parents were able to escape is a miracle in itself. Were many able to escape?

[Barbara]

Thanks for the work to reassemble the post in a more easily readable way, Maria !
Our eyes are used to that style, too. He is new here, so it is understandable that he wouldn't know
the format right away.

Lydia's recommendation of "Victims of Yalta" is useful. I never heard of that but have been
incensed about that RANK TREACHERY for decades. I read about it in a novel of WW II when young
and never forgot that iniquity.
That's great that the Canadians kept their honor in this case.
I don't think the French participated either.

What a sad disillusionment. But how much all around was there when the dust cleared and people
began to wonder what they had been fighting for after all the propaganda and lies fed through the media.
Even a child could figure out that to ally with Stalin for ANY reason at all was playing with
the Devil. Only those socialists in the federal government and the British one [which had
supported Lenin from the time of his takeover of Imperial Russia in many secret ways]
must have been pushing for the alliance with the cruel Soviet leadership.
Then they complain about Hitler being a tyrant, but look the other way when it was Old Joe ?
So much hypocrisy throughout.

This incident of the return of the Russian POWs to Stalin's claws was surely the most obvious
evidence of that.

You know, it was a SURE sentence of death and this fact was perfectly well known to both
the British and the American officials.
I am remembering a Russian who had spent time in Italy because his father was in the opera.
When the son returned, he was captured immediately. They already knew ALL about him.
As someone who had spent time in a Western country, he was clapped into a concentration camp
immediately.

For, if there was no other reason to imprison the POWs from WWII, this excuse was given that
they lived in a Western country [Germany - Austria too ?]> Hence were tainted with
"imperialist thinking". OR, were considered by an unimaginably paranoid Soviet govt as
spies sent from Western intelligence agencies. Probably the latter were not even organized at all,
let alone for extremely tough, delicate missions like that.

On a pleasant subject, how did your parents meet at the DP camp ?
And when they came here, what were their reactions? Like, was it difficult to adjust to the
cultural life [lack of, that is] and general society ? Or they didn't have too much trouble to assimilate ?
What about the language for your mother ? Sounds like your father already spoke English
as one of his 4 languages perhaps ?