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The prodigals’ return: Voluntary repatriation from displaced persons’ camps in Europe to the Soviet Union, 1949-1950

Le retour des prodigues : le rapatriement volontaire depuis les camps de personnes déplacées en Europe vers l’Union soviétique, 1949-1950
Sheila Fitzpatrick
p. 529-552

Abstracts

After the end of mass (often forced) repatriation of Soviet “displaced persons” (DPs) from Europe after World War II, the Soviet Union continued to press its citizens to return, and some thousands did so each year up until the early 1950s. While the numbers involved were small, the process is of great interest to the historian because, after successfully passing through filtration, the repatriates were interviewed and spoke remarkably freely of the circumstances that took them to the West during the war, their experience after it, and why, after the passing of several years, they had decided to return. The untrained interviewers had no clear agenda, other than to find out what they could about the DP camps and get names of other potential repatriates, so the interviews ranged widely and included much autobiographical detail. As in any interview source, there is bias – but it is a different bias, and hence a different angle of vision on DP life and choices, than any other source provides.

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Excerpt

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Outline

The voluntary repatriates of 1949-1950: Overview
Modes of departure
Adventures in the West
Reasons for return
A joyful homecoming?
Arrest and “further observation”

First lines

“My heart filled with joy when the embassy official gave me the document with an entrance visa to the Soviet Union,” Grigorii S. wrote on board the Sestroretsk steaming across the Baltic Sea to Leningrad in September 1949. It was the end of his 42-month odyssey as a displaced person (DP) in Europe and elsewhere, and he was a voluntary repatriate. His jottings, written in high Soviet literary style, were entitled “What they don’t say” (O chem oni molchat), meaning that the West kept quiet about its capitalist exploitation. How glad he was to get away from that “rotten and decaying” world! As the boat sailed from London, “the radio performed joyful Russian songs and the Englishmen around the boat looked with envy at our Soviet people, departing for their Homeland.”

The reality was a bit grittier. Grigorii S. was among millions of Soviet citizens who found themselves on the wrong side of the borders at the end of the Second World War. Some were prisoners of war (POWs), captured while fi...

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References

Bibliographical reference

Sheila Fitzpatrick, The prodigals’ return: Voluntary repatriation from displaced persons’ camps in Europe to the Soviet Union, 1949-1950Cahiers du monde russe, 62/4 | 2021, 529-552.

Electronic reference

Sheila Fitzpatrick, The prodigals’ return: Voluntary repatriation from displaced persons’ camps in Europe to the Soviet Union, 1949-1950Cahiers du monde russe [Online], 62/4 | 2021, Online since 01 January 2025, connection on 19 April 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/monderusse/12654; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/monderusse.12654

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About the author

Sheila Fitzpatrick

Australian Catholic University/University of Sydney
sheila.fitzpatrick[at]sydney.edu.au

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Copyright

The text and other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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