Repatriation

“Repatriation” refers to the return of millions of liberated forced laborers in 1945-47 to their home countries, specifically the Soviet Union. A considerable proportion of Soviet prisoners of war and civilian forced laborers who had already lived under the Stalinist regime were unwilling to return. In the territories formerly occupied by the Germans, Soviet reconnaissance teams searched for Soviet citizens who were forcibly returned to their homeland. Those affected were taken to collection camps and from there to so-called “filtration camps” behind the Soviet border, where checks were made to see if anyone was to be deported to a penal camp for collaboration or other crimes. Hundreds of thousands of these people were deported to Soviet prison camps for forced labor.