POWs, The Soviet Union, Poland and Annie Applebaum.

[Franek Grabowski]

The reply from Marsayo is indeed very important.
While I cannot discuss the number at the moment, there is a vaery important thing said about filtration camps. From Marsayo's post we can lear that last POWs left them in March 1945, 10 months after the end of the war. To make it clear for our Western readers, this was not equal to demobilisation.
This means, that POWs remained imprisoned(!) for quite a lenghty period of time. Now, we arive to the differencies, so hardly acceptable by Andrey. Allied POWs remained as such as long as there was a transport available. Questioning procedure existed but it was a quick filling of a form. In case of any doubts a man could have been called back, but there was no reason to hold him behind the wire. They were quickly released and attached to units or demobbed. Just a different approach to a human being.
The same difference that could be shown on example of aviation designers. We all know, what is an award to a successfull designer - his design goes to production, he becames famous, gets profits, perhaps awards. What was the position of a Soviet designer? He could have been released from a prison! Should we consider both cases perfectly normal? Andrey, whom you are trying to prove being an idiot?
There is also an important note of reconstruction, dismantling and labour units in Marsayo's post. This is an euphemism for penal units, but not to be confused with shtrafbats, eg. of Gu-ga novel. Those were forced labour units subordinated to army and working on military installations. They often consisted of 'unstable material' like Poles or Ukrainians drafted befor the German invasion. A kind of different name for the same job.
Also a very interesting reading on impact of Soviet POWs on Gulag's infrastructure is in Anne Applebaum's 'Gulag'. The book is important because it is both based on official documents but also because it is quite easily available to Western readers.
A very interesting sentence written by Andrey in the context must be quoted here.

The tale about his gulag experience was created in late 80s - early 90s, when such stories were fashionable.

I think all our friends from the Eastern Europe, including for example Czechia, Hungaria, Poland, Rumania or Slovakia, may testify, that more less at the time it became not an offence to openly talk about participation in combats in the West, fighting the Soviets or Soviet reppressions. Of course, it caused some disproportions, obvious when the one takes in mind that those subjects were not existent for a half of century. It is obvious that there was some fashion, 'Dark Blue World' being a sample of it, but it does not mean it was not the truth.
I may agree that perhaps some accounts are exagerated, that the scale was actually smaller but it does not mean that those stories were invented because of 'fahion'.
Given the fact, the current president of Russia is originating from CheKa of many names, but still the same organisation responsible for Gulags, mass murderings, genocide and controlled virtually every aspect of life (to some critics of Bush - you really do not know what are you talking about), I have no illusions that dissapearance of old 'gulag fashion' could be actually another fashion to be in accordance with the current government.
Finally, not POW related but otherwise significant quote from Marsayo.

Of the total repatriated 4,199,488 had been filtered by 1 March (1,539,475 of them pows) and 57.8% had been released to go home, 19.1% had been reassigned to army units, 14.5% were working in reconstruction units, 6.5% (272,867 people) had been detained in NKVD camps and 2.1% were working in special teams dismantling industrial sites in Poland and germany for transport to the USSR.

Our Russian friends usually like to show the Red Army as a liberators of Poland. Well, I can understand that they were dismantling installations in Germany, at last it was a conquered country. But why they were doing that in 'liberated' Poland? Perhaps we will hear that it was built or modernised by Germans. Perhaps. But just see what could have happened if Britons and Americans had removed every factory back to foundations in a country which suffered from 6 years of occupation and a moving front. I would not call it a friendly behaviour, do you?
Regards
PS Yes, I think it was that Golubyev. IIRC he was burned and bailed out thus becoming POW.