Romanian POWs in Russia

"Father and son, nine years in the ordeal of captivity", RIM 4(10)/1991.

Captured at Don' bend:

"We surrendered, hands up" - related Lt. r. Nicolae Roman - "not without fear of being killed. We heard and saw enough cases when our officers have been killed in similar situations. The blind fury was difficult to refrain at some of the Russian soldiers. In the prison camp, one compatriot related the circumstances in which my uncle, major Tulescu Virgil, from 5th Artillery Regiment, died. He was commander of artillery battalion. He was bayonetted when he surrendered, while holding his hands up. A violent outburst was ready to happen in our situation too. A Russian soldiers set up the machinegun, the guards stepped aside, and when we exited the building, he aimed the machinegun at us, finger on trigger. I think a barbaric act was on the way, unless a superior of him intervened authoritative. With a ferm voice, he jumped at the soldier and calmed down the heated spirits.

Generals Lascar and Mazarini, together with their staff officers - Lt. Col Nicolae Cambrea and lt col. Stanescu Cristea - were taken immediatelly, and were crossed the Don in a car right in that night. I saw them again after three months, in the prison camp of Krasnogorsk, and Cambrea and Stanescu later at Suzdal. The others, including my father, were taken to a well guarded village house. We were taken the watches, rings, leather jackets, boots. It was a pitiful picture. No law protected us. We had nothing left. My father had a stony face, eyes fixed. He usually was sober and grave. Now he looked like a statue. Only when he was ripped the watch on a chain at his trousers pocket, his cheek barely trembled. The watch was a gift from my grandma, and it was priceless for him. Silent, he didn't look at me. Any gesture could have been fatal. He was watching his destiny, stoned, as all of the others. (...)"

The following day, all of the Romanian prisoners at Golovski (about 4,000 men) formed a column, under mounted guards, across the village. The officers captured at the command post of the 6th Infantry Division were placed sepparately in the eastern part of the settlement. "I did not know what they were going to do. We waited warily. The column got on the move, passing in front of us. Several Russians in military uniforms were moving along the column and were yelling in Romanian: <They are guilty! They brought you here! The murderers! They have to be trialed and sentenced for your disaster! The murderers!> Nevertheless, our soldiers, silent, were giving the honor to their commanders. Their figures and looks were telling more than a thousand words. (...) My father was crying. I've never saw him crying. It was extraordinary moving. (...) For the Russian agitators, their set-up turned into a pitiful failure."

to be continued

[...]
At the end of the column followed in a row the group of the Romanian officers that had "received" the honor of the troops. They crossed the Don at Serafimovici, on a pontoon bridge. The blizzard was mortifying the living ones. They spent the night in the first village they arrived. The buildings were empty. The villagers have been evacuated by the Soviet authorities, leaving nothing behind. "Everything has been withdrawn to Ural" - related the veteran. "In the case of advance beyond Stalingrad, the Germans had nothing in front on them but the Russian winter and huge distances, beyond the limits of supply. In this village we remained over night we didn't find even a stick or a hay blade to make fire." In the morning, the column got on the move, swiming through the blizzard swept steppe. The officers group left a bit later. They were cramed into a truck - better nevertheless - and transported in the same direction. In the ditch along the road there were small mounds, crouched bodies in uniforms, partly covered by snow. They were Romanian soldiers that remaining stock-still because of the cold or agony, could not walk any more. When the life was still flickering in one of them, it was brutally extinguished by a coup de grace shot in the head by one of the guards. Now they were resting in peace uncovered by the earth bed. The bones of many remained scattered in the fields. God knows what happened with them. By the evening they arrived at the first railroad station. Those who managed to pull their frozen legs and made it to the end of the road, were put in cargo vans, the soldiers, the NCOs and the officers separately. The conditions were the same for all though. At departure, they were given a 500 grams bread at four men, and after four days another bread for eight men. They had to search for water on their own. When the doors were opened, at every 12 hours, they filled their canteens with snow, which after melting it gave 200-300 grams of water, that had to be shared with great care. "I don't know how many days we traveled by train. It is certain that Saint Nicolae we celebrated in the first prison camp, Tambov, a shunting camp. I remember my father giving me a small branch of fir tree, and embracing me. <This is from me, and from God whatever He might have the mercy to give> he told me. And God gave me strength to resist.

(to be continued)

Very often, the teenagers were more dangerous than the men in their 20's or their 30's, among the Soviet guards. They started to shot the unarmed prisoners with their machine guns... just for fun.

This post has been edited by Florin on May 24, 2005 12:06 am

From every report I can get my hands on come the feeling to me that the Russian didn't have a very "homogeneous" attitude regarding POWS.

Source: Report dated December 1st 1942 of plutonier t.r. Valentin Dumitru from the Special Intelligence Service, detached to the 6th Infantry Division's HQ. MApN archives, fond 949, file 100, pages 301-303

Hi from Australia,

[Used Google to translate from English to Romanian]

Poate cineva vă rugăm să furnizaţi mă cu sursa pentru acest post?

Te rog! Este foarte important pentru cercetarea mea, ca eu sunt ultimul descendent al Major TULESCU, Virgil (eu sunt nepotul lui mare).

Sunt încercarea de a compila istorie a familiei mele şi nu au putut găsi nici o altă informaţie, oriunde şi eu de ajutor într-adevăr cu acest ... mulţumesc

Dan

Why would you do that if the official language of the forum is English?

The source of the article is Revista de Istorie Militara no 4(10)/1991.

My father and other relatives said they did not kill romanian POWs,but germans they sometimes did.

Why would you do that if the official language of the forum is English?

Ha Ha! Victor, I wasn't sure to be honest, I actually linked to this forum from the main website

Thank you so much for the information - I tried to attached a photo of Virgil Tulescu (the man himself) but failed!

Dan

This post has been edited by Danny Baiat on June 15, 2012 03:12 pm

Danny try using http://minus.com/ it's enough to drag n drop the picture there and post the link afterwards here

Source - Net.
The Archive of Aleksandr I. Jakovlev
Lubjanka. Stalin and NKVD, NKGB, GUKR «Smersh». 1939 - mart 1946

Document № 261 - A special report from L.P.Beria to I.V.Stalin about the positions of romanian generals POW regardind the former romanian king
24.05.1944, Top Secret, № 503/b

From a russian book "Prisoniers of war in USSR. 1939-1956". Documents and materials (y. 2000)

Români
Total prizonieri – 181.967
Plecaţi la formare de unitati militare – 20.374
Rămaşi ca cetăţeni URSS - 166
Fugiţi 3
Decedaţi 50.959
01.01.1949 = 2.551 rom pow

This post has been edited by Petre on June 14, 2014 07:28 pm

Petre, is there reference to Hungarian POWs, too?

Thanks,

Gen. Dénes

POW of all nationalities, europeans... japonese, koreans,... americans. It is a free e-book, 1200 pages.