Prisoners in ww2, Data about prisoners and camps.

I'd like to start this topic with a story I heard today from a pacient of mine -an Italian;
His father served in the italianb army as an inginer.
He fought in Albanian ,Greace and N.Africa.
He was taken prisoner at El -Alamain and spent a few months in a camp in Tunisian and then 4 YEARS IN THE US!!!!
He was realeased at the end of 1946!!!!
And we were blaiming the Russinas.
He said that all the Italians soldiers that refused to reenlisted and to fight against the Italian fascists were treated this way.

A sad story about a prisoner,I heard over 10 years ago;
One day the former prime minister of the republic of Moldavia Mircea Druc,got a visit from on old man.The guy presented himself as a ww2 pow that was realesed two years before,and walked all the way from Siberia to Chisinev.He wanted to get back to Romania but had no ID papers.
MD first treated him with doubt ,but later after a while (as a son of a war veteran)he understood that the old man was talking sence.The year was 1990 or 91.
From what I understood then the old man was repatrieted to Romania and since he had nobody he was given a job at the museun in a former comunist prison somewhere in the north of the country,and a place to live .

My dental technitian(who's a German from Duisburg) told me today,that his uncle was pow in the Soviet union till 1959.....
He never spoke about this period,but all his children were educated against war and militaria.

A recently published Russian book on the POWs in the USSR (unfortunately, I don't have the specifics on this title), mentions the following numbers in GUPVI (the actual Soviet structure in charge with POWs, not the GULAG) rosters, between 1941-1953:
2,5 million Germans
600,000 Hungarians (565,000 military and 35,000 civilians)
580,000 Japanese
150,000 Rumanians

Reportedly, these numbers come from RGVA (Russian State Military Archives) sources.

Gen. Dénes

With regards POW's, not all were military people, a little known aspect, in regards of the Jewish & European Aliens, who were taken into custody in the early months of WW2 by the British.

Some strange things happened in WW2, in the early months of WW2, suspected Enemy Aliens were rounded up in Britain and placed in camps, many of these people were Jewish, and many had been in re-education Camps in Germany in 1936 / 37 and were very Anti-Nazi.

Despite being Jewish, they were treated with suspicion and rounded up and placed into camps with some Nazi prisoners of war, many of the Jewish were sent by ship to Canada and Australia and kept in camps until late in the War.

The information is supplied in avery interesting book, called:

"DEEMED SUSPECT A Wartime Blunder" by ERIC KOCH,

published by, GOODREAD BIOGRAPHIES / CANADIAN LIVES. In 1980.

Kevin in Deva.

By the way being an Italian P.O.W. in the U.S.A. for 4 years, dosent sound too bad.

The numbers looks very small.
Especialy German and romanian.

If you look into what hapened to russian prisoners in Romania you will be in for a shok On us lies a lot of responsability also ! And dont tell me that USSR did not signed the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war.Maybe a debate on this subject would be useful since the data is here.

What happened to Soviet prisoners in Romania?

Victor,
The imformation i have is mainly from the web (Romanian sites) and some stories i heard in Mehedintsi county.Its not about executions but leting people die of hunger or feeding them potato peels.
Over coming weekend i"ll organise what i found ,post it and if you think its worth, it can be a topic

Don't you think that it would be advisable to consult also published historical works on the subject, not just websites? You may be surprised about what you will find out.

Victor,
You are wright, of course. My problem is that im not living in Romania so the acces to sources is dificult.In aug-sep.illbe there what i can find. A bibliografy would be useful,any idea where i could find such a thing?
I rised this subject because of things that happened in my father"s village and stories of the same kind i found on the web.
yours,

Krivosheev mentions 201,800 Romanian prisoners, out of which 40,000 died during detention. I believe this figure more plausible than 150,000.

Dinu Giurescu in Romania in al doilea razboi mondial, ALL Istoric, 1999 wrote a couple of pages on the POWs, which mention mainly the situation from early 1942 onwards and the visits of the International Red Cross representatives and their favorable conclusions. The POWs were relatively well cared for, under the given circumstances, when even Romanian soldiers weren't cared for too well, due to lack of resources. Romania collaborated with the Red Cross and provided around 75,000 names our of the over 82,000 captives. For comparison, Finland only communicated some 3,000 names, Italy 314, Germany 343 and Hungary 250. The historian also shares his personal experience with such a POW (working on the estate of a family friend) in 1944.

Another source, more detailed, is col. ® dr. DUmitru-Mircea Socolov, Prizonierii de razboi in Romania pe timpul celi de-a doua confragratii mondiale. Ed. Universitatii Nationale de Aparare, 2006.

Out of the 91,058 Soviet POWs in Romanian custody, 82,090 were interned in Romania. On 25 August 1942, there were 59,856 Soviet POWs in the 12 camps. 13,682 have been released (inhabitants of Bessarabia, Bukovina and Trans-Dnestra), 3,331 havbe escaped and 5,221 have died. This means that 6.36% of the Soviet POWs died in the Romanian POW camps. Unfortunately, 19,84% of the Romanian POWs died in Soviet captivity.

During the autumn and winter of 1941, the conditions were improper. Some 1,300 POWs died duringthat period. A report of their situation reached marshal Antonescu's office and after his intervention things changed dramatically starting from February 1942. The lack of preparation and organization, the lack of resources (let's not forget that even Romanian soldiers were not dressed or fed properly), coupled with the profits some camp commanders made by diverting a part of the funds for the food led to this situation. As soon as the Ministry of Defense alloted more ressources, started making regular inspections and court marshaled several gendarme officers in charge of the camps, things changed.