History/Political Science paper by Stark, Tamás
What Has the US Done to Repatriate Prisoners of War Captured by the Soviet Union? (Accepted)
Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentationAbstract (max. 250 words):
The anti-American and anti-Western tendencies of the current Hungarian politics is having an impact even in historical research. One of the strangest accusations against the Western powers, especially the United States, is that they are responsible for the tragic fate of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian prisoners of war and civilian internees who were deported to Soviet labor camps after the Second World War. It is alleged that Western governments consented to the deportations and then failed to intervene to repatriate prisoners of war. My presentation will summarize US policy on the POW problem. It will explore how, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the US government made pressure on the Soviet leadership to repatriate POWs, regardless of their nationality. The fate of prisoners of war in the Soviet Union became an important issue at the sessions of the United Nations between 1950 and 1953. As the Soviet Union refused to provide relevant information on the prisoners held in the camps even in the early 1950s, two ad hoc committees were set up to investigate what had happened to the missing prisoners. Finally, the paper will show how Hungarian émigré groups joined the efforts of the United States and the United Nations to free Hungarian prisoners in Soviet camps.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
I am a senior research fellow at the Institute of History of the Research Centre for the Humanities in Budapest. My research interests include the Holocaust, forced population movements during the Second World War and the early post-war period, and the history of Hungarian prisoners of war and civilian internees in Soviet captivity.