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The mortality rate of German and Italian prisoners in Soviet custody was high, estimated at over 30% and over 70%, respectively. This was despite the USSR's public declarations of support for humane treatment of prisoners of war. It is estimated that about 1.5 million Axis European POWs died after surrendering to the USSR. [1]: 237
Soviet Prisoners of War in World War II, which reports that of 1.5 million returnees by March 1946, 43 percent continued their military service, 22 percent were drafted into labor battalions for two years, 18 percent were sent home, 15 percent were sent to a forced labor camp, and 2 percent worked for repatriation commissions.
There were 40 known prisoner-of-war camps across Canada during World War II, although this number also includes internment camps that held Canadians of German and Japanese descent. [1] Several reliable sources indicate that there were only 25 or 26 camps holding exclusively prisoners from foreign countries, nearly all from Germany. [2] [3] [4]
Prisoners of war during World War II faced vastly different fates due to the POW conventions adhered to or ignored, depending on the theater of conflict, and the behaviour of their captors. During the war approximately 35 million soldiers surrendered, with many held in the prisoner-of-war camps .
The remaining prisoners were evacuated further east, either by train or on foot, while hundreds died due to the inhumane conditions of transport or at the hands of guards. [ 25 ] [ 26 ] At the end of July 1941, 767 prisoners evacuated from Chortkiv were executed by Soviets in Uman [ 27 ] (the Evacuation of Chortkiv Prison ).
The history of Canada during World War II begins with the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. While the Canadian Armed Forces were eventually active in nearly every theatre of war , most combat was centred in Italy , [ 1 ] Northwestern Europe, [ 2 ] and the North Atlantic.
On the eve of World War II, Soviet archives indicate a combined camp and colony population upwards of 1.6 million in 1939, according to V. P. Kozlov. [62] Anne Applebaum and Steven Rosefielde estimate that 1.2 to 1.5 million people were in Gulag system's prison camps and colonies when the war started.
The most notable example of this was the Battle of Kiev, where over 600,000 Soviet troops were quickly killed, captured or missing. [72] By the end of 1941, the Soviet military had suffered 4.3 million casualties [73] and the Germans had captured 3.0 million Soviet prisoners, 2.0 million of whom died in German captivity by February 1942. [70]