Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1951-08-05
Where Are They?

In keeping with action taken at last years
General Assembly, special United Nations panel
OF three members is now engaged in formal
investigation to find out what has happened
are they dead or alive, and where are they?-to
the hundreds of thousands of war prisoners that
the Soviet Union has failed to repatrate to their
native lands.
The Kremlin, processing complete innocence
and branding the panel as illegal" has long
since made clear that it will nave nothing what
ever to do with the inquiry. Nevertheless, al
though the Iron Curtain thus has been clamped
down on the main source of the information
that is wanted this u N project ought to be
carried out with vigor the basis of figures and
documents already available At the very least
the effort should serve to focus world attention
on the subject and place the Stain dictatorship
in position where continued failure to give
proper accounting will constitute strong evidence
Of great guilt.
All told, almost 2 million individuals have
yet to be accounted for. Captured as prisoners
during the Second World War; they seem to have
been swallowed up by the Soviet Union-some
thousands of Austrians. more than 10000 Ital-
ians, approximately 10000 japanese and about
100000 Germans. Although it is possible that
these figures err on the high side, there is vir-
tually no doubt that hundreds of thousands have
exact fate is known only to the Kremlin. The
rest OF us can do little more than guess Great
numbers of them may have come to grim end
In slave-labor camps or perhaps most of them
have been indoctrinated and organized into
armies designed to take part in future Red
aggression in Asia and Europe.
The Kremlin, of course, has denied every
thing. In December of 1949, for example, it
declared that it still held only 10000 japanese
war prisoners-aI of them "crimnals"-over and
above the 100000 it had returned to their home
land. But the Tokyo government and our Amer
lean occupation authorities have good reason to
believe that about 100000 continue to be num-
bered among the unrepatriated. Similarly, in
May of last year, the Soviet Union-through
TasS, its official news agency-announced that
over 190O,0OO Germans had been sent back to
Germany and that only 1886 remained as cap
tives on Russian soil. AS pointed out at the time
however, TaSS in 1945 had reported the capture
OF 100000 Of Hitlers troops. So approximately
100000 need to be accounted for
Yet, despite the repeated requests of the
Western Powers, the Kremlin has refused to
offer any explanations or permit an impartial
international group to enter the Soviet Union
to determine the real facts of the situation.
Blandly ignoring all the fragrant discrepancies
between its own accounting and the figures
available to the rest of the world, it has taken
the position, in effect, that its version OF the
matter is altogether beyond dispute and not
open to discussion in the U. N or anywhere else
Hundreds of thousands of human beings are
involved, but the Stain dictatorship-in callous
violation of the 1929 Geneva convention and
solemQ commitments made in 1947 and 1949-
apparently is determined to keep their fate
mystery forever
In view of this attitude the Snecia1 IT NJ
inquiry is not likely to uncover any important
new information about the missing prisoners.
But the three-member panel can put the Krem-
lin on the defensive and help the world to under
stand more clearly than ever the evil that is
Red totalitaranism. To that extent at least
the time spent on the investigation need not be
wasted.