D DAY Through German Eyes 2

by Holger Eckhertz

What did this doctor tell you about the fate of the Russians in Normandy? I shall tell you something strange and worrying now, Herr Eckhertz, although you may not believe what I say. The Englishman told me, after we had been drinking, that he knew what happened. He said that when the Allies invaded Normandy, there were representatives from the Soviet Union among them. Yes, it’s true. Among the American and English troops, there were commissars from the Red Army, who were there specifically to search for the Russian defector troops. And when these Russian defectors were taken prisoner, they were immediately separated off and handed over to the Russian commissars, right there on the beaches. They were put on ships from Normandy and sent back to Russia via the Baltic, back to the Soviet Union. And when they got back, they were all immediately shot as traitors. There was no Geneva Convention for them. The Americans and English didn’t want them executed in France, because it would have been hard to explain after the war. So they handed them over to their deaths. Do you believe this is true? If it is not true, then where are the Russians from Normandy? There must have been ten thousand of them or more, some of us figured out. Did they all just disappear? Where are their graves? Well . . . talking to you has given me a lot to think about. You have brought home to me some new dimensions of the tragedy of Normandy . . . what you said about the Children’s House, and the fa...