Editing Prisoner of war (section)

===Treatment of POWs by the Soviet Union===
{{Main|POW labor in the Soviet Union|Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union|Italian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union|Romanian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union|Polish prisoners-of-war in the Soviet Union after 1939|Finnish prisoners of war in the Soviet Union|German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union|Katyn massacre|Gulag|}}

====Germans, Romanians, Italians, Hungarians, Finns====
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-E0406-0022-011, Russland, deutscher Kriegsgefangener.jpg|thumb|German POW at [[Stalingrad]]]]
[[File:RIAN archive 129359 German prisoners-of-war in Moscow.jpg|thumb|German prisoners of war being paraded through Moscow]]

According to some sources, the Soviets captured 3.5&nbsp;million [[Axis powers of World War II|Axis]] servicemen (excluding Japanese), of whom more than a million died.<ref>{{cite web |last=Rees |first=Simon |url=http://www.historynet.com/historical_conflicts/8556717.html?featured=y&c=y |title=German POWs and the Art of Survival |publisher=Historynet.com |access-date=14 April 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071219031006/http://www.historynet.com/historical_conflicts/8556717.html?featured=y&c=y |archive-date=19 December 2007 }}</ref> One specific example is that of the German POWs after the [[Battle of Stalingrad]], where the Soviets captured 91,000 German troops in total (completely exhausted, starving and sick), of whom only 5,000 survived the captivity.

German soldiers were kept as forced labour for many years after the war. The last German POWs like [[Erich Hartmann]], the highest-scoring [[flying ace|fighter ace]] in the history of [[aerial warfare]], who had been declared guilty of [[war crime]]s but without [[due process]], were not released by the Soviets until 1955, two years after Stalin died.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/germanpow.htm |title=German POWs in Allied Hands – World War II |publisher=Worldwar2database.com |date=27 July 2011 |access-date=14 April 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120412040201/http://worldwar2database.com/html/germanpow.htm |archive-date=12 April 2012 }}</ref>

====Polish====
[[File:Katyń, ekshumacja ofiar.jpg|thumb|Katyn 1943 exhumation; photo by [[International Red Cross]] delegation]]
As a result of the [[Soviet invasion of Poland]] in 1939, hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers became [[Polish prisoners of war in the Soviet Union (after 1939)|prisoners of war in the Soviet Union]]. Thousands were executed; over 20,000 Polish military personnel and civilians perished in the [[Katyn massacre]].<ref name="Fischer">[[Benjamin Fischer (historian)]], "[https://web.archive.org/web/20000816221054/http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter99-00/art6.html The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field]", ''[[Studies in Intelligence]]'', Winter 1999–2000.</ref> Out of [[Władysław Anders|Anders]]' 80,000 evacuees from the Soviet Union to the United Kingdom, only 310 volunteered to return to Poland in 1947.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wajszczuk.v.pl/english/drzewo/czytelnia/michael_hope.htm |author=Michael Hope|title=Polish deportees in the Soviet Union |publisher=Wajszczuk.v.pl |access-date=14 April 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120216171614/http://www.wajszczuk.v.pl/english/drzewo/czytelnia/michael_hope.htm |archive-date=16 February 2012 }}</ref>

Of the 230,000 Polish prisoners of war taken by the Soviet army, only 82,000 survived.<ref>"''[https://books.google.com/books?id=H1jsgYCoRioC&pg=PA209 Livre noir du Communisme: crimes, terreur, répression] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225172617/https://books.google.com/books?id=H1jsgYCoRioC&pg=PA209&dq&hl=en |date=25 December 2022 }}''". Stéphane Courtois, Mark Kramer (1999). [[Harvard University Press]]. p. 209. {{ISBN|0-674-07608-7}}</ref>

====Japanese====
After the [[Soviet–Japanese War]], 560,000 to 760,000 [[Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union|Japanese prisoners of war]] were captured by the Soviet Union. The prisoners were captured in [[Manchuria]], Korea, South [[Sakhalin]] and the [[Kuril Islands]], then sent to work as forced labour in the Soviet Union and [[Mongolia]].<ref name="sankeishinbun">{{cite web|url=http://sankei.jp.msn.com/world/europe/090724/erp0907240115000-n1.htm |title=シベリア抑留、露に７６万人分の資料 軍事公文書館でカード発見 |access-date=21 September 2009 |date=24 July 2009 |work=Sankeishinbun |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090726100909/http://sankei.jp.msn.com/world/europe/090724/erp0907240115000-n1.htm |archive-date=26 July 2009 }}</ref> An estimated 60,000 to 347,000 of these Japanese prisoners of war died in captivity.<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/monitoring/63012.stm Japanese POW group says files on over 500,000 held in Moscow] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080124051112/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/monitoring/63012.stm |date=24 January 2008 }}, ''[[BBC News]]'', 7 March 1998</ref><ref name="UN Press Release">[http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/8D22741F69F38DD3802568C40036B229?opendocument UN Press Release] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929084218/http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/8D22741F69F38DD3802568C40036B229?opendocument |date=29 September 2007 }}, [[Commission on Human Rights]], 56th session, 13 April 2000.</ref><ref name="zagor">[http://www.auditorium.ru/books/407/ POW in the USSR 1939–1956: Documents and Materials] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071102082712/http://www.auditorium.ru/books/407/|date=2 November 2007}} Moscow ''[[Logos Publishers]] (2000)'' (Военнопленные в СССР. 1939–1956: Документы и материалы Науч.-исслед. ин-т проблем экон. истории ХХ века и др.; Под ред. М.М. Загорулько. – М.: Логос, 2000. – 1118 с.: ил.) {{ISBN|5-88439-093-9}}</ref><ref name="Ann">[[Anne Applebaum]] ''Gulag: A History'', Doubleday, April 2003, {{ISBN|0-7679-0056-1}}; p. 431.[http://www.anneapplebaum.com/gulag/intro.html Introduction online] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013124127/http://anneapplebaum.com/gulag/intro.html |date=13 October 2007 }})</ref>

====Americans====
Stories that circulated during the Cold War claimed 23,000 Americans held in German POW camps had been seized by the Soviets and never been repatriated. The claims had been perpetuated after the release of people like [[John H. Noble]]. Careful scholarly studies demonstrated that this was a myth based on the misinterpretation of a telegram about Soviet prisoners held in Italy.<ref>Paul M. Cole (1994) ''[https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2006/MR351.2.pdf POW/MIA Issues: Volume 2, World War II and the Early Cold War] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304083522/https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2006/MR351.2.pdf |date=4 March 2016 }}'' National Defense Research Institute. RAND Corporation, p.&nbsp;28 Retrieved 18 July 2012</ref>