Soviet Repatriation Camps in France: The Culture and Everyday Lives of Former Prisoners of War and Forced Labourers at the End of the Second World War (1944–1947)

During the closing months of the Second World War, Soviet camps were established in France for those Soviet citizens who had been displaced by the war and who were awaiting repatriation. This repatriation was mandatory and organised by a Soviet military mission which was itself expelled in December 1947 in the context of emerging Cold War tensions. Life in the repatriation camps was therefore deeply connected to a moment of transition between the Second World War and the Cold War. The chapter explores the culture and everyday lives of Soviet displaced people in these camps, drawing on material held in French and Soviet archives.