The Route to “the Motherland”: Historical, Archaeological and Geographical Approaches to the Repatriation of Soviet Citizens During and After World War II

Centre of Archaeology

This project will provide the first detailed historical and archaeological investigation into the journeys and fates of Soviet citizens after World War II, and the sites in which they were interned.

This project builds upon research undertaken by the Centre of Archaeology about Soviet citizens held in Nazi camps in Alderney and the routes they took (voluntarily and forcibly) back to the Soviet Union. Research for our monograph Adolf Island: The Nazi Occupation of Alderney (published in March 2022) revealed that many Soviet citizens who survived these camps (and the forced or slave labour they were made to do for the Germans) were taken to Displaced Persons Camps in the UK and across Europe, where they were subsequently housed and interrogated. Many were then forcibly repatriated to “the Motherland” where they were then tried as “traitors” on account of their “collaboration” with the Nazis. Little research has however been done into the conditions these Soviet citizens faced whilst in these camps, the physical traces of these camps that survive today and the various routes these individuals took as part of the (often forced) “repatriation” process. This proposed PhD project would fill these gaps by providing the first detailed historical and archaeological investigation into the sites, journeys and fates of Soviet citizens who, having been liberated from Nazi terror, often found themselves marginalised, criminalised and incarcerated in the West and the East.