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Came across an interesting read Blood Bread Tears
"On 08 May 1945 (09 May in Soviet time) most of the guns fell silent across Europe.
The Second World War/ Great Patriotic War was, at least in the European theatre, over and the victorious Allies - including, see below, the war weary Canadian Army - began the sometimes grim task of disarming and demobilising the German Armed Forces, of feeding, caring for and repatriating millions of Displaced Persons (DPs), including vast numbers of Prisoners of War (POWs), and of helping to rebuild a shattered continent.
Among the repatriated millions of DPs who were quickly relocated by the Western Allies were some 2 million Soviet nationals - DPs of many nationalities who included widely scattered forced labourers, captured Red Army POWs and the much despised ‘renegades, traitors and deserters’ who, whether as conscripts or volunteers, had donned German and Axis uniforms and otherwise assisted the Nazi war machine - whose compulsory and secret return to the USSR had been demanded and won by Joseph Stalin at the February 1945 Yalta Conference. Stalin was particularly determined to wreak vengeance upon the German Army’s Cossacks.
"These included the local 1st Canadian Corps commander’s letter (almost unheard of in the annals of the Yalta Convoys operations and a copy of which can be seen in Dick van Reeuwijk’s book The Georgian Rebellion on Texel, published by Het Open Boek, Texel) sent to the Soviet Stavka, or High Command. Delivered via the senior Soviet liaison officer at SHAEF HQ the report praised the Georgian survivors as heroes and valiant allies and called for their immediate rehabilitation by the Red Army.
The 1st Corps Commander, Lieutenant - General Charles Foulkes, also allowed the Texel Georgians to remain on the island and to retain their weapons until, as the worried rebels had demanded , the above letter had been sent to the Soviet High Command. He also ordered that they be escorted to, see below, a Canadian Sector Soviet DPs transit camp in Wilhelmshaven by the 1st Corps HQ senior Civil Affairs officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Baron Tweedsmuir (who handed a copy of the above letter to the camp’s two Soviet Repatriation Mission (read NKVD)officers)).
According to the liberating Canadian unit’s War Diary evacuation of the Georgians, referred to as ‘Russians’, should have been undertaken on 22 May 1945. On 17 June 1945, Tweedsmuir and three fellow Canadian officers sailed into Texel’s ferry port of Oudeschild in a motor boat. The 226 Georgians were assembled on the quayside and voluntarily disarmed. They were addressed both by Tweedsmuir and by their own officers and Communist Party Committee spokesman. There was much poignant singing and dancing and many sad good-byes were exchanged.
Having sailed, on the local ferry and escorted by, it is thought, Canadian Royal Artillery troops, from Oudeschild to the mainland naval port and fishing town of Den Helder the Georgians again formed ranks. On a bright quayside they were photographed, by a Canadian Army Photographic Unit officer and a so-far-unidentified film cameraman before being ordered onto a long line of lorries crewed by - wrote authors Wim Kalkman and Jacques Bartels - troops of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI). This writer did not discover this until the early 1990’s and was pleased - while conducting research in London’s Imperial War Museum - to have it confirmed by Kalkman." (http://www.1945.lighthouselane.co.uk/?page_id=125)
"On 08 May 1945 (09 May in Soviet time) most of the guns fell silent across Europe.
The Second World War/ Great Patriotic War was, at least in the European theatre, over and the victorious Allies - including, see below, the war weary Canadian Army - began the sometimes grim task of disarming and demobilising the German Armed Forces, of feeding, caring for and repatriating millions of Displaced Persons (DPs), including vast numbers of Prisoners of War (POWs), and of helping to rebuild a shattered continent.
Among the repatriated millions of DPs who were quickly relocated by the Western Allies were some 2 million Soviet nationals - DPs of many nationalities who included widely scattered forced labourers, captured Red Army POWs and the much despised ‘renegades, traitors and deserters’ who, whether as conscripts or volunteers, had donned German and Axis uniforms and otherwise assisted the Nazi war machine - whose compulsory and secret return to the USSR had been demanded and won by Joseph Stalin at the February 1945 Yalta Conference. Stalin was particularly determined to wreak vengeance upon the German Army’s Cossacks.
"These included the local 1st Canadian Corps commander’s letter (almost unheard of in the annals of the Yalta Convoys operations and a copy of which can be seen in Dick van Reeuwijk’s book The Georgian Rebellion on Texel, published by Het Open Boek, Texel) sent to the Soviet Stavka, or High Command. Delivered via the senior Soviet liaison officer at SHAEF HQ the report praised the Georgian survivors as heroes and valiant allies and called for their immediate rehabilitation by the Red Army.
The 1st Corps Commander, Lieutenant - General Charles Foulkes, also allowed the Texel Georgians to remain on the island and to retain their weapons until, as the worried rebels had demanded , the above letter had been sent to the Soviet High Command. He also ordered that they be escorted to, see below, a Canadian Sector Soviet DPs transit camp in Wilhelmshaven by the 1st Corps HQ senior Civil Affairs officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Baron Tweedsmuir (who handed a copy of the above letter to the camp’s two Soviet Repatriation Mission (read NKVD)officers)).
According to the liberating Canadian unit’s War Diary evacuation of the Georgians, referred to as ‘Russians’, should have been undertaken on 22 May 1945. On 17 June 1945, Tweedsmuir and three fellow Canadian officers sailed into Texel’s ferry port of Oudeschild in a motor boat. The 226 Georgians were assembled on the quayside and voluntarily disarmed. They were addressed both by Tweedsmuir and by their own officers and Communist Party Committee spokesman. There was much poignant singing and dancing and many sad good-byes were exchanged.
Having sailed, on the local ferry and escorted by, it is thought, Canadian Royal Artillery troops, from Oudeschild to the mainland naval port and fishing town of Den Helder the Georgians again formed ranks. On a bright quayside they were photographed, by a Canadian Army Photographic Unit officer and a so-far-unidentified film cameraman before being ordered onto a long line of lorries crewed by - wrote authors Wim Kalkman and Jacques Bartels - troops of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI). This writer did not discover this until the early 1990’s and was pleased - while conducting research in London’s Imperial War Museum - to have it confirmed by Kalkman." (http://www.1945.lighthouselane.co.uk/?page_id=125)
