Soviet soldiers of the Great Patriotic War rescued from starvation by foreign humanitarian missions in 1921-1923s

Abstract

The paper draws attention to such an important historical aspect as the connection between foreign humanitarian activities in Soviet Russia and Ukraine during the famine of 1921-1923 and the participation of the people of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War. It is well known that during the famine of 1921-1923, a large number of foreign aid organizations functioned in Russia and Ukraine and provided food, treatment and clothing to several million starving children who were doomed to death without outside help. Some of these organizations opened orphanages on the territory of the RSFSR for homeless children and children left without parental care. Many of those men and women who went to war in 1941-1945 were saved during the famine by foreign organizations. Thanks to modern databases of digitized documents on the Great Patriotic War, it becomes possible to trace the military fate of these people. The paper, based on the materials of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the National Archive of Sweden, provides specific examples of the fate of participants in the Great Patriotic War, who were saved in 1922-1923 by the Red Cross organizations of Sweden and the Netherlands.