Participation of Russian Emigrants and Soviet POWs in the Resistance Movement on the Island of Oléron in 1944–1945

Abstract

The article explores a little-known episode of the joint anti-fascist struggle of Russian emigrants and Soviet citizens on the French Island of Oléron during the Second World War. In the fall of 1943, the Germans began to transfer Eastern Wehrmacht troops, formed from Soviet citizens, to France. In the spring of 1944, one of the companies of these Eastern Wehrmacht troops arrived on the island of Oléron to guard the Atlantic coast. At that time, a group of Russian emigrants headed by V. B. Sosinskiy and V. L. Andreev lived on the island, and they decided to get to know the Soviet soldiers who had arrived there. Freed from German captivity, Sosinskiy decided to form a partisan group from these soldiers, which, after the first sabotage operation, officially became part of the French Resistance. Sosinskiy’s group, initially collecting only intelligence data, soon began active sabotage actions, which seriously reduced the combat capability of the local German garrison and allowed the Allies to quickly liberate the island during its assault at the end of the war. The soldiers were convicted after they returned home, but after returning to civilian life, they were rehabilitated with the help of immigrants.