Soviet number crunch
Sir: The answer to Max von Reimann's question (Letters, 10 October) is 'never'. If any records were kept by the troops of the Soviet Interior Ministry of its immense drive from inside the then Soviet frontier to the Elbe river in 1945, they will never be published. So violent and fast was the advance that the numbers being driven out are uncertain. The lowest figure is nine mil- lion, the highest 13 million. Once past the new western frontier of the Soviet Union, the Soviet troops were driving eastern Poles on to the already fleeing Prussians, and these masses were increasingly joined by Soviet deserters who grabbed the chance. No one will ever know how many were killed or how many claimed other origins than their real ones (that is, the deserters), and of the officially encouraged atrocities it may be better not to speak.
We hear much of crimes committed by our own enemies of that time, but this was probably the greatest single massacre ever committed in Europe, even by the Russians — and that is saying a good deal. It would be possible to collect evidence from sur- vivors, even half a century later, but nobody shows interest. Indeed, when I wanted to use some of this material, I was obliged to call it fiction to get it published.
Sarah Gainham
Schlosspark, Four, Petrone11, Austria
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