What happened to disabled WWII vets in the USSR? Nikolay Naumenkov/TASS The USSR had organized special sanatoriums for people left disabled after the war. Conditions there were not as appalling as the rumors claimed. Here’s why.
“Hundreds of thousands of disabled people, without arms or legs, forlorn and begging at train stations, in the streets and elsewhere. The victorious Soviet people eyed them warily: orders and medals shining on their chests, and they’re begging for change near grocery stores! That’s unacceptable! Get rid of them by any means possible – send them to the former monasteries, to the islands… In a few months’ time, the country cleared its streets from this ‘shame’. That’s how these almshouses came to exist…” That’s how Evgeniy Kuznetsov, a historian of art from Leningrad, described the ‘evacuation’ of disabled WWII vets from the Russian mainland.
Moscow
Moskva
Russia
Stalingrad
Volgogradskaya-oblast
Omsk
Omskaya-oblast
Petersburg
Sankt-peterburg
Valaam
Kareliya
Goritsy