2,500,000 Missing

Communist propagandists at Panmunjom and Moscow have continuously hurled unfounded charges of mistreatment of prisoners of war at the U.N. commanders in Korea. But what do the Russians say about the millions of prisoners they took in World War II? Nothing. Since last July, a U.N. commission trying to collect information on Russian P.W.s has been continually turned aside.

Last week, working independently of the U.N., the information section of NATO published its own conclusions. Of 7,000,000 prisoners captured by the Russians more than seven years ago:

P: Fewer than half have been sent home;

P: 1,000,000-odd have been reported dead or still held in Russia;

P: Some 2,500,000 are completely unaccounted for.

NATO's fact-finders, working under the direction of Smith College Historian Massimo Salvador, got their figures by culling and comparing a mass of sources, including Russian newspapers. Two years ago, for instance, Russia created a stir by announcing that all Japanese and German P.W.s had been sent home, except for "a few thousand" awaiting trial for war crimes. At that time, Tass put the number of Germans repatriated at just over 1,000,000. Five years earlier, the Russians had admitted taking more than 3,000,000 German prisoners. That left close to 2,000,000 still captive or dead in Russian hands. Some 370,000 Japanese are similarly lost to the records.

Other prisoners unaccounted for include: 180,000 Rumanians, 200,000 Hungarians, 63,520 Italians, 5,000 Austrians, 200 Dutch, 12,000 French (Alsace-Lorrainers drafted into the German army) and between 2,000 and 8,000 Spaniards captured in the Spanish civil war.

What has happened to them all? As many as 40% are dead, according to NATO estimates. Many are still working as slave laborers. A year after the war ended, Russian sources indicated that 2,800,000 Germans, Italians, Japanese, Hungarians and French were working on a northern link of the Trans-Siberian railway. Other prisoners are held over the heads of satellite countries as hostages.

The NATO report came as a complete surprise to the State Department, which has so far failed to take full advantage of an important propaganda weapon. Yet the fate of the 2,500,000 missing men is a topic of high concern to Germans, Italians, Rumanians and Hungarians. It should be sounded loudly and endlessly before the U.N., in propaganda broadcasts and in notes to Russia. As a counteroffensive to the Russian germ warfare charge, it has the special merit of being true.

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