The history of the work of the evacuation hospital for prisoners of war in the city of Mozhga

On the basis of research on the declassified archival materials, academic journal articles, articles from local publications, memories of the participants of historical events, details of the organization of medical care for prisoners of war on the basis of the German Army evacuation hospitals in the Soviet Union during World War II are revealed. This topic has not been actively discussed in the scientific and popular press, apparently on moral and ethical grounds, and historical data protection. The value of the work is represented in the fact that it emphasizes the meaninglessness of the huge losses of prisoners of war - unarmed people, especially on the part of the USSR. The authors deal with the legal aspects of these losses that could have been comparable for the opposing sides, with a timely signing of the Geneva Convention, an international agreement on prisoners of war. The authors of the publication for the first time compare the data on the number of dead prisoners of the countries at war: the USSR, Germany, the United States and England in 1941-1945 according to information from German sources. The relevance of the work lies in finding and preserving historical experience related to prisoners of war, primarily in the medical and legal aspects in view of the continuing military tension in the world. As a starting point, the authors chose the closest geographically, large enough, Special POW Hospital No. 3888, located in Mozhga, the Udmurt Republic, during the Great Patriotic War. The article gives convincing details on the organization of the hospital in terms of accommodation, food, sanitation of the prisoners of the Mozhga hospital, which is an important part of maintaining and restoring health. The medical and rehabilitation measures for prisoners of war are not given in sufficient detail, because there are no fully open archival sources. Still, when analyzing the information, no evident examples of medical experiments and experiments on prisoners of war in the Soviet special hospitals are found. Indirectly, the efficiency of Hospital No. 3888 is indicated by the number of people admitted to hospital and the number of people buried in the cemetery for prisoners of war in Mozhga. The article cites the data in comparison with similar losses of war in the country, as well as the losses of the United States, Britain and Germany. The statistics of the losses of prisoners of war was taken from German post-war sources, which means that the loss of the Soviet Union were not objectively too high and may actually exceed the already mentioned. The authors emphasize that the USSR unilaterally adhered to the principles of the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, although not signed, and stress the high disciplinary and moral responsibility of the Soviet workers of special hospitals.

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