Mr. Katz, the WWI veteran, told an astonishing story about how he and a group of other POWs left Soviet custody. They’d been taken prisoner, and put to work on farms. Of course, all hell breaking loose in Russia at that point. At some point, a high-ranking Red officer came to town, and Mr. Katz decided to check in with him, so he introduced himself, explained that he was a POW from Hungary, and asked if there was any information on when he and his friends might be exchanged or released.

The man looked at him, and said, ‘There are no prisoners of war.’

Mr. Katz said that, yes, obviously there were, and he was one, so…

The guy gave him a long, hard look and said, “Comrade Stalin has said, there are no prisoners of war.”

That night, the prisoners were pulled together in a group by the men from the town, who gave them some food, and told them that they thought their army was thataway. They suggested that now would be a real good time to start walking.

They met up with the Austo-Hungarian forces a week later, just in time to come down with the flu—luckily, they were quarantined from the rest of the troops, because of fears that they might have been infected with Communism.