András Toma (5 December 1925 – 30 March 2004) was a Hungarian soldier taken prisoner by the Red Army in 1944, then discovered living in a Russian psychiatric hospital in 2000. He was probably the last prisoner of war from the Second World War to be repatriated.[1]
Because Toma never learned Russian and nobody at the hospital spoke Hungarian, he had apparently not had a single conversation in over 50 years, a situation of great interest for the fields of psychiatry and psycholinguistics.[2]
Early life
Toma was born in 1925, in the village of Újfehértó, Hungary. He lived in the hamlet of Sulyánbokor, near Nyíregyháza, where he worked as a blacksmith's apprentice. He had two younger half-siblings through his father, a brother named János and a sister named Anna, who were 12 and 18 years younger than him, respectively.[3][4][5]
Military service
He was drafted into the Royal Hungarian Army in October 1944, where he served in an artillery regiment.[5] Later that year, while fighting near Auschwitz, Toma was captured by Soviet forces, and was transported to a prisoner of war camp east of Leningrad. Following the closure of the camp in 1947, he was transferred to a mental hospital in Kotelnich, where he was diagnosed with psychoneurosis.[3][6] Since those in hospitals were removed from prisoner of war lists, Toma was lost to Hungarian authorities. He was declared dead in 1954.[5]
Toma lived in the hospital for the next 53 years under the name András Tamás, where he was unable to communicate with others due to his inability to speak Russian.[7] In 1997, a Slovakian doctor who spoke Hungarian visited the hospital, and identified him as Hungarian. On 11 August 2000, Toma arrived back in Hungary where authorities attempted to identify him. 82 families came forward, thinking he was their missing relative. On 16 September 2000, he returned to his hometown of Sulyánbokor, where he was reunited with his siblings; they were later confirmed through DNA matching.[6][3] Since he was never discharged, Toma was promoted to sergeant major by the Minister of Defense, and since his military service had been continuous, his decades of accumulated unpaid salary were paid in full.[8][5] Toma, then aged 74, moved in with his half-sister Anna, who cared for him until his death in 2004. He was buried with military honours.[9]
References
- ^ "Hungarian POW identified". BBC. 17 September 2000. Archived from the original on 12 April 2004. Retrieved 18 November 2009.
- ^ Drew, Paul (2004-12-13). "4: Conservation Analysis". Handbook of Language and Social Interaction. Taylor & Francis. p. 72. ISBN 978-1-135-63415-5.
- ^ a b c Thorpe, Nick (2000-09-19). "PoW gets his life back after 55 years". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-12-16.
- ^ "Hungary's 'last POW' laid to rest". BBC. 2004-04-07. Retrieved 2023-12-16.
- ^ a b c d Zsohár, Melinda (3 October 2000). "Obsitlevél Toma Andrásnak". Magyar Nemzet. Archived from the original on June 12, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2010.
- ^ a b Jahn, George (2001-10-28). "After 55 Years in Russia, POW Discovers You Can Go Home Again". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2023-12-16.
- ^ Ronay, Gabriel (15 October 2000). "Psychiatric ward POW may not have been alone". Sunday Herald. p. 18. ProQuest 331133833. Retrieved 16 December 2023 – via Proquest.
- ^ Последний пленный Второй мировой: 56 лет венгерского солдата в России
- ^ "Hungary's 'last POW' laid to rest". 2004-04-07. Retrieved 2023-12-16.
Further reading
- Erdős, László (2001). A Hadifogoly (in Hungarian). Zrínyi Kiadó. ISBN 9789633273456.
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