The two Turkish pages are a wartime military internment camp and the refugee guesthouse that succeeded it. Neutral Turkey opened internment camps in 1941 for soldiers of belligerent armies who crossed its borders, and Yozgat in central Anatolia was one of them. In 1949 half of Kastamonu's derelict army barracks was repaired by the Red Crescent to take the last men from Yozgat; the word camp was dropped for its effect on morale, although the residents stayed under police supervision.12
Soviet-origin refugees were the largest group at Yozgat and refused repatriation in 1945, which is why the place still held men four years later. Fire destroyed the Kastamonu building on 14 March 1954 and those remaining were moved back to Yozgat.345
Turkish records call these men Russians, the term used for Soviet servicemen generally. The Ukrainian link on these pages is a single description in the local paper Doğru Söz of one resident as Ukraynalı Rus, a Ukrainian Russian, quoted alongside his account of conditions behind the Iron Curtain. There is no separate Ukrainian count for either place.26
Half of Kastamonu’s derelict army barracks was repaired by the Red Crescent in 1949 to house the last military refugees from the Yozgat camp, men of several nationalities who would not go home. Fire destroyed the building on 14 March 1954 and the remaining residents were moved back to Yozgat.
Neutral Turkey held foreign soldiers who crossed its borders in a military internment camp at Yozgat, where Soviet-origin refugees formed the largest group and refused repatriation in 1945.