The 1947 transfer from Rimini to Britain

Origins and purpose

The Soviet authorities held that the Ukrainian members of the division were Soviet citizens and demanded their repatriation under the Yalta agreement of February 1945. The British position was that the agreement covered only people who had been Soviet citizens before September 1939, which excluded the majority, who came from pre-war Polish-ruled Galicia. Where individuals did fall within the agreement the British government was still reluctant to enforce return. About a thousand men had already been persuaded to return voluntarily by a Soviet repatriation commission at Bellaria in 1945.1

What forced a decision was the treaty of peace with Italy, signed in February 1947 and due to come into force that September. Britain did not want to leave the men behind once its troops withdrew, fearing that the Italian government would give way to Soviet demands for forced repatriation. On 1 April 1947 the Cabinet decided to move them to the United Kingdom. The change of place brought a change of legal category: men designated surrendered enemy personnel in Italy were reclassified as prisoners of war on arrival in Britain.1

A comparative study of post-war Ukrainian migration records that many of the division's members avoided repatriation after an intervention by the Vatican, and that the British government wanted to distribute them throughout the Commonwealth.7

Contact between the men at Rimini and Ukrainians overseas ran through Rome. Panchuk recorded establishing direct contact with the Ukrainian Catholic Bishop Ivan Buchko, who chaired the Ukrainian Relief Committee in Rome, and through him with the division, whose men were being held at Rimini as surrendered enemy personnel; direct links with Rimini followed.8

How the transfer worked

The movement took place during May and June 1947 by sea from Venice. The recorded total is 8,570 Ukrainians, including seventeen female nurses, a number of priests and several civilian relatives of members of the division. Screening had already taken place twice: a cross-section of the division was screened by a Soviet mission in August 1945 and a further cross-section by the Refugee Screening Commission in February 1947. The Foreign Office told the Commons in June 1947 that no war criminals had been discovered by those processes.12

That statement did not settle the matter in Parliament. The question that produced it asked directly whether extradition had been sought by any Allied government and what status the men would have; a member pressed the minister on the division's record of killings and asked for an assurance that no one who had taken part would be admitted. The minister replied that extensive precautions had been taken and that further screening was to be expected. The men's status in Britain was that of other prisoners of war.2

On arrival they went into prisoner of war camps, mainly in the agricultural districts of eastern England and southern Scotland, and men were moved between camps from time to time. Most were put to work as agricultural labourers. A count for July 1948 records 1,682 men at Hempton in Norfolk, 1,401 at Mildenhall in Suffolk, 1,319 at Allington in Lincolnshire, 1,264 at Moorby in Lincolnshire, 1,010 at Botesdale in Suffolk, 958 at Dalkeith in Scotland, 463 at Lockerbie in Scotland and 300 elsewhere, including hospitals where invalids were held. The Lockerbie camp is the one now remembered for the Hallmuir Ukrainian Chapel.3

Panchuk recorded that he was consulted when the question arose of moving the division from Rimini to the United Kingdom between May and October 1947. He went to Italy and helped to close the camp, made a film of the closure, and put the Ukrainians aboard a train with British officers bound for the ships. He met them at Sheffield as they disembarked and organised them into committees for the camps and hostels to which they were sent around Britain.8

The 1948 release into civilian work

The transfer had been treated as a temporary expedient rather than a settlement, and the Home Office continued to look for ways of removing the men. Transfers to Canada, the United States and Argentina were investigated and proved unrealistic. In November 1947 the Ministry of Agriculture began to consider taking some of the men into the European Voluntary Worker scheme, under which it was already recruiting from the camps in Germany and Austria. Its first position was to take 4,700 and to send the rest, including men in poor health and disabled men, to the British zone of occupation in Germany.1

That proposal drew protests from the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain and from a number of British charities, and rising demand for labour changed the calculation. The decision taken instead was that almost all of the former soldiers would be released from prisoner of war status and engaged under the European Voluntary Worker scheme. The process ran from August to October 1948 and covered 8,128 people. Most continued in agriculture, the sector they had worked in as prisoners. The camps that had held them were handed to civilian authorities and redesignated as hostels.143

One further removal was attempted. In December 1948 a decision was taken to deport about 300 former members of the division to Germany at the end of the month. A general strike of Ukrainian European Voluntary Workers followed on 28 December 1948, and two days later the Home Office announced that only 81 people would leave: 45 who chose to go, mainly to rejoin relatives, and 36 with records of unsatisfactory behaviour as prisoners of war. Over 8,000 remained in Britain as European Voluntary Workers.1

What happened afterwards

As European Voluntary Workers the men came under the same employment restrictions as recruits from the German and Austrian camps: they could not change their place of work without Ministry of Labour approval. The relaxation announced in July 1950 applied to them as well, and from 1 January 1951 those with at least three years' residence could apply to be released from the restriction. Most were able to leave the hostels only after that date, and by the mid 1950s most hostels had closed.43

The community life the men had organised at Rimini carried over into the camps and hostels. The Burlaka, Slavuta and Dnipro choirs and the Rimini camp theatre group continued to perform in Britain. Many of the former soldiers later emigrated to other countries. Those who stayed formed part of the Ukrainian settlement in Britain alongside the workers recruited from the continental camps, and the two groups came together in the same hostels and the same Association of Ukrainians branches.31

Some of the former soldiers moved on to Canada under a separate admission process. The Canadian Cabinet decided on 31 May 1950 that members of the division should be let into the country, subject to careful screening of each case, and on 5 January 1951 the Canadian government endorsed the processing of Ukrainian applicants from England.7