Freed Soviet POW's sing after a day unloading ammunition.

When the Allies landed in Normandy they "freed" members of "Bounyatchenko" work battalions composed of Soviet soldiers captured by the Germans on the Eastern Front. The Germans encouraged the Soviet POW's to work for them, an offer that many took up since it promised a way of the POW cage that for captured Soviet troops was little more than a death sentance.

However the paranoid Soviet authorities took a very dim view of their troops that allowed themselves to be captured at all, sending many to the Gulag upon their liberation. For those who went beyond that into actively helping them, only the firing squad awaited them after their release. As many as 700,000 Soviets helped the Germans in order to escape almost certain starvation in German POW camps. They were handed back to the Soviet authorities after the war as per an agreement made between the Allied powers.