Homeless villagers come out from the ruins to greet their liberators, 1943 (b/w photo)

Homeless villagers come out from the ruins to greet their liberators, 1943. Photograph, World War Two, Eastern Front (1941-1945), 1943. Red Army soldiers pose with recently liberated Soviet civilians in the ruins of destroyed dwellings. They survived the brutal German occupation, but millions of their compatriots were not so fortunate. Often their ordeal did not end after liberation. The Soviet security apparatus would soon arrive and begin the search for collaborators and those suspected of disloyalty to the Stalinist regime. One of 26 British and Soviet official photographs.