I ask this because my mother was telling me how her grandfather had been fighting in Belgium and captured by the Germans. He was then made to walk to Russia through Poland, writing letters regularly to my great-grandmother, but then didn’t do anything there (such as fighting) and was sent home by train. Apparently, on the train he found a resistance leaflet and got so scared of being found with it that he ate it. Then he got home and never talked to anyone about his experiences.
Anyway, stories in my family tend to get distorted,, and this sounds kind of weird to me (why would he have gone to Russia?) so I was wondering what would typically happen to a French POW once France ‘capitulated’.
Thank you, and I hope this is within the rules!
POW's generally went to POW camps. French POWs initially were held in camps in France but they were moved to German and Eastern Europe, even as far as Poland later on.
As far as I'm aware there were no German POW camps for French Troops in what is now called Russia but there were camps in Lithuania and Belarus. Although I think those were mainly for Russian POWs.
French prisoners did get repatriated during the war, usually through connections with the Vichy government or if they fulfilled certain criteria like being a skilled labourer. This was not uncommon.
In short: I doubt he went all the way to Russia. It's completely conceivable he ended up in Poland in a POW-camp and was released sometime during the war. Which is somewhat consistent with the story.
The pamphlet. Illegal propaganda was a big part of the resistance so leaving pamphlets in a train full of repatriated POWs doesn't sound that strange to me either.
Then he got home and never talked to anyone about his experiences.
This is quite common. My great-grandfather fought in WW I and was sent to a prison camp in WW II because he was a veteran and according to my dad he never spoke about it.