Ivan Vasilyevich Bushilo was born in 1922 in Bostyn on the territory of what was then Poland (now the Brest region of Belarus). In 1944 he fought in the Red Army with the rank of corporal and was awarded "For Military Merit" and "For Courage". However, already in 1947 he was forced to flee from the Soviet authorities to the forest, where he lived on an island in the middle of a swamp, hiding from raids by the NKVD, and then the KGB for almost 40 years. What made the war hero flee?
There are two problems in the history of Ivan Vasilyevich Bushilo. The first and, perhaps, the main, although not the most terrible, is a blank sheet in his early biography until 1944. Until 1939, Bushilo lived on the territory of Belarus occupied by the Poles. Therefore, for obvious reasons, he was not a Soviet citizen, but at the same time he was torn out of the Soviet system of upbringing, education and propaganda. He was drafted into the Red Army only on August 4, 1944 at the age of 22, when the Red Army was already victoriously liberating Europe. In the army, Ivan Vasilyevich showed his best side and was even awarded prestigious awards, as noted at the very beginning.
The second problem is that today about his conflict, first with the police, and then with the NKVD, which were involved in his capture, is known only from the words of his relatives. According to the latter, the reason for the flight was a conflict with the village district policeman, with whom Bushilo allegedly had a conflict. On the one hand, this really could be, and the district police officer could well inflate the problem by slandering an honest citizen. On the other hand, it could be the other way around: Ivan Vasilievich really was in his village "dark horse" and his relatives simply covered him up, including defending him for some real crimes.
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Unfortunately, cases when former collaborators joined the Red Army after the liberation of Soviet territories and even performed feats in the service were not so rare. The Soviet KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were engaged in catching former punishers, policemen, elders, informers, traitors until Perestroika in the second half of the 1980s. Moreover, many criminals were unlucky to "call" into the camps twice, the first time getting off lightly during Khrushchev's rehabilitation of "political convicts". Ivan Vasilyevich Bushilo was lucky in this regard. He ran from the police for 40 years. Moreover, all this time he was covered by relatives, to whom he periodically appeared. During perestroika, Bushilo returned to the village and even managed to get a new Soviet passport. No one followed the old man again.
Was the young man really slandered in 1947 by a negligent district police officer, or by local residents, including the new policeman, they knew Ivan Vasilievich not only as a war veteran and hero, - the question open. It can only be answered by looking at the documents of the case. Alas, most of these documents today are either prudently lost, or are under lock and key in the archives of the state security services of the respective former Soviet republics.
In continuation of the topic, read about how German tankers heated their combat vehicles during the war years.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/080222/62102/