French soldier left stateless in the Ukraine for 48 years. Catrain was a farm worker before the outbreak of World War II. Drafted into the French army, he was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940. Driven from camp to camp, at the end of the war in 1945 he ended up in Königsberg, now Kaliningrad (Russia). Missing any chance to return to France, he married a woman in Strikhivtsi, a small town in Ukraine, where he joined a collective of farmers, becoming known as "Paul French." In 1984, French diplomats finally managed to arrange a meeting with Catrain under the supervision of the KGB. Not until 1993 was he returned to France. Read less
Born: Wed Jun 25 1919 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Birthplace: Crecy-sur-Serre, France
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