them to the Red Army for repatriation to the Soviets; similar repatriations occurred that year in the US occupation zones in Austria and Germany. Most Cossacks were sent to the gulags in far northern Russia and Siberia, and many died; some, however, escaped, and others lived until the amnesty of 1953 (see below). In total, some two million people were repatriated to the Soviets at the end of the Second World War. Lienz On 28 May 1945 the British Army arrived at Camp Peggetz, in Lienz, where there were 2,479 Cossacks, including 2,201 officers and soldiers. They went to invite the Cossacks to an important conference with British officials, informing them that they would return to Lienz by 18:00 that evening; some Cossacks were worried, but the British reassured them that everything was in order. One British officer told the Cossacks, "I assure you, on my word of honour as a British officer, that you are just going to a conference". By then British–Cossack relationships were friendly to the extent that many on both sides had developed feelings for one another. The Lienz Cossack repatriation was exceptional, because the Cossacks forcefully resisted their repatriation to the USSR; one Cossack noted, "The NKVD or the Gestapo would have slain us with truncheons, the British did it with their word of honour." Julius Epstein described the scene that occurred: The British transported the Cossacks to a prison where they were handed over to the waiting Soviets. In the town of Tristach, Austria, there was a memorial commemorating General von Pannwitz and the soldiers of the XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps who were killed in action or died as POWs. This memorial was removed in September 2021 because of the connection between General von Pannwitz and both the SA and the SS, as well as his loyalty to the Nazi regime. Other repatriations Judenburg, Austria On 1–2 June 18,000 Cossacks were handed over to the Soviets near the town of Judenburg, Austria; of those in custody, some ten officers and 50–60 Cossacks escaped the guards' cordon with hand grenades, and hid in the nearby woods. Near Graz, Austria The Russian Cossacks of XV Cossack Cavalry Corps, stationed in Yugoslavia since 1943, were part of the column headed for Austria that would take part in the Bleiburg repatriations, and they are estimated to have numbered in the thousands. Nikolai Tolstoy quotes a telegram by