Operation Keelhole is one of the most controversial and inconvenient pages in the modern history of Europe. After the end of World War II, at the Yalta Conference, the allies agreed to extradite millions of Soviet and former Russian citizens, prisoners of war, ostarbeiters and collaborators to the USSR. Why and how did Western democracies decide to do this? What happened to the repatriates? Why was the process accompanied by bloodshed?