András Toma, the last World War II prisoner of war, was not released until the year 2000. Roma served in the Royal Hungarian Army and was captured on January 11, 1945

András Toma, the last World War II prisoner of war, was not released until the year 2000. Roma served in the Royal Hungarian Army and was captured on January 11, 1945, by the Red Army.


 In January 1947, he was transferred from a POW camp to a psychiatric hospital in Russia. Since those in hospitals were removed from prisoner of war lists, Toma was lost to Hungarian authorities and declared dead in 1954..

It wasn't until August 11, 2000, that a Czech linguist identified him as Hungarian after hearing him speak in the hospital. 

Because Toma never learned Russian, and nobody at the hospital spoke Hungarian, he apparently had not had a single conversation in over 50 years.


Toma arrived back in Hungary, where his family was identified through DNA matching. Since he was never discharged, Toma was promoted to sergeant major by the Minister of Defense, and his decades of accumulated unpaid salary were paid in full. Toma, then aged 74, moved in with his half-sister Anna, who cared for him until his death in 2004.

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