BBC News | EUROPE | Hungarian POW identified
Hungarian POW identified
Andras Tamas(right) is close to home and relatives
By Nick Thorpe in Budapest
In Hungary the full identity of a man believed to be the last prisoner from the Second World War to return home has been almost certainly proven.
The 75-year old man who returned to Hungary five weeks ago after 53 years in a Russian psychiatric hospital has already visited the small farmstead in eastern Hungary where he grew up and met with his brother and sister.
Final conformation of his identity will depend on DNA tests in the coming days.
Hitherto known as Andras Tamas, the man's real name is Andras Toma, according to a report broadcast on a commercial Hungarian television station on Sunday evening.
And the psychiatrist in charge of his treatment, Andras Veer, told the BBC that he is almost certain that his patient's true identity and surviving relatives have now been found, although final confirmation must wait for the results of DNA tests to be carried out in the coming days.
Reunion
On Saturday morning, Andras Toma was taken to the small farmstead of Vajdadokor near the town of Nyiregyhaza in eastern Hungary. There he met with his sister Anna and brother Janos and former classmates from his school.
Mr Tamas is being treated in a Budapest institute
The family is not one of the 82 who have come forward in the hope that the prisoner of war was their long-lost relative.
But doctors treating him stress that they found the family on the basis of information which their patient himself provided.
If DNA tests prove positive, Mr Toma will complete his physical and mental rehabilitation in Budapest and then will be free to return to the home he left in 1944 at the age of 19.
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