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András Toma was drafted into the Royal Hungarian Army in October 1944, where he served in an artillery regiment. Later that year, while fighting near Auschwitz, Toma was captured by Soviet forces, and was transported to a prisoner of war camp east of Leningrad. Following the closure of the camp in 1947, he was transferred to a mental hospital in Kotelnich, where he was diagnosed with psychoneurosis. Since those in hospitals were removed from prisoner of war lists, Toma was lost to Hungarian authorities. He was declared dead in 1954. Toma lived in the hospital for the next 53 years under the name András Tamás, where he was unable to communicate with others due to his inability to speak Russian. In 1997, a Slovakian doctor who spoke Hungarian visited the hospital, and identified him as Hungarian. On 11 August 2000, Toma arrived back in Hungary where authorities attempted to identify him. 82 families came forward, thinking he was their missing relative. On 16 September 2000, he returned to his hometown of Sulyánbokor, where he was reunited with his siblings; they were later confirmed through DNA matching. Since he was never discharged, Toma was promoted to sergeant major by the Minister of Defense, and since his military service had been continuous, his decades of accumulated unpaid salary were paid in full. He was probably the last prisoner of war from the Second World War to be repatriated.