Flight and expulsion of Poles from the USSR

The Flight and expulsion of Poles from the USSR describes the dramatic decrease of ethnic Polish populations, from October 1917 to World War II and the postwar era, in lands to the east of the boundaries of present-day Poland. They began to emigrate from this area during the unrest of the October Revolution. In 1943-1944 the news of the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, in Eastern Poland in 1945, and in the aftermath of World War II, caused many survivors to try to escape.

The final expulsion of ethnic Poles from the eastern territories was designed by Soviet leaders. This action was accepted by the US administration and UK government, during the Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam meetings, in the hopes of bringing peace in postwar Europe. Poland obtained the so-called Recovered Territories as compensation for loss of Eastern Poland, which caused Polish-German tensions.

Russian Civil War and Polish–Soviet War

The unrest of the Soviet Revolution and Russian Civil War motivated ethnic Poles to emigrate to Poland after it established independence during the First World War.[1] Many Polish politicians, generals, writers, artists and composers were born in the Russian Empire (outside the Congress Poland/Vistula Land) and migrated to Poland in its 1918-1939 borders :

Future writer and painter Witkacy, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, participated in the Revolution. He emigrated to Poland with anti-revolutionary feelings. After the German and Soviet 1939 invasions, he committed suicide.[2] Writer Paweł Jasienica, born in Russia, moved to Central Poland after the Revolution. He later lived in Grodno (now Hrodna in Belarus) and Wilno (now Vilnius in Lithuania), and after WWII moved to the new Poland.

Between the wars

As the result of The Polish Operation of the NKVD (1937–1938), 143,810 people were captured, of whom 139,885 were sentenced by extrajudicial organs, and 111,091 executed (nearly 80% of all victims).[3] According to Timothy Snyder, the majority of those killed were ethnic Poles; he says that 85,000 is a "conservative estimate" of the number of executed Poles.[4]

The writer Igor Newerly grew up in the Soviet Union and ran away to Poland. Roman Catholic priest Wincenty Ilgin was imprisoned since 1927, exchanged with Lithuania in 1933, and died in Poland. Belarus writer Frantsishak Alyakhnovich was imprisoned in the Soviet Union. After being exchanged with Poland, he published his memoirs, In the Claws of the GPU.

Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland 1939-1941 and 1944-1946

During the years 1939-1941, the Soviets sovietized Eastern Poland, killing educated people (Katyn massacre), and deporting hundreds of thousands of people, including women, to Siberia. Many of the deported people left the SU with the Anders Army in 1943. Many of the soldiers and civilians died or never returned to Communist Poland after the war.

Soviet Union annexed Eastern Poland and expelled the majority of Poles in 1944 and 1945. Poles deported during the years 1939-1941 were transported mostly to Recovered Territories. Anti-Nazi fighters were drafted to Polish Communist Army, many of them arrested and deported to Soviet camps, some murdered. That started a partisan war between Polish Communists supported by the Red Army and NKVD and Polish underground called Cursed soldiers. The biggest Soviet crime was the murder of about 600 people after the Augustów roundup.

Notable or future notable Poles who emigrated to Poland: archibishop of Wilno Romuald Jałbrzykowski, mountain climber Wanda Rutkiewicz, astronomer Władysław Dziewulski, philosopher Tadeusz Czeżowski, actor Gustaw Lutkiewicz. Future singer Anna German migrated from Russia to Poland because her mother married a Pole.

Ukrainian nationalists

An OUN order from early 1944 stated: "Liquidate all Polish traces. Destroy all walls in the Catholic Church and other Polish prayer houses. Destroy orchards and trees in the courtyards so that there will be no trace that someone lived there... Pay attention to the fact that when something remains that is Polish, then the Poles will have pretensions to our land".[6]

1955-1959

About 250,000 people were repatriated. Notable Poles evacuated during that time include singer Czesław Niemen, film producer Lew Rywin and actor Anna Seniuk.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Rodacynasyberii.pl
  2. ↑ Daniel C. Gerould, Witkacy: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz As an Imaginative Writer, (1981)
  3. ↑ Robert Gellately, Ben Kiernan (2003). The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective. Cambridge University Press. p. 396. ISBN 0521527503. Polish operation (page 233 –)
  4. ↑ Snyder, Timothy (2010). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00239-9. pp. 103–104
  5. ↑ Grzegorz Motyka, Zapomnijcie o Giedroyciu: Polacy, Ukraińcy, IPN
  6. ↑ Mark Mazower, Hitler's Empire, pages 506-507. Penguin Books 2008. ISBN 978-0-14-311610-3

External links

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