And thus, Stalin commenced moving ("deporting") a large proportion of an entire nation from their homeland in the Kresy region of Poland to Siberia and Kazakhstan. [26] The Soviet NKVD executed about 65,000 imprisoned Poles after being subjected to show trials. [28] The wave of arrests and mock convictions contributed to the forced resettlement of large categories of people ("kulaks", Polish civil servants, forest workers, university professors, "osadniks") to the Gulag labour camps and exile settlements in remote areas of the Soviet Union. deportation Feature image is taken from www.swoopingeagle.com. The resettlement from Abercorn was called Operation Polejump. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. [6][7] The Soviets did not classify Polish military personnel as prisoners of war, but as rebels against the new Soviet government in today's Western Ukraine and West Belarus. Really, this was "ethnic cleansing", Stalin was clearing the Poland of Poles, under various guises, but ultimately ethnic cleansing was the correct term to use for his actions. Free learning resources from arts, cultural and heritage organisations. Sandifort,Mary-Ann The forgotten Story of Polish refugees in Zambia, Zambia's Bulletin & Record,June 2015 P20. The Poles had to find their way across vast distances, helped only by Polish consular officials and Persons of Trust at railway junctions and cities. Some survivor accounts mention that they were locked in the railway carriage and left in the siding for up to 3 weeks before the journey even began. WebIn February 1940 the Soviet Union started to deport Poles to exile in Siberia. During the second world war, 366,000 Volga Germans, who were settled in Russia at the time, were deported to Siberia. Although accounts mention wood burning stoves being in some cattle trucks, no wood was given to them so they had to hurriedly scurry around whenever the train stopped and quickly locate piece of wood which would give a little heat for a short period. In the two years between the invasion of Poland and the 1941 attack on USSR by Germany, the Soviets arrested and imprisoned about 500,000 Poles. This action largely nullified the earlier political gains from the land reform as the peasants generally did not want to join the Kolkhoz farms, nor to give away their crops for free to fulfill the state-imposed quotas, which undercut nearly everyone's material needs. The stench was unbearable as men, women and even children performed bodily functions in front of everyone. [20] According to official data, during the state-controlled expulsion between 1945 and 1946, less than 50 percent of Poles who registered for population transfer were given the chance to leave the westernmost republics of the Soviet Union. The housing was primitive: dwellings made of clay, with roofs made of grass and banana leaves. . [2] Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. Note that you need to include Polish characters when searching i.e. A Forgotten Odyssey - The Untold Story of 1,700,000 Poles Deported to Siberia in 1940 tells their story. Did they live or die? Are essential cookies that ensure that the website functions properly and that your preferences (e.g. Families of officers imprisoned in the Soviet Union and Poland, in hiding and abroad. Journeys that lasted weeks until they reached camps where the Russians assured them that bourgeois Poland was finished, and that they would never leave the forests where they They were given a short amount of time to get some belongings together (many took barrels of salted meat, photo albums, foodstuffs and winter clothes). What crime had the Poles committed to deserve this? Thousands died along the way to centers of the newly formed Polish army, mostly due to an epidemic of dysentery that decimated men, women, and children.[10]. The Soviet Union never officially declared war on Poland and ceased to recognise the Polish state at the start of the invasion. However, "deportation" is widely used and for the purposes of continuity we will use this term herein. Polish at Heart, 2020. [22] The Soviets also executed all the Polish officers they captured after the Battle of Szack, on 28 September. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Personal stories of five Polish people who settled in Britain, Stanislaw's Journey: Fighting with the Allies, Polish Deportees Cut Timber in a Siberian Labour Camp, 1940, Elzbieta's Journey: Shortages and Solidarity, Experiences of Polish people living in Britain, Lola was deported to a Siberian labour camp during World War Two, and finally came to Britain. The Indian government agreed to host 10,000 Polish refugees, including 5,000 orphans. is exactly. Each slice of bread had to be stolen or gotten in any other way. About one third of the civilians were children. Polish military settlers, policemen and foresters. In September 1939, Germany and Russia invaded Poland and divided it between them. According to one of the evacuees, Wanda Ellis: The hunger was terrible, we did not get a loaf of bread a day, as we had in Siberia. The cooking was done in a large kitchen situated in the middle. Children were taken care of by the Polish Red Cross and residents of Bombay. WebA Polish-Soviet treaty was agreed allowing the release of all Poles held in labour camps and the formation of a new Polish army. Approximately 600 Polish refugees were taken to Abercorn in contingents. The newly proposed borders drawn for post war Poland between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta meant all these people had lost their home towns to the Soviets and had no homes to fight for anymore. Jagna and Aneta also made a second film, a three-part documentary, The Other Truth about the complex history of Polish-Jewish relations. The total of 200,000 civilians were expelled from Poland in the following years, including extended families and children of the privileged classes, teachers and priests. These women were true pioneers in the film industry, as still very few films are made by women alone. Still, thousands of distraught Poles remained there, sent to kolkhozs. "Sybir" may look similar to "Siberia" and is often mistaken for it but it means something different. Many Poles left Iran for India, thanks to the efforts of Polish consul in Bombay, Eugeniusz Banasinski. Tens of thousands of ethnic Poles became victims of the Great Purge in 19371938 (see Polish operation of the NKVD ). 150,000 killed by the Soviets Journeys that lasted weeks until they reached camps where the Russians assured them that bourgeois Poland was finished, and that they would never leave the forests where they had arrived to work with little food or shelter. [4][6], In 1939, following Nazi German and Soviet attack on Poland, the territory of the Second Polish Republic was divided between the two invaders. The deportation of Poles in 1939 from their homeland is one of histories great "barely told" travesties. The proceedings themselves were often as little as 3 minutes long, the accused had no fair trial or ability to defend themselves. Web1940, February to April: (The Red Army annexed territories in the eastern parts of Poland) About 250,000 Poles and thousands of Ukrainians and Byelorussians were deported in three major waves to Siberia and to Central and Far Eastern Asia in order to remove the most active populations from the annexed territories. Sybir is a symbol to denote the suffering and imprisonment the Russians gave out to the Polish people within the Soviet Union & Kazakhstan from the 16th century onwards. Once youve identified a location of deportation, you can enter the place of deportation in the search to obtain a list of all the deported to that location. It was a hellhungry, sick people, children in rail cars, filled with louse. They were going from Kigoma to Dar es Salaam and from there by ship to the United Kingdom, where their next of kinoften husbands and sons who had been fighting in the warwere getting courses and training for civilian jobs. The chairs of Marxism-Leninism, and Dialectical and Historical Materialism, aimed at strengthening Soviet ideology, were opened as well. Each familys story is unique, seconds or minutes to pack affecting whether they lived or died,as provisions, warm clothes and bedding were vital to survival. language, region) are saved. is exactly. However, in 2020, Russian President Valdimir Putin went as far as blaming Poland for starting World War II.[66]. WebSearching the Polish Index of the Repressed in One Step. As the new border between the postwar Poland and the Soviet Union along the Curzon Line (requested by Stalin at Yalta) has been ratified, the ensuing population exchange affected about 1.1 million Poles (including Polish Jews) as well as close to half a million ethnic Ukrainians. After the first evacuation, Polish-Soviet relations deteriorated and the Soviet government began arresting Polish officials. Russian soldiers with bayonets would burst in shouting "hands up" and would force the entire family, including children up against a wall whilst all were searched for weapons. According to the Soviet law, all residents of the annexed area, dubbed by the Soviets as citizens of former Poland,[33] automatically acquired Soviet citizenship. The house itself would then be searched for weapons. [2] But, the Soviet authorities started a campaign of forced collectivisation. Read or download. Among people who stayed there was Bogdan Czaykowski. Some 25,000 Polish underground fighters, including 300 top Home Army officers, were captured by NKVD units and SMERSH operational groups in the fall of 1944. Between 1944 and 1946, thousands of Polish independence fighters actively opposed the new communist regime, attacking country offices of NKVD, SMERSH and the Polish communist secret service (UB). starts with. In 1944, the prime minister of New Zealand, Peter Fraser, agreed to take a limited number of Polish orphans and half-orphans, whose parents had died either in Soviet Union or Tehran, or whose fathers had fought at the front. As children of the children who survived, we too felt the fear of telling other children how our parents got to the UK, receiving incredulous or blank looks as if we were making it up. As the exhausted refugees arrived, General Anders wondered where all the Polish officers were. Made in 2000, I was vaguely aware of it, but didnt know much about the authors Jagna Wright and Aneta Naszyska, who both died tragically early. [15] Around 55% of the deportees to Siberia and Soviet Central Asia were Polish women.[32]. [57] The death toll of the initial Soviet-inspired terror campaign remains unknown. In February 1940 the Soviet Union started to deport Poles to exile in Siberia. 10 February - Hundreds of thousands, possibly up to 1.6 million peopleinterrogated, detained and forcibly deported to isolated regions of the far east of Russia. I n 1940, after Russia invaded Poland, Stalin deported 1.7 million Poles to slave labour camps in Siberia and Kazakhstan. About 40,000 Jewish refugees continued their flight from Poland, fearing arrest and persecution in either German- or Soviet-occupied territory. There is some controversy as to whether the Soviet Union's policies were harsher than those of Nazi Germany until that time. WebThe decoration Sybir Deportee Cross was established on October 17 th, 2003 in order to recognise and commemorate the sufferings of Polish citizens deported to Siberia, Kazakhstan and Northern Russia from 1939 to 1956. WebOn March 19, 1942, General Wadysaw Anders ordered the evacuation of Polish soldiers and civilians who lived next to army camps. [9][10] An estimated 150,000 Polish citizens were killed by Soviet repressions. Lww University was reorganized in accordance with the Statute Books for Soviet Higher Schools. Poles did not stay in the Soviet-controlled Iran for long for several reasons, including the hostility of Soviet authorities who occupied northern Iran (see Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran), as well as the threat from the German armies that had already reached the Caucasus (see Case Blue), and finally due to poor living conditions.[13]. Bodies of Polish prisoners-of-war by the mass graves of the, Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (19391946), Aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Poland, Dismantling of Polish governmental and social institutions, Installing Soviet satellite state in Poland. [6][7] Since 1939 German and Soviet officials coordinated their Poland-related policies and repressive actions. This meant that all remaining Poles were re-granted Soviet citizenship and received Soviet passports. However, in October 1946, the Secretary of State in London pronounced that refugees who could get a job in the area for at least 6 months, or had a sum of money sufficient to sustain themselves, could stay. Even hair would get frozen to the side of trains if blown against it. The formerly sovereign Lithuania was moved into the Soviet sphere of influence and absorbed into the USSR as the brand new Lithuanian SSR among the Soviet republics. Camp life was organized, there was a school, scouts, and religious life. World War Two: The deportation of Polish refugees to Abercorn camp in Northern Rhodesia. [58] The country remained under de facto military occupation for many years to come, controlled by the Soviet Northern Group of Forces, which were stationed in Poland until 1993. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. The term "deportation" was used, as if, in some way, these people had committed a crime. This video covers the 1939 Russian invasion of Poland, the initial confusion on the Poles part as to what was going on and then onto the deportations. WebA Polish-Soviet treaty was agreed allowing the release of all Poles held in labour camps and the formation of a new Polish army. Journeys that lasted weeks until they reached camps where the Russians assured them that bourgeois Poland was finished, and that they would never leave the forests where they Now there are books written by the survivors or their children and many reader comment proclaim that this story should be told. "Terminal horror suffered by so many millions of innocent Jewish, Slavic, and other European peoples as a result of this meeting of evil minds is an indelible stain on the history and integrity of Western civilization, with all of its humanitarian pretensions" (Note: "this meeting" refers to the most famous third (Zakopane) conference). The main street of the camp was named after General Tadeusz Br-Komorowski. WebThose arrested were deported to Siberia, central Asia, and other locations in the interior of the Soviet Union. The exact number of Polish citizens deported is not known, as a large number of those captured by the Red Army were murdered in the Katyn Forest and other locations throughout the Soviet Union. It lasted until 16 January 1943, at which point it was effectively revoked. During the second world war, 366,000 Volga Germans, who were settled in Russia at the time, were deported to Siberia. They were told you will get used to it and if you dont you will die the death of a dog. Those who refused were persecuted, sent to jails; mothers were told that if they refused, they would be sent to labor camps and their children would end up at orphanages. Regarding the ethnic composition of these areas: ca. ), This page was last edited on 31 March 2023, at 13:14. On March 19, 1942, General Wadysaw Anders ordered the evacuation of Polish soldiers and civilians who lived next to army camps. Anders army joined the Allied forces in Europe. [7] The categories first targeted by the NKVD included court judges, civil servants, staff of municipal governments, members of the police force, refugees from western Poland, tradesmen, forestry workers, settlers, and small farmers, as well as children from summer camps and Polish orphanages, family members of anyone arrested by the NKVD, and family members of anyone who had escaped to the West or had gone missing. The Soviet forces murdered almost all captured officers, and sent numerous ordinary soldiers to the Soviet Gulag. In the introduction to the whole film,Norman Davies, the well known historian recounts that in no British document has this been acknowledged as a war crime and although the recording was made in 2000, I doubt anything has changed. The Ukrainians had failed to achieve independence in 1919 when their attempt at self-determination was crushed during the PolishSoviet and Polish-Ukrainian Wars. It is a miracle that we survived, with thousands dead.[12]. Between March 24 and April 4, 33,069 soldiers left the Soviet Union for Iran, as well as 10,789 civilians, including 3,100 children. How can the forced deportation of up to 1.7 million men, women and children of whom only a third survived not be common knowledge? As many as 70 were brutally bundled into a cattle wagon that could comfortably take 20. The bewildered polish citizen was then accused of an imaginary offence such as sabotage, spying or even just "defamation of the soviet union" and within mere minutes was found guilty and sentenced for 10, 15, 20 and even 25 years of hard labour. Polish identity, culture, history and heritage for those of us born around the world. Stephen P. Morse, San Francisco. Hostilities, violence and fear spread like an epidemic causing ordinary civilians to flee. Lack of food, water and extreme temperatures caused some to die in the overfilled carriages. The Soviets exploited past ethnic tensions between Poles and other ethnic groups living in Poland; they incited and encouraged violence against Poles, suggesting the minorities could "rectify the wrongs they had suffered during twenty years of Polish rule". When they returned to Poland at the end of the war, For more click here. . Our website keeps three levels of cookies. The last camp that was built in Northern Rhodesia at Abercorn (today's Mbala, Zambia). In London the Polish Government in Exile and the Soviet Union came to an agreement that the Soviets would release their Polish prisoners so that an army, commanded by General Wladyslaw Anders (also to be set free from prison), could be formed in Russia. ends with. "[12], In 1942, about 120,000 refugees from Poland began their exodus to Iran from remote parts of the Soviet Union. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Wanda Nowoisiad-Ostrowska, quoted by historian Tadeusz Piotrowski (The Polish Deportees of World War II), remembered that Abercorn camp was divided into six sections of single-room houses, a washing area, a laundry, a church, and four school buildings with seven classes. The cross memorialises their devotion to the ideals of freedom and independence. [28] Those refugees who opted out were threatened with repatriation to German-controlled territories of Poland. 5.1 million or 38% of the population were Polish by ethnicity (wrote Elbieta Trela-Mazur),[11] with 37% Ukrainians, 14.5% Belarusians, 8.4% Jews, 0.9% Russians and 0.6% Germans. On 22nd June 1941 Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, forcing them to acknowledge all the help they could get to retaliate. Polish Children's Camp was financed by the government of New Zealand, with help from Polish Government in Exile, based in London. A fantastic short 5 part series detailing the entire experience Poles went through from 1939 onwards`: To undertake a deportation, the NKVD adopted the approach of knocking urgently on their door in the middle of the night. They worked as farmers, and their first transport came through India in October 1943 with 720 people, most of them women and children. And yet its never in the public consciousness, despite there being ever more interest in WWII. Repeated urgent knocks would follow, with urgent shouts to hurry up and open the door. Some survivor accounts mention women being unable to undergo this level of indecency and literally dying from burst bladders. [11] There were also 336,000 refugees from areas occupied by Germany, most of them Jews (198,000). The cross memorialises their devotion to the ideals of freedom and independence. They suffered mass deportations to the gulags.[59]. A short ride normally on a sleigh or horse and cart (where the cart was often a re-purposed dung cart) would then take the family to the railway siding. Tehran was a gate, through which we were sent, in groups, to different parts of the world. The railway carriages that the innocent polish people were loaded into were "cattle wagons". Polish citizens from the Baltic states and those missed in earlier deportations. WebRussian and Soviet authorities exiled many Poles to Siberia, starting with the 18th-century opponents of the Russian Empire 's increasing influence in the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth (most notably the members of the Bar Confederation of 1768-1772). Additional Polish transports arrived in late 1943. The Polish citizens, having been subjected to sudden fear and in many cases violence, particularly the husband being struck with the bayonet as a form of gaining control and suppression, would then be in a highly emotive state, often crying uncontrollably. Nothing looked like Poland, but adults in our camp did their best to emphasize our roots. The journey to the Soviet Gulags took a staggering 3 to 6 weeks depending how far away your destination gulag was. [16] As the Soviet Union had not signed international conventions on rules of war, the Polish prisoners were denied legal status. [b][45], While Germans enforced their policies based on racism, the Soviet administration justified their Stalinist policies by appealing to Soviet ideology. The Red Army had sown confusion among the locals by claiming that they were arriving to save Poland from the Nazis. starts with. [41][42] They began confiscating, nationalising and redistributing all private and state-owned Polish property. ends with. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The first major operation took place on February 10, 1940, with more than 220,000 people sent primarily to far north and east Russia, including Siberia and Khabarovsk Krai. In 1942 Anders army and Polish civilians were evacuated from the Soviet Union to British-controlled Iran. For nearly two years following the invasion, the two occupiers continued to discuss bilateral plans for dealing with the Polish resistance during Gestapo-NKVD Conferences until Germany's Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union, in June 1941.[8]. For years few spoke about it. 150,000 killed by the Soviets contains. "In the 1939-1941 period alone, Soviet-inflicted suffering on all citizens in Poland exceeded that of Nazi-inflicted suffering on all citizens. WebOn March 19, 1942, General Wadysaw Anders ordered the evacuation of Polish soldiers and civilians who lived next to army camps. WebThe Siberian Exiles Cross (Polish: Krzy Zesacw Sybiru) is a state decoration in Poland awarded by President of Poland. "[65], To this day, the events of those and the following years constitute stumbling blocks in Polish-Russian foreign relations. There, all were divided into several groups and began their education. There were four major deportations: Wave 1 - 10th Feb 1940 - 218,000 Deported. As the forces of Nazi Germany were pushed westward in 1945 in the closing months of the war, Poland's formal sovereignty was re-established by the Soviet-formed provisional government, later renamed as the Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. But, actual conferral of citizenship required individual consent and residents were strongly pressured for such consent. In the aftermath of the German and Soviet invasion of Poland, which took place in September 1939, the territory of Poland was divided in half between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. [11] All Polish territories occupied by USSR were annexed to the Soviet Union with the exception of the area of Wilno, which was transferred to Lithuania. In 1989, the Soviet Union apologized for its crimes against Poland. (S 6/02/Zk)", REPRESJE 1939-41 Aresztowani na Kresach Wschodnich, "Formy, skala i konsekwencje sowieckich represji wobec Polakw w latach 1939-1941", Represje 1939-41 Aresztowani na Kresach Wschodnich, "Ivan Franko National University of L'viv", The establishment of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, 1944-1949 By Norman Naimark, "Wyzwoliciele czy okupanci? The majority of Polish Jews who survived World War II did so in the Soviet Union, some in the gulags of Siberia, experiencing forced labor, hunger, and illnesses. According to depositions by Jzef wiato and other communist sources, the number of members of the Polish underground, rounded up by order of Lavrentiy Beria of the NKVD and deported to Siberia and various gulags in the Soviet Union reached 50,000 in 1945 alone. WebThe decoration Sybir Deportee Cross was established on October 17 th, 2003 in order to recognise and commemorate the sufferings of Polish citizens deported to Siberia, Kazakhstan and Northern Russia from 1939 to 1956. Red Army troops requisitioned food and other goods. In this year of womens emancipation both in the UK and in Poland, these women have left us a legacy we should know by heart. A Polish Child's WWII Journey. Short excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to polishatheart.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. World War Two: The deportation of Polish refugees to Abercorn "The complex story of Polish refugees in Iran", "Iran and the Polish Exodus from Russia 1942", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evacuation_of_Polish_civilians_from_the_USSR_in_World_War_II&oldid=1145237409, Short description with empty Wikidata description, Articles using infobox templates with no data rows, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2020, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Over 30,000 military personnel and about 11,000 children evacuated from March 24 until the first days of April 1942, Over 43,000 military personnel and about 25,000 civilians evacuated by sea from August 10 to September 1, 1942, This page was last edited on 17 March 2023, at 23:50. [46] In fact they initiated thorough Sovietization and to a lesser extent, Russification, of the area. We were transported on board a warship, through Persian Gulf. Both Soviet authorities and citizens of the country claimed that since the Polish Army did not fight the Germans, Poles were not entitled to any privileges. Most Poles were forced to stay in the Soviet Union. WebThis invaluable database has details of many of the deported in the 1940s to Russia / Siberia. [50], All the media became controlled by Moscow. A Polish-Soviet treaty was agreed allowing the release of all Poles held in labour camps and the formation of a new Polish army. Whilst many were deported to hard labour camps under prison guard in Siberia (Gulags) , others worked on collective farms in Siberia. Along Mombasa Road. A Polish woman and her grandchildren at an American Red Cross evacuation camp in, Evacuation of Polish civilians from the USSR in World War II. The tuition was abolished, as together with the institution's Polonophile traditions, this had prevented most of the rural Ukrainophone population from attending. In total, the Soviets killed tens of thousands of Polish prisoners of war. The documents of the era show that the problem of sexual violence against Polish women by Soviet servicemen was serious both during and after the advance of Soviet forces across Poland. Stephen P. Morse, San Francisco. A journalist has been quoted as saying that the Poles deported by order of Stalin to Russia, were then deported from history by Western historians. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Last Name. contains. Polish deportees being forcefully boarded onto a "deportation train" to Siberia. [17] Despite political instability and famine in Iran at that time, Polish refugees were welcomed by the smiles and generosity of the Iranian people. [4] Maurice, Count de Benyovszky was deported and emigrated to Madagascar . Along Mombasa Road. [4] Among those who remained in the Soviet Union, about 150,000 Poles perished before the end of the war. WebA Polish-Soviet treaty was agreed allowing the release of all Poles held in labour camps and the formation of a new Polish army. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Web+254-730-160000 +254-719-086000. Following the Soviet invasion of Poland at the onset of World War II, in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact against Poland, the Soviet Union acquired more than half of the territory of the Second Polish Republic or about 201,000 square kilometres (78,000sqmi) inhabited by more than 13,200,000 people.