[n] The NKVD and other Soviet agencies asserted their control in 1939 as an inherent part of the Sovietization of Kresy. [3] Thanks to a remarkable reversal of fortune well over 110,000 Poles, including 36,000 women and children, managed to leave the Soviet Union with Anders' Army. February 10, 2022. Find out how you can use this. Lessons were held in the open air. Classes began on September 1, 1942. The resettlement from Abercorn was called Operation Polejump. In 1940 and the first half of 1941, the Soviets deported a total of more than 1,200,000 Poles in four waves of mass deportations from the Soviet-occupied Polish territories. The Soviet forces murdered almost all captured officers, and sent numerous ordinary soldiers to the Soviet Gulag. In January 1944, the Polish staff in all East African camps had been reduced. inauthor:"Marcin Zaremba" in Google Books. She hoped we would return to Poland some day. First schools were opened in Tehran, where after one year there were ten Polish educational institutions. Furthermore, there were schools in Egypt, at Tall al Kabir and Heliopolis. public. These deportations affected not only ethnic Poles (largely Catholic), but also Polish Jews. The Soviets had ceased to recognise the Polish state at the start of the invasion. The third wave of JuneJuly 1940 totaled more than 240,000. [17][18] In one notorious atrocity ordered by Stalin, the Soviet secret police systematically shot and killed 22,000 Poles in a remote area during the Katyn massacre. The death rate rose even higher than in the gulags. XCLOSE. There was a mast with a huge Polish flag, and the White Eagle on the gate."[12]. It has been seventy years since as many as 2 million Poles were deported against their will to some of the most inhospitable regions in the world: Siberia, Kazakhstan, and parts of Soviet Asia. The following year, between 40,000 and 50,000 people - mostly from Upper Silesia - were deported to forced labor camps.[38]. The demarcation line across the center of Poland was shifted to the east, giving Germany more Polish territory. There were sports teams, a choir and activities groups. orphanages, separating boys from girls. For some reason that I cannot explain the sight of my brothers face awash with tears has always stayed in my memory. After the Polish Army had left the Soviet Union, the attitude of the Soviets towards the remaining Poles worsened. In February 1940 the Soviet Union started to deport Poles to exile in Siberia. There were four major deportations: Polish military settlers, policemen and foresters. Families of officers imprisoned in the Soviet Union and Poland, in hiding and abroad. Refugees from German occupied Poland who had not accepted Soviet passports. A Soviet gulag near the city of Molotov (today called Perm), in the USSR (Photo: Gulag Museum, Moscow, via. Follow me Polish at Heart, 2020. [3][5], Approximately 100,000 Polish citizens were arrested during the two years of Soviet occupation. I remember my father was so starlted that he dropped the loaf of bread he was slicing. 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. Some had to travel by land to Ashgabat. Young as I was, in my mind I resisted. Google Universal Analytics long-time unique user tracking identifier. She wanted us to go either to India or Africa, as it was closer to Europe. This meant that all remaining Poles were re-granted Soviet citizenship and received Soviet passports. In the second stage of evacuation from the interior, more than 43,000 military personnel and about 25,000 civilians left with General Wadysaw Anders across the Caspian Sea to Iran. Tribute was paid in the eastern Polish city of Lublin on Sunday to Poles expelled from the former eastern borderlands and deported to Siberia by the Soviet authorities. Altogether, 257,660 citizens of the Second Polish Republic (190,942 adults and 66,718 kids) received the passports; 1,583 refused and were sent either to prisons or gulag. () The Soviet-imposed myth about "Communist heroes of resistance" enabled them for decades to avoid the painful questions faced long ago by other Western countries." Its estimated that Polish deportees were held captive in the USSR on average for 66 months, meaning that the average sum to be received by the survivors could amount to PLN 13,200, or around EUR 3000. Polish Citizens deported to Soviet Forced-Labor Camps in Siberia Stephen P. Morse, San Francisco Last Name: is exactly starts with contains ends with First Name: is exactly starts with Villagers followed us a long way, everybody crying bitterly as we looked back and wondered whether we would ever see our village and house again. This invaluable database has details of many of the deported in the 1940s to Russia / Siberia. 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. At Isfahan Polish orphanage, a children's camp was opened, where 2,300 children and 300 adults stayed and eight elementary schools were created. 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]. My eyes condition made things so much worse for me and it was thus that I awoke next morning to find a body on top of me. It had a clubroom, a hospital, and a gym. Soviet officials openly incited mobs to conduct killings and robberies (19391945). Soviet authorities implemented a political regime similar to a police state,[51][52][53][54] based on terror. Due to Germany attacking Russia on 22nd June, l941, a Polish-Russian treaty was signed with the exiled Polish Government in London, and a decree of amnesty was issued, allowing for the formation of Polish army on Russian territory with the recruiting point at Buzuluk, in the southern European Russia. [15] The NKVD had to open dozens of ad-hoc prison sites in almost all towns of the region. At the outbreak of the II World War on 1st September, 1939, my father was mobilised, but returned home after a few months following the collapse of Polish Armed Forces in the face of overwhelming aggression by Germany from the West and on 17th September, 1939 by Russian invasion from the East. The story of the horrifying crime carried out by the Russians during WWII on the people of Eastern Poland wasnt well known and still isnt. 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? One of the lesser-known aspects of that alliance was the policy of anti-Semitism adopted by the Stalin dictatorship. Exiled to Siberia. The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia, 1863-1880 pp.151-175 Andrew A. Gentes Four thousand Poles were sentenced to the penal labor category of Siberian exile. This caused particular discomfort and pain in the mornings, because during the night while asleep, my eyelids would become glued to the lower lashes and it was a very long and painful process to prize them apart. In an effort to improve hygienic conditions in the newly formed orphanages, our heads were shaved and we were de-liced in some solution. [22] The Soviets also executed all the Polish officers they captured after the Battle of Szack, on 28 September. It became so bad that I, owing to lack of any vitamins so essential at that time of my life, partly lost my sight and was unable to see in the dusk. Living in Africa was very difficult for the Poles who were unfamiliar with local customs and languages and were not used to tropical weather. There, all were divided into several groups and began their education. Because we were travelling in animal trucks, there were hardly any sanitary provisions. Among some 14,471 victims were top Polish Army officers, including political leaders, government officials, and intellectuals. [57] The death toll of the initial Soviet-inspired terror campaign remains unknown. This is the synopsis of the documentary: "Well-known fact: Of Polands 3.3 million Jews, only 300,000 survived the Holocaust. The BBC is not responsible for the content of any external sites Asumiremos que est de acuerdo con esto, pero puede optar por no participar si lo desea. The Red Army had sown confusion among the locals by claiming that they were arriving to save Poland from the Nazis. Leer ms, A crime committed during the alliance between Hitler and Stalin in 1939-1941. Only the Communist Party was allowed to exist, with organizations subordinated to it. If today it is very necessary to continue remembering the abominable crimes of Nazism against the Jewish people -especially in view of the resurgence of antisemitism in our society, now disguised as "antizionism"-, also it is to rescue from oblivion the crimes committed by communism against the same people, crimes that do not deserve to be presented, under any circumstances, as a "salvation", since their typology corresponds to some of the the most horrendous crimes that exist. Just one hole in the floor for toiletary purposes. Forced deportations of Polish citizens to Russia is one of the most tragic pages in our history, wrote Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in a letter to the participants of the opening ceremony of the Siberian Memorial Museum. referenced. Survivor accounts: Polish deportations to Russia. [15] 22,000 Polish military personnel and civilians were killed in the Katyn massacre,[2][19] but thousands of others were victims of NKVD massacres of prisoners in mid-1941, before the German advance across the Soviet occupation zone. The cross memorialises their devotion to the ideals of freedom and As luck would have it, he was at home when the Russian soldiers burst in, which was just as well, because they would have arrested the rest of us anyway, and we would not have had him with us to take care of us. Each slice of bread had to be stolen or gotten in any other way. Altogether, between 1942 and 1947, Polish schools in Palestine had 1,632 students. 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. Mothers unit was also moved to this part, she found me, and it was she who, by some miracle, cured me of dysentery. In an article published by the British newspaper The Guardian On October 5, 2010, historian Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University and a member of the Committee on Conscience of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, wrote: "How well would the Gestapo have dealt with Polish and Jewish opposition without the de facto help of the more experienced and effective Soviet NKVD? Some children were so weak that they could not get up and queue for the toilet. [11] Polish literature and language studies were dissolved by Soviet authorities. [60] The events of the late 1940s amounted to a full-scale civil war according to some historians, especially in the eastern and central parts of the country (see: the Cursed soldiers). one chamber, the ceiling collapsed on him. A decisive battle was fought on the banks of river Vistula, just outside Warsaw, when, despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered, the Polish forces completely routed and The eastern half of Poland was annexed by the Soviet Union. Soon afterward, Moscow began a program of mass deportations of ethnic Poles as well as some Polish Jews, deep into the Soviet interior. The tuition was abolished, as together with the institution's Polonophile traditions, this had prevented most of the rural Ukrainophone population from attending. There was no supply of water either for drinking or washing. 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". There is some controversy as to whether the Soviet Union's policies were harsher than those of Nazi Germany until that time. 'Za pierwszego Sovieta'. ", The Nazis consulted Moscow to deport the Jews to Siberia. The eastern half of Poland was annexed by the Soviet Union. The subscriptions of this blog can only be accessed by its author. The Siberian Exiles Cross (Polish: Krzy Zesacw Sybiru) is a state decoration in Poland awarded by President of Poland.It was established on October 17, 2003 in order to recognise and commemorate the sufferings of Polish citizens deported to Siberia, Kazakhstan and Northern Russia from 19391956. versttning Context Stavningskontroll Synonymer Bjning. The British did not have the intention of keeping the Polish refugees in East Africa when it was decided to take them there. At times I was forced to chew on some bark of a tree in order to put something in my stomach. For any questions or concerns related to this service, you can send me an email through this contact form. [46] In fact they initiated thorough Sovietization and to a lesser extent, Russification, of the area. Members of the NKVD, Stalin's political police, who collaborated with the German Gestapo between the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the German invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941. year by Poles (wherever they are). From the meagre money that my family were paid, we. Follow me Polish at Heart, 2020. Faced with those who claim that Stalin had strategic reasons for allying with Germany in 1939, Snyder added: "in moral discussions of the war, strategic justifications are not usually admitted as legitimate excuses for collaboration with the Nazis. Polish Children's Camp was financed by the government of New Zealand, with help from Polish Government in Exile, based in London. It has been seventy years since as many as 2 million Poles were deported against their will to some of the most inhospitable regions in the world: Siberia, Kazakhstan, and parts of Soviet Asia. Las cookies de anlisis ayudan a los propietarios de las webs a comprender cmo interactan los visitantes con las webs recopilando y facilitando informacin de forma annima. The deportation of Poles by the Russians to slave labour camps in the Soviet Union during Johanna Granville, Out of the original group of Polish prisoners of war sent in large number to the labour camps were some 25,000 ordinary soldiers separated from the rest of their colleagues and imprisoned in a work camp in, The actual number of deported in the period of 1939-1941 remains unknown and various estimates vary from 350,000 (, Approximately 250,000 Polish prisoners of war, German advance across the Soviet occupation zone, exile settlements in remote areas of the Soviet Union, show trial of 16 Polish wartime resistance movement leaders, Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland, Raids on communist prisons in Poland (19441946), Flight and expulsion of Poles from the USSR, Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East. The NKVD and other Soviet agencies asserted their control in 1939 as an inherent part of There were already 22 camps, with 18,000 people who like us had gone through different places of exile in the USSR, scattered across British Africafrom Kenya to Cape Colony.[12]. A very appropriate way of qualifying the crime committed by Stalin against those hundreds of thousands of Jews, sending them to remote places and subjecting us to hardships that led many to death. Sovietisation of Poland's Eastern Territories. Lww University was reorganized in accordance with the Statute Books for Soviet Higher Schools. [64] Joanna Ostrowska and Marcin Zaremba of the Polish Academy of Sciences estimate that rapes of Polish women reached a mass scale following the Winter Offensive of 1945. To understand why my family, the only one from the whole village, were arrested, I must go back to the year l918-20 when, after the First World War, Poland regained its independence after some 123 years of being partitioned between Russia, Prussia and Austria. Exactly 80 years ago, deportations of Poles to Siberia began. La web no puede funcionar correctamente sin estas cookies. Las cookies no clasificadas son cookies que estamos procesando para clasificar, conjuntamente con los proveedores de cookies individuales. The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia: A Historical Narrative based on the written testimony of the Polish Siberian survivors: 9781615848119: Amazon.com: Books. In 1989, the Soviet Union apologized for its crimes against Poland. Probably all Poles know about this fact, I myself mentioned those deportations here.I have also mentioned the fate of some of the children who survived Siberia here.But I decided today to tell you about Polish connections with Siberia, which began as early as the 16th century, which is why I present, Este sitio utiliza diferentes tipos de cookies. My brother Alfons also became a soldier in the 2nd Corps and fought in the North African campaign, and then the Italian campaign, taking part in the assault on Monte Cassino. We were very poor, there were no jobs, kids had their classes in the open, there were no books." Most of the time we survived on one slice of black bread a day. Once [28] Those refugees who opted out were threatened with repatriation to German-controlled territories of Poland. The Jews who were deported to Siberia and other remote parts of the USSR, and especially those who lost their lives in that deportation, deserve to be remembered and honored and deserve justice just like the Jews murdered by the Nazis. One day I saw my fathers shirt lying on the floor actually move with crawling lice. , , , , , , , . We never did. The next transfer took place in 195559, after Stalin's death. Receive the free daily newsletter in your email: The mail subscription service to Counting Stars will allow you to receive in your mailbox a daily email with the new posts published in this blog. Here you can consult our privacy policy. [7] The categories of civilians 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. [9][10] An estimated 150,000 Polish citizens were killed by Soviet repressions. Not finding any arms, the soldiers then gave us a very short time to pack what we could, arrested the whole family, put us on their sleighs and took us to the nearest railway station. Iran and the Polish Exodus from Russia 1942. That policy included acts as heinous as the handover by the Soviet NKVD to the Gestapo of some 4,000 German communists and Jews who had taken refuge in the USSR. [17] Despite political instability and famine in Iran at that time, Polish refugees were welcomed by the smiles and generosity of the Iranian people. Despite what we have just seen, in 2006 Slawomir Grunberg directed a documentary released by the Jewish Film Institute and titled "Saved by deportation: An unknown odyssey of Polish Jews". The Indian government agreed to host 10,000 Polish refugees, including 5,000 orphans. In an official letter from the British Authorities it was said: "It has been agreed that the welfare work in the Polish settlements must continue and the minimum staff stays to ensure this must be retained." Eighty years on, the emotion is still raw for Elzbieta Smulkowa when she remembers her deportation to Siberia in 1941. [12] By this new and final arrangement often described as a fourth partition of Poland,[2] the Soviet Union secured the lands east of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Bug and San. This she did, and being very cross with my guardian, soundly told her off. 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=1096111774, 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 2 July 2022, at 11:09. February 9, 2020 April 13, 2021. Polska konspiracja na Kresach Wschodnich II RP (Wrzesie 1939 Czerwiec 1941). [19], The first Polish refugees came to Palestine in summer 1942. . The World War II began with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the USSR, after signing a pact of those two totalitarian dictatorships that turned them into allies indeed. [20][21] On 24 September, 1939, the Soviets killed 42 staff and patients of a Polish military hospital in the village of Grabowiec, near Zamo. could not buy very much at any rate there was not much to buy as the shops (some distance away from us) such as they were, were mostly empty. Many of them committed treason against the Polish state by assisting in round-ups and executions of Polish officials. "[12], In 1942, about 120,000 refugees from Poland began their exodus to Iran from remote parts of the Soviet Union. My brother Gustaf and I were herded into what became known as. I cannot remember how long it took us to reach port Pahlavi in Persia (now Iran). The author of this blog is not responsible for the use and purposes that Feedburner gives the data provided. It must be said, that ordinary Russians were, on the whole, friendly and very sympathetic to our plight, but they had to be very discreet about it. Houses made of clay, in the heart of Africa. Poles deported to Siberia Polish at heart. NKVD agents issued Soviet passports to Poles in February-May 1943. But, the Soviet authorities started a campaign of forced collectivisation. 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. People kept their own gardens, with vegetables. Survivor accounts: Polish deportations to Russia. REPORT BY A SURVIVOR, MRS. HELENA KNPACZYK [from the archive of The Polish Army Veterans Association (interviewer My father, after joining the Polish Army in Russia, was shipped round South Africa to Dalkeith in Scotland, where the 1st Polish Armoured Division was formed under General Maczek, and fought in the Continental campaign. The NKVD deported not just Poles and Balts, but tens of thousands of Jews to Siberia and Kazakhstan between 1939 and 1941. Amazing fact: For some, this grim hardship was a gift, not only of life, but of their humanity. onierze sowieccy w dzkiem 19451946.". I was just a skeleton, simply skin and bones, and I lost touch with my family for quite a while. In Chekmenyovs letter, found in the Russian national archive, Molotov's advice is sought on how to answer the German request. Las cookies de preferencias permiten a una web recordar informacin que cambia la forma en que se comporta o se ve la web, como tu idioma preferido o la regin en la que te encuentras. [2] There were four waves of deportations of entire families with children, women, and elderly people aboard freight trains from 1940 until 1941. Anyone who believes that Stalin's alliance with Hitler is irrelevant to the Holocaust must have answers to such questions". Google Analytics long-term user and session tracking identifier. [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. 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. They immediately set about At first, they were transported to the town of Bandra, in the suburbs of Bombay, where Hanka Ordonwna took care of the kids. That is where I went to Polish school for the first time in my life. This book is a collection of individual stories written by survivors of the Polish genocide during the Second World War. Somehow, at some point, my brother Gustaf found me and brought me a piece of bread (his ration for the day I later learned). Later on, scouting teams were organized. We were mentally shaped by such organizations, as Sodality of Our Lady, and The Eucharistic Crusade. It is a drama that we still remember and which remains an unhealed wound for us to this day, he added. ", Deportation: a crime against humanity and a war crime. In the first stage, more than 30,000 military personnel and about 11,000 children left Krasnovodsk (Turkmen SSR, present-day Turkmenistan) by sea for Bandar Pahlavi. Had these Jews remained in Poland rather than suffering and dying on the steppe or in the gulag, would Jewish resistance to the Germans have been more significant? The chairs of Marxism-Leninism, and Dialectical and Historical Materialism, aimed at strengthening Soviet ideology, were opened as well. MY STORY AS REMEMBERED FROM THE DISTANCE OF. All Polish parties and organizations were disbanded. As a result, I fell further and further behind our group walking to the nearest tent shelter, and I dont know what would have happened to me if my mother had not found me. deportation of Poles to Siberia. The Nazis considered several resettlement proposals, including sending all Jews to Madagascar, before starting their extermination policy. [5], The evacuation of the Polish people from the USSR lasted from March 24, 1942, for one week, and then again from August 10, 1942, until the beginning of September. Then a special camp for Polish children was built near the village of Balachadi in Jamnagar, Kathiawar, thanks to help of the Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar (see also Help of Maharaja of Nawanagar for Polish refugees). (And that is another moment that has always stayed with me). This was a small fraction of the approximately 1.7 million Polish citizens who had been arrested by the Soviets at the beginning of the war. Other solders rushed through the house looking for hidden arms. Twelve people in total shared one small room. Children were taken care of by the Polish Red Cross and residents of Bombay. Polish Deportees Cut Timber in a Siberian Labour Camp, 1940 In September 1939, Germany and Russia invaded Poland and divided it between them. To relieve ourselves, we had to jump out of the train whenever it stopped. Forty-five new faculty members were assigned to Lww, transferred from other institutions of Soviet Ukraine, mainly the Kharkiv and Kiev universities. We were brought into a region called Czelabinskaja Oblosc to a place called Czepajewka posiolek hard labour camp. Poles in Mexico were not allowed to leave their camps. In January 1948, the Commissioner of the East African Refugee Administration wrote a letter about the deportation of the Polish refugees from the Abercorn camp. Snyder also recalled what made the Holocaust possible at the hands of the Nazis: "In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Moscow reversed its alliances. "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). My mother refused the tempting offer of going to Santa Rosa in Mexico. In Northern Rhodesia, 245 evacuees were accepted for permanent residence. February 9, 2020 April 13, 2021. Nowoisiad-Ostrowska depicted quite a sociable image with singing songs in the evening, listening together to the radio in order to be informed about the war in Europe, and doing craftwork with other women in the evenings.[14]. Young as I was, and hungry as I was, I realised that he needed more than I, so I gave him my portion saying that I have already had my ration. Google Analytics short-term functional cookie used to determine new users and sessions. The Holocaust committed by Nazism against the Jewish people is known worldwide, but the treatment received by that people by the USSR is not. The Mass Deportation of Poles to Siberia-This book is a historical narrative based on the written testimony of the Polish Siberian survivors. There were only four toilet facilities on board, so with people and children suffering from dysentery and other stomach disorders, it simply was impossible for everybody to avail themselves of toilet facilities. Yes, even me a child of under 5 years old. On January 16, 1943, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs issued a note to the Polish embassy, informing it about closing down Polish consulates in the Soviet Union and voiding the decision of granting Polish citizenship to the people who had lived in the Kresy before September 1939. The victims of that crime must be rescued from oblivion. [11] On December 21, 1939, the Polish currency was withdrawn from circulation without any exchange to the newly introduced rouble; this meant that the entire population of the area lost all of their life savings overnight. Now and then the train would stop, and so during those stops, those who managed to pack kettles or pots, would gather snow into these containers, start up a fire, suspend these containers on hastily prepared stands to boil the resultant melting snow, which would then be used for drinking or for washing needs. During the unrest in 1905 he was deported to Siberia by the Tsarist authorities. In 1941 Joseph Stalin ordered all inhabitants with a German father to be deported, mostly to Siberia or Kazakhstan. Feature photo: German and Soviet soldiers fraternizing in Brest, where their forces met during the joint invasion of Poland (colorized photo by Mirek Szponar). 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 [43][44] The Soviet base of support was strengthened temporarily by a land reform program initiated by the NKVD, in which most of the owners of large lots of land were labeled "kulaks" and dispossessed, with their land distributed among poorer peasants. The stench was terrible. The last camp that was built in Northern Rhodesia at Abercorn (today's Mbala, Zambia). However, this was fraught with danger of being left behind. [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. -5- The Red Army paused on the Vistula river for months in 1944, while a few days' march to the west, the Germans transported the last significant population of Polish Jews from the Lodz ghetto to Auschwitz and gassed them. Las cookies de marketing se utilizan para rastrear a los visitantes a travs de las webs. Camp life was organized, there was a school, scouts, and religious life. 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. The Soviet Union took over 52.1% of the territory of Poland (circa 200,000km) with over 13,700,000 citizens at the end of the Polish Defensive War. [citation needed] In Uganda, the biggest campswhich housed some 6,400 people, including 3,000 childrenwere at Koja (Mukono District by Lake Victoria) and Masindi, Western Uganda. I watched him eat, silent tears streaming down his face. But there was a crime quantitatively greater and as unknown as that by the general public. Legacy Google Analytics short-term technical cookie used along with __utmb to determine new users sessions. Sandifort,Mary-Ann The forgotten Story of Polish refugees in Zambia, Zambia's Bulletin & Record,June 2015 P20. I will never forget the journey on trucks through the mountains from Ashgabat to Tehran. Reproduction of the contents of this blog is prohibited without the author's consent. [29][47] No later than several weeks after the last Polish units surrendered, on October 22, 1939, the Soviets organized staged elections to the Moscow-controlled Supreme Soviets (legislative body) of Western Byelorussia and Western Ukraine. During those three weeks of meandering through Russia, it was well nigh impossible to have a proper wash. Google Analytics technical cookie used to throttle request rate. Para todos los dems tipos de cookies necesitamos su permiso. Polian suggests the enclosures to the letters, so far not found, were written by Adolf Eichmann and Alois Brunner, responsible for Jewish immigration in Berlin and Vienna, respectively. terrified of heights, so it was a nightmare journey for me. My father, brother Alfons and sister joined the newly forming military units and my mother was enlisted into womens auxiliary force. While the overall experiences of the survivors have commonalities, certain details of their stories are uniquely different. My lungs were also affected, a condition which has dogged me all my life. 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. Don't miss the news and content that interest you. Most Poles were forced to stay in the Soviet Union. In August 1942, two schools were created, for younger (aged 8-15) and older scouts. During the second evacuation, 69,247 persons left the Soviet Union, including 25,501 civilians (9,633 children). But, actual conferral of citizenship required individual consent and residents were strongly pressured for such consent. I remember it was so cold, that my mothers hair froze to the side of the carriage, and I caught a bad chill and infection in my left ear which resulted in a perforation of my eardrum. Fuel for this was cows dried dung which we collected from fields. Additional Polish transports arrived in late 1943. 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. Sanitary conditions again were almost non-existent. If at any time you want to unsubscribe, you only just have to click the link that you will find at the bottom of each newsletter. My brother Alfons, I later learned, went down with typhus, and my mother, who was then near his unit, nursed him to health. In Ahvaz, "Camp Polonia" was one of the main exit centers for Poles leaving Iran, and the last Ahvaz camp closed in 1945. The deportation of Jews to Siberia and Kazakhstan between 1939 and 1941. After the first evacuation, Polish-Soviet relations deteriorated and the Soviet government began arresting Polish officials. My mother, elder brother and sister were made to work on the surface of the mines, and my brother Gustaf and I, being the youngest two, were forced to attend Russian school, where indoctrination procedure was put in hand. The Soviet Union never officially declared war on Poland and ceased to recognise the Polish state at the start of the invasion. We, the children, were formed into groups, each group had an adult looking after it. There we boarded a ship where we were exposed to more appalling conditions. All organized religions were persecuted. Unauthorised Approximately 600 Polish refugees were taken to Abercorn in contingents. [27] The prisons soon got severely overcrowded, with all detainees accused of anti-Soviet activities. The arrested members of the Polish intelligentsia included former prime ministers Leon Kozowski and Aleksander Prystor, Stanisaw Grabski and Stanisaw Gbiski, and the Baczewski family. Altogether, in the two evacuations of 1942, 115,742 left: 78,470 soldiers and 37,272 civilians (13,948 children). [11] There were also 336,000 refugees from areas occupied by Germany, most of them Jews (198,000). [41][42] They began confiscating, nationalising and redistributing all private and state-owned Polish property. Whilst waiting for a boat to take us to India, we were housed in horse stables. That in itself was monstrously hideous, exposing children, women and men to perform their private bodily functions openly. [28], Subsequently, all institutions of the dismantled Polish state were closed down and reopened under the Soviet-appointed supervisors. The main street of the camp was named after General Tadeusz Br-Komorowski. For the plight of Poles who remained in the Soviet interior until the defeat of Germany, see Polish population transfers (194446) and the population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine. The number and placement of Polish citizens deported in February and June 1940. Most of them were Polish Catholics and there were also some Jews. This was due to the inhuman condition in which we lived severe frost, hunger, fear, lack of any medical attention and hard work causing all kinds of illnesses. To say that hygienic conditions of our living quarters were less than primitive is to make a gross overstatement. I do not remember the names of towns we went through, but at some point we crossed southern Ural mountains into the southern Asian Russia, the beginning of Syberia. The train would, from time to time, also stop at stations for coke provisions, where hot water (kipiatok) could be obtained, together with some provisions. But this should not make us forget a fact: Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court considers deportations crimes against humanity and war crimes. More than one million Poles died a slow death in the gulags of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin or on their long and desperate journeys to and from the camps. (as of 1 April 1941). 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. Note that you need to include Polish characters when searching i.e. The cooking was done in a large kitchen situated in the middle. As a result of the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland (as agreed by the Nazis and Soviets in their 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. 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. Thousands of Poles took advantage of this, although not all managed to get out, because news did not reach them in time, before Stalin stoped it. While in Russia, says Asher Scharf, protagonist of this lively documentary, I thought, Im going to write a book. About the forced marches, the hard labor, the illness and death, the bedbugs that, like the Soviets, were more clever than we gave them credit for. Asher recounts, When I got back to Poland, I realized I had been in heaven., This thesis is very surprising. All enterprises were taken over by the state, while agriculture was made collective.[55]. "De-Polonizing the territories newly incorporated into the USSR", "Near and Middle East: The evacuation of the Polish people from the USSR", "Evacuation of Polish civilians from the Soviet Union to Persia 1942". 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. The second wave of 13 April 1940, consisted of 320,000 people sent primarily to Kazakhstan. On June 16, 2005, the website of the World Jewish Congress published very significant information that highlighted the curious coincidence of Hitler's initial anti-Semitic plans with Stalin's deportations of Jews : "The Nazis wanted to deport all Jews to the Soviet Union, a newly discovered document suggests. Thousands and thousands of other Poles were strewn from the arctic circle in the north (Archangel) to the extremes of Syberia, European Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kirgystan, and other places, and set to work, in appalling conditions, felling forest trees, transporting and working timber, or, as my father, working in mines. Having arrived at the railway station, we were brutally bundled into waiting cattle trucks, fitted out with wooden shelves/bunks in order to pack in as many people as possible, some 50 70 people in one truck. [62][63] About 600 people died as the result of the Augustw roundup. About one third of the civilians were children. In the end unable to bear it any longer, I crawled on to the floor of the bus and stayed there until we miraculously reached Teheran. And so it was that my sister Nadzieja (NB the name means Hope) became a nurse helping to look after the sick and then wounded as she became part of the 2nd Polish Corps under General Anders. Perhaps that is why (in adulthood), much to the annoyance of our children, I developed an absolute phobia for neatness and tidiness. Immediately after their conquest of eastern Poland, the Soviet authorities started a campaign of sovietization of the newly acquired areas. Google Analytics campaign and traffic source tracking cookie. Her son died young due to an accident; her daughter still lives in South Africa with her grandchildren.[16]. People who were thus rewarded were called Osadniki which means Settlers on the new land given to them. The (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? World War Two: The deportation of Polish refugees to Abercorn camp in Northern Rhodesia. 1939 II WORLD WAR GERMANY AND RUSSIA INVADE POLAND. On November 1, 1944, USS General George M. Randall (AP-115) arrived at Wellington, with 733 children on board. [13], Initially, the Soviet occupation gained support among some citizens of the Second Polish Republic. Of the survivors, approximately 80% escap Polish experts lower nation's WWII death toll. My family father Adolf Miluk, mother Anna Miluk (nee Szpula), brothers Alfons and Gustaf, sister Nadzieja and I Helena, were just sitting down to breakfast, when there was a loud and urgent knock on the front door. He was aware that he might be arrested, so he took to hiding in various places, hardly ever sleeping at home. This book is a collection of individual stories written by survivors of the Polish genocide during the Second World War. A smaller-scale evacuation to Ashkhabad-Mashhad followed, including the large and final group of civilians. -2- The food was delivered: rice, flour, meat, salt, sugar, tea, and some coffee. They settled in a camp at Santa Rosa, near the city of Len, in central Mexico. Many of them, like General Jzef Olszyna-Wilczyski, captured, interrogated and shot on 22 September, were killed during the 1939 campaign. There was one circular cast iron stove in the middle, which did not supply anywhere near the required degree of warmth. The Polish consulates in the USSR issued in-land temporary passports for those being evacuated: These had to be presented at the border crossings in order to proceed. As I have already said, my father was made to work in mines, mining mainly malachite where, on one occasion, he sustained a bad accident. [citation needed] The Soviets lobbied the Western Allies to recognize the pro-Soviet Polish puppet government of Wanda Wasilewska in Moscow. The journey from Poland to Siberia to Central Asia will be told not only by Asher and Shifra Scharf but also by several other Polish Jews, each detailing a particular leg of the journey. The resultant stench was horrendous. This was in August 1920, and ever since [49], Simultaneously Soviet authorities tried to remove traces of Polish history in the area by eliminating much of what had connections to the Polish state or even Polish culture in general. Nevertheless, red and common disentery raged. The housing was primitive: dwellings made of clay, with roofs made of grass and banana leaves. POLES DEPORTED TO SIBERIA IN THE YEARS 1940-1945. [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. Red Army troops requisitioned food and other goods. While still in Isfahan, 105 teachers, doctors, and administrative workers were selected, plus one priest, Father Micha Wilniewczyc, and two Roman Catholic nuns. We were not first the Poles in Africa. Hope came in July, 1941. 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. Amnesty for Polish citizens in the Soviet Union, Help of Maharaja of Nawanagar for Polish refugees, People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine, 1.1 million Poles (including Polish Jews), Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939-1946), List of Soviet Union prison sites that detained Poles, List of Polish refugees cemeteries in Africa. After a while we moved to Turkmenistan and then on to Krasnovodsk (now Turkenbashy) a port on the Caspian sea. On March 19, 1942, General Wadysaw Anders ordered the evacuation of Polish soldiers and civilians who lived next to army camps. The journey was an inhuman nightmare. On the date of 10th February, 1940, some 218,000 people were forcefully deported from Eastern Poland, and with further deportations during the year, this figure rose to almost 2,000,000. [29] Altogether the Soviets sent roughly a million people from Poland to Siberia. [56] Pre-war Poland was portrayed as a capitalist state based on exploitation of the working people and ethnic minorities. He was rescued by his co-workers who dug him out with their bare hands. On top of not being able to see in the dusk, I suffered from eye infection, which caused swelling of my eyelids and heavy yellow discharge. 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. It was a hellhungry, sick people, children in rail cars, filled with louse. [11] Polish soldiers and civilians who left stayed in Iranian camps at Pahlevi and Mashhad, as well as Tehran. ), This page was last edited on 2 January 2023, at 22:55. [66], 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. My brother Gustaf joined newly forming cadets in Teheran, and was transferred to Palestine and then Egypt. And remember we were travelling at the height of winter. Luckily, my mother managed to pack enough cooked food, which, with careful rationing, just about lasted long enough till we reached our destination. Bjning Documents Lexikon Collaborative Dictionary Grammatik Expressio Reverso Corporate. The decoration Sybir Deportee Cross was established on October 17th, 2003 in order to recognise and commemorate the sufferings of Polish citizens deported to Siberia, The refugees finally left Iran after a few months, and were transported to a number of countries, such as Lebanon, Mandatory Palestine, India, Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, South Africa, New Zealand, and Mexico. 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