polish deportation to siberia

NKVD agents issued Soviet passports to Poles in February-May 1943. And how did Auschwitz, previously the Polish town Oswiecim, come to bear that infamous name? then this event called by the Poles Miracle on the Vistula is celebrated each The following year, between 40,000 and 50,000 people - mostly from Upper Silesia - were deported to forced labor camps.[38]. terrified of heights, so it was a nightmare journey for me. 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. 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. [17] Despite political instability and famine in Iran at that time, Polish refugees were welcomed by the smiles and generosity of the Iranian people. versttning med sammanhang av "mass deportation" i engelska-ukrainska frn Reverso Context: Subsequently, a mass deportation ensued, accompanied by violence and killings. Bibliography of Poland during World War II, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_citizens_(19391946)&oldid=1131176828, Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland 19391941, Articles with Polish-language sources (pl), Wikipedia extended-confirmed-protected pages, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 500,000 Polish nationals imprisoned before June 1941 (90% male), 22,000 Polish military personnel and officials killed in the, 1,700,000 Poles deported to Siberia in 1939-1941, 100,000 women raped during the Soviet counter-offensive (est. Additional Polish transports arrived in late 1943. [56] Pre-war Poland was portrayed as a capitalist state based on exploitation of the working people and ethnic minorities. Para todos los dems tipos de cookies necesitamos su permiso. You must login to comment. Families housed in communal barracks had to endure undescribable living conditions, when people were dying every day from a variety of causes. , , , , , , , . 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. 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. Because we were travelling in animal trucks, there were hardly any sanitary provisions. They worked as farmers, and their first transport came through India in October 1943 with 720 people, most of them women and children. After the first evacuation, Polish-Soviet relations deteriorated and the Soviet government began arresting Polish officials. This story has been placed in the following categories. The cooking was done in a large kitchen situated in the middle. [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 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. [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. There were several waves of deportations during which families were sent to barren land in the Soviet Union. This book is a collection of individual stories written by survivors of the Polish genocide during the Second World War. Polish experts lower nation's WWII death toll. 1939 wrzesie 17, Moskwa Nota rzdu sowieckiego nie przyjta przez ambasadora Wacawa Grzybowskiego, "Decision to commence investigation into Katyn Massacre", "The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field, "ledztwo w sprawie zabjstwa w dniu 22 wrzenia 1939 r. w okolicach miejscowoci Sopokinie generaa brygady Wojska Polskiego Jzefa Olszyny-Wilczyskiego i jego adiutanta kapitana Mieczysawa Strzemskiego przez onierzy b. Zwizku Radzieckiego. Houses made of clay, in the heart of Africa. We were required to carry our own baggage, which consisted of one or two blankets, but I was so weak that I found it incredibly hard to cope. At Isfahan Polish orphanage, a children's camp was opened, where 2,300 children and 300 adults stayed and eight elementary schools were created. Click here to login. [6][7] Since 1939 German and Soviet officials coordinated their Poland-related policies and repressive actions. . Don't miss the news and content that interest you. 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. MY STORY AS REMEMBERED FROM THE DISTANCE OF. [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. orphanages, separating boys from girls. 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. -2- Find out how you can use this. 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. 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. [19], The first Polish refugees came to Palestine in summer 1942. XCLOSE. We were moved further south to Kazakhstan and accommodated in a small mud hut with another Polish family. Este sitio web utiliza cookies para mejorar su experiencia. Many of them, like General Jzef Olszyna-Wilczyski, captured, interrogated and shot on 22 September, were killed during the 1939 campaign. She would share some of our food with those who were not so lucky. [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. Further Polish transports went to India by sea, from the port of Ahvaz to Bombay. 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. Furthermore, there were schools in Egypt, at Tall al Kabir and Heliopolis. On 28 September 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany had changed the secret terms of the MolotovRibbentrop Pact. referenced. 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. Later on, scouting teams were organized. [2] There were four waves of deportations of entire families with children, women, and elderly people aboard freight trains from 1940 until 1941. Immediately after their conquest of eastern Poland, the Soviet authorities started a campaign of sovietization of the newly acquired areas. The NKVD (Russian Secret Police) had the overall command of these gulags, run by a mostly brutal local administator. My brother Gustaf joined newly forming cadets in Teheran, and was transferred to Palestine and then Egypt. Katz is quite right to recall that the Red Army, three and a half years later, liberated Auschwitz. The British did not have the intention of keeping the Polish refugees in East Africa when it was decided to take them there. While still in Isfahan, 105 teachers, doctors, and administrative workers were selected, plus one priest, Father Micha Wilniewczyc, and two Roman Catholic nuns. People kept their own gardens, with vegetables. A Polish Child's WWII Journey. This is the synopsis of the documentary: "Well-known fact: Of Polands 3.3 million Jews, only 300,000 survived the Holocaust. [27] The prisons soon got severely overcrowded, with all detainees accused of anti-Soviet activities. Hamtramck, MI 48212-3437, 8994 S Kasson St The Polish soldiers, after evacuating from Russia to Persia (now Iran) and undergoing health rehabilitation following their ordeal in the Russian camps, entered the war in the West fighting alongisde the Allies on all fronts land, The third wave of JuneJuly 1940 totaled more than 240,000. One day I saw my fathers shirt lying on the floor actually move with crawling lice. 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. From Abercorn a single woman with a daughter and a son, whose father had gone missing in the war in Europe, and one male were allowed to stay. People who were thus rewarded were called Osadniki which means Settlers on the new land given to them. 'Za pierwszego Sovieta'. Still, thousands of distraught Poles remained there, sent to kolkhozs. 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. And that is why my father was marked down for arrest and deportation to hard labour gulags (forced labour camps) in Russia, as he was considered to be a danger to the Russian nation and as a punishment for his volunteering. The Pogrom of Ludmiwka: a silenced killing of Jews at the hands of communists Altogether, in 1943-44 there were 26 schools for Polish refugees in the Near East.[12]. All Rights Reserved. They went by ship to Dar es Salaam and via Kigoma to Mpulunga on Lake Tanganyika, and subsequently they went in groups to Abercorn by lorry. [41][42] They began confiscating, nationalising and redistributing all private and state-owned Polish property. The fourth and final wave occurred in June 1941, deporting 300,000. The journey was an inhuman nightmare. [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. For some reason that I cannot explain the sight of my brothers face awash with tears has always stayed in my memory. (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? [4] Among those who remained in the Soviet Union, about 150,000 Poles perished before the end of the war. Algunas cookies son colocadas por servicios de terceros que aparecen en nuestras pginas. Initially aimed primarily at possible political opponents, by January 1940 the NKVD's campaign was also directed against potential allies, including Polish Communists and Socialists. one chamber, the ceiling collapsed on him. Eighty years on, the emotion is still raw for Elzbieta Smulkowa when she remembers her deportation to Siberia in 1941. The eastern half of Poland was annexed by the Soviet Union. Those arrested included Wadysaw Broniewski, Aleksander Wat, Tadeusz Peiper, Leopold Lewin, Anatol Stern, Teodor Parnicki, Marian Czuchnowski and many others. Their migration began was encouraged by local noblemen, often Polish landlords, who wanted to develop their significant land-holdings in the area for agricultural use. The Soviet forces murdered almost all captured officers, and sent numerous ordinary soldiers to the Soviet Gulag. [4] Whether the number of victims could have reached or even exceeded 100,000 is only a matter of guessing,[4] considering the traditional taboos among the women incapable of finding "a voice that would have enabled them to talk openly" about their wartime experiences "while preserving their dignity. sea and air. 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