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. I was just a skeleton, simply skin and bones, and I lost touch with my family for quite a while. The first transport of prisoners to the Auschwitz extermination camp on June 14, 1940. [3][5], Approximately 100,000 Polish citizens were arrested during the two years of Soviet occupation. Cedar, MI 49621-5106. 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. then this event called by the Poles Miracle on the Vistula is celebrated each "[65], To this day, the events of those and the following years constitute stumbling blocks in Polish-Russian foreign relations. Yes, even me a child of under 5 years old. [56] Pre-war Poland was portrayed as a capitalist state based on exploitation of the working people and ethnic minorities. Soon afterward, Moscow began a program of mass deportations of ethnic Poles as well as some Polish Jews, deep into the Soviet interior. [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. 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. [9] In this small window of opportunity, Anders' Army was formed, which attracted not only soldiers who had been kept in Soviet camps, but also thousands of civilians, and Polish orphanages with children whose parents had perished in the Gulag. The Soviets had ceased to recognise the Polish state at the start of the invasion. Additional Polish transports arrived in late 1943. Katz is quite right to recall that the Red Army, three and a half years later, liberated Auschwitz. The Soviets established several new chairs, particularly the chairs of Russian language and literature. 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. The main street of the camp was named after General Tadeusz Br-Komorowski. 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. 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. ", Deportation: a crime against humanity and a war crime. Twelve people in total shared one small room. During those three weeks of meandering through Russia, it was well nigh impossible to have a proper wash. NKVD agents issued Soviet passports to Poles in February-May 1943. 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, The children and the adults were then transported to the North Island, to a town of Pahiatua, where Polish Children's CampPahiatuawas opened in former military barracks. 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. [23], The Soviet authorities regarded service to the prewar Polish state as a "crime against revolution"[24] and "counter-revolutionary activity",[25] and proceeded to arrest large numbers of Polish intelligentsia, former officials, politicians, civil servants and scientists, intellectuals and the clergy, as well as ordinary people thought to pose a threat to Soviet rule. 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. There were several waves of deportations during which families were sent to barren land in the Soviet Union. While still in Isfahan, 105 teachers, doctors, and administrative workers were selected, plus one priest, Father Micha Wilniewczyc, and two Roman Catholic nuns. In August 1945, the number of Polish refugees in Northern Rhodesia was 3,419, of which 1,227 stayed in camps in the capital Lusaka, 1,431 in Bwana Mkubwa at the Copperbelt,164 in Fort Jameson at the border with Nyasaland, and 597 in Abercorn in the Northern Province. La ley establece que podemos almacenar cookies en su dispositivo si son estrictamente necesarias para el funcionamiento de este sitio. On November 1, 1944, USS General George M. Randall (AP-115) arrived at Wellington, with 733 children on board. All Polish parties and organizations were disbanded. -5- That in itself was monstrously hideous, exposing children, women and men to perform their private bodily functions openly. 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. 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. [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. [39] Their advance surprised Polish communities and their leaders, who had not been advised how to respond to a Bolshevik invasion. The second wave of 13 April 1940, consisted of 320,000 people sent primarily to Kazakhstan. My lungs were also affected, a condition which has dogged me all my life. I cannot remember how long it took us to reach port Pahlavi in Persia (now Iran). In Ahvaz, "Camp Polonia" was one of the main exit centers for Poles leaving Iran, and the last Ahvaz camp closed in 1945. We were not first the Poles in Africa. It had a clubroom, a hospital, and a gym. The next transfer took place in 195559, after Stalin's death. Obviously, the Jews who survived the horror of the Gulag could feel lucky next to those who were murdered in the German extermination camps. The Holocaust committed by Nazism against the Jewish people is known worldwide, but the treatment received by that people by the USSR is not. There are certain moments in ones life that stay in ones mind forever. onierze sowieccy w dzkiem 19451946.". 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. Reproduction of the contents of this blog is prohibited without the author's consent. 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. These first deportations were made when Hitler and Stalin still maintained their alliance (Photo: Instytut Pamici Narodowej). 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. Hamtramck, MI 48212-3437, 8994 S Kasson St [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. [30] According to Norman Davies,[31] almost half had died by the time the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement had been signed in 1941. 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 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. [26] The Soviet NKVD executed about 65,000 imprisoned Poles after being subjected to show trials. 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. The NKVD and other Soviet agencies asserted their control in 1939 as an inherent part of All enterprises were taken over by the state, while agriculture was made collective.[55]. 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. 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. At times I was forced to chew on some bark of a tree in order to put something in my stomach. deportation of Poles to Siberia. [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. Some children were so weak that they could not get up and queue for the toilet. [21], 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. 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. [62][63] About 600 people died as the result of the Augustw roundup. 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. 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. Among some 14,471 victims were top Polish Army officers, including political leaders, government officials, and intellectuals. [37], Deportations, though, continued in June 1944, around 40,000 soldiers and Polish Underground State officials who refused to join the Soviet-controlled Army were relocated to the most remote areas of the USSR. By then we were very frightened and crying uncontrollably my father white as a sheet. 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. 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 last camp that was built in Northern Rhodesia at Abercorn (today's Mbala, Zambia). After the hell that we survived, Tehran was a different world. February 10, 2022. 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. . One of the administrators lived in a building that also had a community centre where films were shown. Two letters, one from Berlin and another from Vienna, are mentioned in the February 1940 correspondence from Yevgeny Chekmenyov, of Moscows Department of Resettlement, to Viatcheslav Molotov, then foreign minister and head of the Soviet government. The Soviet Union never officially declared war on Poland and ceased to recognise the Polish state at the start of the invasion. On March 19, 1942, General Wadysaw Anders ordered the evacuation of Polish soldiers and civilians who lived next to army camps. That is where I went to Polish school for the first time in my life. 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. 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. [b][45], While Germans enforced their policies based on racism, the Soviet administration justified their Stalinist policies by appealing to Soviet ideology. "In the 1939-1941 period alone, Soviet-inflicted suffering on all citizens in Poland exceeded that of Nazi-inflicted suffering on all citizens. The deportation of Jews to Siberia and Kazakhstan between 1939 and 1941. Eighty years on, the emotion is still raw for Elzbieta Smulkowa when she remembers her deportation to Siberia in 1941. World War Two: The deportation of Polish refugees to Abercorn camp in Northern Rhodesia. La web no puede funcionar correctamente sin estas cookies. [18] In late 1942 and early 1943, Polish camps in Iran were located at Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad, and Ahvaz. Just one hole in the floor for toiletary purposes. Iran and the Polish Exodus from Russia 1942. [15] The single man has not been traced; the woman, Josefa Bieronska, moved to South Africa with her children. The resultant stench was horrendous. But, the Soviet authorities started a campaign of forced collectivisation. Feature photo: German and Soviet soldiers fraternizing in Brest, where their forces met during the joint invasion of Poland (colorized photo by Mirek Szponar). Each slice of bread had to be stolen or gotten in any other way. A smaller-scale evacuation to Ashkhabad-Mashhad followed, including the large and final group of civilians. Asumiremos que est de acuerdo con esto, pero puede optar por no participar si lo desea. 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