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. Sovietisation of Poland's Eastern Territories. Most of the time we survived on one slice of black bread a day. Google Universal Analytics long-time unique user tracking identifier. 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. My brother Gustaf and I were herded into what became known as. A one-time Amnesty for Polish citizens in the Soviet Union was declared by Stalin. 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. 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? 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. 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. [22] The Soviets also executed all the Polish officers they captured after the Battle of Szack, on 28 September. Cedar, MI 49621-5106. 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. As I mentioned previously,we were then crowded into almost unheated cattle trucks, and started our journey into the depths of Russia, which lasted about three weeks, as on occasions were shunted backwards and forwards, and during the course of which, a great number of people died either from exhaustion or were lost in transit. Lww University was reorganized in accordance with the Statute Books for Soviet Higher Schools. Algunas cookies son colocadas por servicios de terceros que aparecen en nuestras pginas. [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. XCLOSE. terrified of heights, so it was a nightmare journey for me. (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 Polish refugees who were going to East Africa were shipped from Iran, or taken from Iran to India and shipped from an Indian port, to different African destinations. Polish and Jewish citizens may at first have preferred a Soviet regime to a German one,[40] but the Soviets soon proved they were also hostile and destructive towards the Polish citizens. This she did, and being very cross with my guardian, soundly told her off. [15] Around 55% of the deportees to Siberia and Soviet Central Asia were Polish women.[32]. He was aware that he might be arrested, so he took to hiding in various places, hardly ever sleeping at home. "[65], To this day, the events of those and the following years constitute stumbling blocks in Polish-Russian foreign relations. Exiled to Siberia. Little-known fact: 80 percent of those who survived did so because of being deported to Stalins gulags following the Soviet annexation of eastern Poland in 1939. [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. As a result of the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland (as agreed by the Nazis and Soviets in their pact of August 1939), 1.2 million Poles were deported by the Soviets to Siberia and to other remote places in the USSR. Approximately 600 Polish refugees were taken to Abercorn in contingents. A smaller-scale evacuation to Ashkhabad-Mashhad followed, including the large and final group of civilians. [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. We were very poor, there were no jobs, kids had their classes in the open, there were no books." 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 cooking was done in a large kitchen situated in the middle. 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. deportation of Poles 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. They were so bad that we were continually covered in lice and bedbugs. () 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." Yes, even me a child of under 5 years old. On 17 September 1939 the Soviets invaded Poland with an army of 600,000 that included 24 infantry divisions, 15 cavalry divisions, and nine tank brigades [ii]. However, this was fraught with danger of being left behind. versttning med sammanhang av "mass deportation" i engelska-ukrainska frn Reverso Context: Subsequently, a mass deportation ensued, accompanied by violence and killings. sea and air. The adults were uneasy and afraid of the unknown, but us, the children, were happy for an adventure. 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. All Rights Reserved. They suffered mass deportations to the gulags.[59]. 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 third wave of JuneJuly 1940 totaled more than 240,000. Tehran was a gate, through which we were sent, in groups, to different parts of the world. The victims of that crime must be rescued from oblivion. Her request was granted. In addition to sharing information to combat the Polish resistance, the NKVD handed over to the Gestapo Jews who had taken refuge in the USSR. The Soviet Union never officially declared war on Poland and ceased to recognise the Polish state at the start of the invasion. 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". 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. But there was a crime quantitatively greater and as unknown as that by the general public. "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". If we examine the war in terms of the Holocaust, why should Stalin's strategic actions be exempt from moral interrogation?" Some members of the Ukrainian population welcomed the unification with Soviet Ukraine. Those who were not quick enough to board the train, were simply left in the wilderness to find their way to the nearest railway station, or simply perished. Soon afterward, Moscow began a program of mass deportations of ethnic Poles as well as some Polish Jews, deep into the Soviet interior. 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. 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]. "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 STORY AS REMEMBERED FROM THE DISTANCE OF. 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. Click here to login. Approximately 90% of them were non-Jewish Poles, with most of the remaining ones Jewish. Hamtramck, MI 48212-3437, 8994 S Kasson St We never did. --4- People kept their own gardens, with vegetables. The Ukrainians had failed to achieve independence in 1919 when their attempt at self-determination was crushed during the PolishSoviet and Polish-Ukrainian Wars. Classes began on September 1, 1942. 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. 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 Google Analytics short-term functional cookie used to determine new users and sessions. 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). 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]. Because we were travelling in animal trucks, there were hardly any sanitary provisions. Following repeatedly impatient loud knocks and shouts to open up, my father opened the front door when a group of Russian solders, with bayonets fixed to their rifles, burst in, ordered arms up, rounded us up and stood us against a wall with rifles pointing at us and searched us for weapons. [14] Their enthusiasm however faded with time as it became clear that the Soviet repressions were aimed at all peoples equally.[15]. Many Poles left Iran for India, thanks to the efforts of Polish consul in Bombay, Eugeniusz Banasinski. I do not recall why we did not get any help from anybody. We were not first the Poles in Africa. 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