开云体育

Back to Barney's original question, which is kind of on-topic (ie. the consequences of the war deportations etc.)

Barney, can you share the source of your numbers? ?There is much debate about how many Polish citizens ?were deported to the USSR, how many were in the USSR during the war, how many died, etc.

Although Danusia is right that it was not easy for the Poles to leave in 1941-42 with Anders Army, Barney is referring to the post-war period. ?At this time there was a mass relocation of people in a great spasm of ethnic reshuffling to make countries more ethnically homogeneous, as Poland was "marched two paces to the left" and Germans were uprooted from their eastward communities in Poland, eastern Prussia and the USSR that they had established over the previous centuries. ?As a result the previously multi-ethnic and multi-religious Poland became almost 100% Polish ethnicity and Catholic.

Specifically:
- Germans were 'expelled' ?from the "reclaimed lands" (e.g. Szczecin, Wroclaw) given Poland
- Poles were 'relocated' from the Kresy lands given the USSR to western Poland's "reclaimed lands"
- Ukrainians were 'relocated' from Poland under Operation Wisla to the Kresy lands given the USSR

Some of the moves were forced, others were voluntary. ?The operation to relocate Poles WAS voluntary, but most Poles in the southern Kresy were motivated to leave by the mass killings perpetrated on the Polish population by Ukrainian nationalist forces in 1942-43, and their future prospects in the USSR were not very rosy (those who stayed were forced to adopt Soviet citizenship for keeps). ?What had been their Poland was Poland no longer.

The expelled Germans were not treated with much kindness by the Polish authorities and population, largely because they were seen as active supporters of the Nazi regime. ?A number were taken to Polish (communist) concentration camps and some tortured or killed, often by survivors of the Nazi genocide in a sort of revenge. ?

And Operation Wisla involved the Polish Army having to raid Ukrainian villages in Poland and drag people out of their homes, and was resisted by some Ukrainians (or Ruthenians or Lemkos etc.) and is considered a crime against humanity to this day by some in the Ukraine.

Not a pretty time. ?As for the 700,000 Poles in the USSR, some would have stayed on their ancestral land. ?Some were communists working or studying in the USSR. ?Some were married to locals. ?Some were in jail or labour camps. ?And some were simply on kolkhozes or elsewhere in remote areas out of communication and with no means to get themselves out. ?To this day, there are 2nd and 3rd-generation Polish ethnics throughout the former USSR (Kazakhstan etc.) who would love to 'return' to Poland but have been unable to due to repatriation difficulties on the Polish side.

Hope this helps a bit.

Stefan Wisniowski
Sydney