The Soviets only exported Poles... - 4 deportations to Siberia in 1940.
date: April 02, 2019 Editor: Anna
On February 10, 1940, the first mass deportation of Poles to Siberia, conducted by the NKVD, began. About 140 1000 Polish citizens were transported inside the russian Union. Many have already died on the way, thousands have not returned to the country. Among the deportees were mainly military families, officials, forest servants and railway workers from east pre-war areas of Poland.
The ZSRS authorities treated exports not only as a form of combating political enemies, but besides an component of the extermination of Polish elites, and above all the anticipation of utilizing thousands of people as a free labour force. Catorious work in the Siberian taiga at respective decades of freezing, hunger, and illness killed many exiles. This was a deliberate and planned crime on the Polish nation.
The beginning of the deportation on a mass scale enabled Soviets to annex east provinces of the Republic of Poland, sanctioned by the secret protocol attached to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of 23 August 1939. After 17 September of that year, erstwhile the Red Army crossed the borders of Poland, panic on an unprecedented scale began in its areas.
The exports of hundreds of thousands of Poles were decided by the highest representatives of russian power – with Józef Stalin, the head of the NKVD Łavrentij Beria and the national abroad affairs commissioner Viacheslaw Molotov at the head. Orders for deportation were issued in Moscow as early as December 1939; on the basis of them, instructions were drawn up for NKVD's field cells liable for the "cleaning" of western parts of the russian republics of Ukraine and Belarus. The deportations were carried out according to the names of the census, developed by NKVD officers in cooperation with local communists.
The 4 deportations from 1940–1941 were so not an end in itself, but were to destruct traces of Polish statehood in occupied areas and their unification with the russian Union. The exports included mainly the Polish elite, which was part of the society most aware of its nationality and nationality. Deportees were treated as “a counter-revolutionary element”, destabilising russian order in occupied areas. The removal of the intellectual and cultural elite was so a prerequisite for effective sovietization and full annexation of the Kresów.
The first shipment began at night from 9 to 10 February 1940. The Soviets prepared very carefully for it. At 1 of the conferences preceding the action, it was stated that it would be "a huge, liable work requiring large attention and serious approach and ruthless mobilisation of forces and opportunities." It was aimed at civilian and military settlers and forest protection workers and their families – a full of about 140 1000 people. They were located in 115 settlements in 21 republics, countries and regions of the russian Union – mainly where the forest manufacture prevailed (the archangelic, sacral, confederate and western districts of the Communist Autonomous Socialist russian Republic and the Krasnoyaric Country). little than a period later, on March 5, 1940, the Political Office of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist organization (bolsheviks) ordered the execution of 14,854 Polish officers and policemen from POW camps in Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov, and over 7,000 in prisons in Belarus and Ukraine.
The second deportation, launched on 13 April 1940, included government officials, police officers, teachers, political activists and landowners. It is estimated that about 61,000 people were exported at the time. The destiny of close interned officers, as in the case of the Chodorowski household from Knyszyn, Białystok, was peculiarly dramatic. The reserve lieutenant, Dr. Józef Chodorowski, served in the spare staff of the 3rd territory infirmary in Grodno, got into russian captivity in Baranovich. The same destiny happened to his older brother Bronisław (also Lieutenant of the Polish Army), who worked as a vet in the Święciany until the outbreak of the war. Both of them died in Katyn a fewer days apart. In April 1940, their parents were deported to Kazakhstan – they drove to exile while their sons were murdered. In 1946, only a sick parent returned to the country.
The 3rd deportation action of 29 June 1940 included mainly alleged runners, or escapees from the German occupation, of which 2 thirds were Jews. Many intelligence representatives, including doctors and people of science, became victims of this export, and the number of people exported was around 80 thousand. They went to Siberia, mostly into the circuits of Archaelic, Sverdowski, Nowosibirski, Komi, Maryska, Jakucka and the Altaic Country. This export was somewhat different from the erstwhile one: deported for a fewer days at the sites of the formation of transports and they were assured that they would return to the land occupied by the 3rd Reich.
The last, 4th deportation began on 20 June 1941 – on the eve of the outbreak of the German-Soviet War. The action was aimed at families and individuals associated with previously deported population groups. This deportation besides included the Baltic and Moldovan republics. A full of 90 000 people were exported, of which more than 22 000 from Western Belarus. The exiles went to the Krasnoyarski Country, the Altasian Country, the fresh Siberian Region and Kazakhstan. It is hard to estimation the number of people exported during the last deportation: researchers say that they may have been between 31 and 52 thousand.
The deportation script was always similar: beating the door with rifles with flasks in the mediate of the night, screaming, beating, rushing while packing, crying women and children, eating dogs. This image most frequently appears in the memories of the deported. In the case of the first outburst of the situation, frost increased, reaching minus 40 degrees Celsius in February 1940, and during the removal in June 1940 – terrible heat. In just a fewer minutes, people lost their full lives.
Source: Labour Ministry, gathering with Krystyna Listwan, Maków Podhalański, 23.03.2019
Photo and text: IPN
We recommend:
https://ipn.gov.pl/en/history-z-ipn/137719,Deportations-Polakow-w-glab-Union-Soviet.html
The beginning of the deportation on a mass scale enabled Soviets to annex east provinces of the Republic of Poland, sanctioned by the secret protocol attached to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of 23 August 1939. After 17 September of that year, erstwhile the Red Army crossed the borders of Poland, panic on an unprecedented scale began in its areas.
The exports of hundreds of thousands of Poles were decided by the highest representatives of russian power – with Józef Stalin, the head of the NKVD Łavrentij Beria and the national abroad affairs commissioner Viacheslaw Molotov at the head. Orders for deportation were issued in Moscow as early as December 1939; on the basis of them, instructions were drawn up for NKVD's field cells liable for the "cleaning" of western parts of the russian republics of Ukraine and Belarus. The deportations were carried out according to the names of the census, developed by NKVD officers in cooperation with local communists.
The 4 deportations from 1940–1941 were so not an end in itself, but were to destruct traces of Polish statehood in occupied areas and their unification with the russian Union. The exports included mainly the Polish elite, which was part of the society most aware of its nationality and nationality. Deportees were treated as “a counter-revolutionary element”, destabilising russian order in occupied areas. The removal of the intellectual and cultural elite was so a prerequisite for effective sovietization and full annexation of the Kresów.
The first shipment began at night from 9 to 10 February 1940. The Soviets prepared very carefully for it. At 1 of the conferences preceding the action, it was stated that it would be "a huge, liable work requiring large attention and serious approach and ruthless mobilisation of forces and opportunities." It was aimed at civilian and military settlers and forest protection workers and their families – a full of about 140 1000 people. They were located in 115 settlements in 21 republics, countries and regions of the russian Union – mainly where the forest manufacture prevailed (the archangelic, sacral, confederate and western districts of the Communist Autonomous Socialist russian Republic and the Krasnoyaric Country). little than a period later, on March 5, 1940, the Political Office of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist organization (bolsheviks) ordered the execution of 14,854 Polish officers and policemen from POW camps in Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov, and over 7,000 in prisons in Belarus and Ukraine.
The second deportation, launched on 13 April 1940, included government officials, police officers, teachers, political activists and landowners. It is estimated that about 61,000 people were exported at the time. The destiny of close interned officers, as in the case of the Chodorowski household from Knyszyn, Białystok, was peculiarly dramatic. The reserve lieutenant, Dr. Józef Chodorowski, served in the spare staff of the 3rd territory infirmary in Grodno, got into russian captivity in Baranovich. The same destiny happened to his older brother Bronisław (also Lieutenant of the Polish Army), who worked as a vet in the Święciany until the outbreak of the war. Both of them died in Katyn a fewer days apart. In April 1940, their parents were deported to Kazakhstan – they drove to exile while their sons were murdered. In 1946, only a sick parent returned to the country.
The 3rd deportation action of 29 June 1940 included mainly alleged runners, or escapees from the German occupation, of which 2 thirds were Jews. Many intelligence representatives, including doctors and people of science, became victims of this export, and the number of people exported was around 80 thousand. They went to Siberia, mostly into the circuits of Archaelic, Sverdowski, Nowosibirski, Komi, Maryska, Jakucka and the Altaic Country. This export was somewhat different from the erstwhile one: deported for a fewer days at the sites of the formation of transports and they were assured that they would return to the land occupied by the 3rd Reich.
The last, 4th deportation began on 20 June 1941 – on the eve of the outbreak of the German-Soviet War. The action was aimed at families and individuals associated with previously deported population groups. This deportation besides included the Baltic and Moldovan republics. A full of 90 000 people were exported, of which more than 22 000 from Western Belarus. The exiles went to the Krasnoyarski Country, the Altasian Country, the fresh Siberian Region and Kazakhstan. It is hard to estimation the number of people exported during the last deportation: researchers say that they may have been between 31 and 52 thousand.
The deportation script was always similar: beating the door with rifles with flasks in the mediate of the night, screaming, beating, rushing while packing, crying women and children, eating dogs. This image most frequently appears in the memories of the deported. In the case of the first outburst of the situation, frost increased, reaching minus 40 degrees Celsius in February 1940, and during the removal in June 1940 – terrible heat. In just a fewer minutes, people lost their full lives.
Source: Labour Ministry, gathering with Krystyna Listwan, Maków Podhalański, 23.03.2019
Photo and text: IPN
We recommend:
https://ipn.gov.pl/en/history-z-ipn/137719,Deportations-Polakow-w-glab-Union-Soviet.html
Film material 1 :
