The collection of documents of the Union of Polish Patriots in the USSR, kept today in the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw, encompasses over 2,000 volumes. This is a very valuable source of information about the fate of Polish citizens in the Soviet Union in 1943–1946. Established on Joseph Stalin’s initiative, the Union of Polish Patriots pursued various goals, including those relating to politics, propaganda, education and welfare. In addition, the Union was in charge of the repatriation of our compatriots in 1946. Documents of this organisation, especially its local structures, describe the situation of Polish citizens in various regions of the USSR, especially deep in its heartland. The picture emerging from these sources is not uniform. The sources are marked by the context of the time and place in which they were drawn as well as the ideological “programming” of the Union of Polish Patriots. Hence the distorted image of the exiles, described in a way that would please the Kremlin’s masters. However, a layer of propaganda does cover a reliable picture of the life of our compatriots in the Soviet Union at the time. Readers have an opportunity to learn about the dramatic conditions in which the exiles lived and the enormous poverty with which they had to cope.
Переговоры относительно заключения советско-польского соглашения о репатриации велись с лета 1944 г. Их вели московские представительства Польского комитета национального освобождения, а позже Временного Правительства ПР. Главным вопросом была проблема гражданства, т.к. советские власти большинство граждан II Польской Республики, пребывающих на их территории, признавали гражданами СССР. Разрабатываемое соглашение в первую очередь должно было регулировать правовое положение польских ссыльных, а затем позволить им на легальную репатриацию. Представляемые с апреля 1945 г. советской стороне проекты документа не оказали существенного влияния на окончательную форму соглашения, которое было написано согласно замыслам советов и вскоре оказалось невозможным для внедрения в жизнь, тем самым требовало пересмотра на дипломатическом уровне.
В сентябре 1945 г. послом Польши в СССР стал проф. Генрих Раабе — зоолог, университетский преподаватель и левый общественный деятель. Исполнение своих служебных обязанностей начал, в частности, с попыток предоставить полякам в СССР — ссыльным военного периода — возможность репатриации на основании соглашения от 6 июня 1945 г. В то время советские органы безопасности провели на территории Польши (в том числе на восточной территории II Речи Посполитой) массовые аресты. На Восток были депортированы тысячи поляков — чаще всего солдат Армии Крайовой, задержанных НКВД-НКГБ в тылу фронта Красной Армии. Посол Раабе решил начать борьбу за их освобождение и репатриацию. В декабре 1945 г. и марте 1946 г. составил два обширных отчета для польского Министерства иностранных дел, в которых представил категории репрессированных поляков и выдвинул предложение по урегулированию их правового статуса. У Раабе была основная цель: освободить и репатриировать как можно больше польских граждан из СССР — ссыльных, лагерников и заключенных. Представленные документы происходят из Архива Министерства внутренних дел вВаршаве и они являются исключительным свидетельством вовлечения посла Раабевдела поляков на Востоке. Однако его решимость негативно воспринималась в Кремле, а в Варшаве подчиненные Советам польские власти видели в нем угрозу для хороших отношений с Советским Союзом. Итак, результаты его усилий были очень ограничены — кто из польских граждан мог быть освобожден и отправлен на родину, решение об этом водностороннем порядке принимали власти СССР. Перевел Ежи Россеник
EN
In September 1945 Poland named Prof. Henryk Raabe — zoologist, university lecturer and left-wing social activist — its ambassador to the USSR. He began his term in office by trying to persuade the Soviet authorities to allow Poles in the USSR — exiles from the war period — to be repatriated under the agreement of 6 July 1945. Yet the Soviet security services were conducting a mass arrest campaign in Poland (including the eastern regions of the Second Polish Republic). Thousands of Poles were deported east — usually they were soldiers of the Home Army held by the NKVD-NKGB at the back of the Red Army front. Ambassador Raabe decided to fight for their release and repatriation. In December 1945 and March 1946 he compiled two extensive reports for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in which he presented categories of the oppressed Poles and proposals to regulate their legal status. Raabe’s overriding objective was to release and repatriate as many Polish citizens — exiles, labour camp inmates and prisoners — as possible. The documents presented in the article come from the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw and constitute a unique testimony to Ambassador Raabe’s commitment to the cause of Poles in the East. His determination was, however, negatively received in the Kremlin, and in Warsaw the Polish authorities, kowtowing to the Soviets, saw in him a threat to their good relations with the USSR. The effects of his efforts were, therefore, very limited — which Polish citizens were to be released and sent to their homeland was determined unilaterally by the Soviet authorities. Translated by Anna Kijak
In December of 1947 in Foreign Department of Central Committee of Polish Workers’ Party appeared a note concerning difficulties with repatriation of Poles from the USSR. They concerned mainly relatives of members of the ruling party. The note contains descriptions of many formal problems concerning arrival of Polish citizens from the USSR. The document was created when the question of repatriation in Polish-Soviet relations was in fact frozen. Nonetheless, the problems described in the document prove that repatriation remained important issue for communist party in Poland.
The article shows the questions of repatriation and citizenship in Polish-Soviet relations. Not all of Polish migrations from the USSR in 20th century could be recognized as repatriation. That is why author categorizes different migrations as „repatriation” or „resettlement” according to legal and historical issues. The article explains the relation between the terms „repatriation” and „Polish citizen” in different periods of contemporary Polish history.
In the years 1944-1956 the prisoners of Kolyma forced-labour camps (lagry) were divided into three main categories. They were imprisoned in three types of camps, i.e. Corrective Labour Camps (ITL), Hard Labour Camps (katorznyje, KTR) and - since 1948 - Special Camps (OL). The system of Kolyma special camps was named BERLAG (bieregovoj - ‘shore camp’). In the aforementioned kinds of camps prisoners were subject to the respective regimes, with the relatively most lenient in the ITL camps. They had to bear all the hardships of existence in the forced-labour camp, yet a range of possibilities to survive was, in that case, comparatively wide. They could work in the kitchen, the administration of the camp or the utility rooms. Those were the possibilities, which the prisoners of the other camps were deprived of. Nevertheless, more than an inconvenience, even in the ITL was, forced coexistence with the criminal prisoners, who usually harassed and tormented other inmates. The second category was katorga (KTR), prepared, above all, for the prisoners accused of political crimes. They were given identification numbers, which was a change in comparison with the ITL. The convicts were forced to do hardest the most severe labour in mines and could not hold any posts inside the camp. They were treated with rigid strictness by the guards, who put them in fetters on their way to the mines and were permanently in charge. The last group constited of the prisoners of the special camps, which were created all over the Soviet Union after 1948, specially for political prisoners. Eventually, the majority of Polish prisoners, both from the ITL and the KTR, were transfered to the Special Camps, with new identification numbers. Relocation meant a change for a worse for many of them. Special Camps constituted a separate and different structure. Specially trained officers of the MWD (Ministerstvo vnutrennich det) were the escorts and guards. Discipline was somewhat similar to that in the KTR camps. The prisoners were put in fetters while going to their work destination and worked in the most difficult conditions. For example the uranium ore mining. The only favourable change was the separation from criminal prisoners, as it put an the terror they had spread in other camps to an end.
The memories and accounts of the victims of Soviet deportations are a valuable source of knowledge about the tragic fate of Polish citizens in the East, and their lives in the borderlands of the Second Polish Republic. Using the richness of their content, I analyse the problem of borders and their crossing in the period from deportation in 1940–1941 to repatriation in 1946. This article is a continuation and development of research undertaken into the issue of repatriation in the memories and accounts of Siberians, in which I discussed the topic of crossing the borders to and from the USSR.
PL
Wspomnienia i relacje ofiar radzieckich zsyłek to wartościowe źródło wiedzy o tragicznych losach obywateli polskich na Wschodzie, ale także o ich życiu na terenach pogranicza II RP. Wykorzystując bogactwo ich treści analizuję problem granic i ich przekraczania w okresie od deportacji w latach 1940–1941 do repatriacji w 1946 r. Interesują mnie przede wszystkim granice polityczne – te pomiędzy Polską a ZSRR. Jak wiemy, w okresie II wojny światowej uległy one zmianie. Refleksje towarzyszące Sybirakom podczas ich przekraczania w konkretnych okolicznościach politycznych w czasie deportacji, a następnie repatriacji znalazły swoje odbicie w materiale wspomnieniowym. Stosunek zesłańców do przekraczania zmieniających się granic pomiędzy Polską a ZSRR zależał bowiem przede wszystkim od ich własnych doświadczeń (sprzed wojny oraz czasów zsyłki) oraz perspektyw życiowych.
Siberia, exile, wandering, captivity – there are an experiences accompanying the another generations of Poles, who were affected by the oppressive policy of the eastern neighbor of our country – Russia (USSR). Independently from the historical forms of power that had been governed over the Neva or the Kremlin, the Polish fates in the East bring to mind most often these martyrological pages of the history of the native. In fact, the repressions suffered by many Poles from the Russian (and Soviet) state were so severe that it is difficult to make other associations. The first generation of Polish exiles in Siberia was found themselves there in the XVIIIth century after defeat of the Bar Confederation. The next, significant in terms of numbers the deportations, became a consequence of further lost XIXth century national uprisings, and in the last decades of the annexation era, they were the result of underground and revolutionary activity undertaken by later generations of Poles. Twentieth century history is an another chapter – mass repressions against Poles-citizens of the USSR in the 1930s, exiles and deportations of the inhabitants of the Second Polish Republic during World War II, or imprisonment in the camps of the „GULAG archipelago” in the post-war Stalinist period is an era of brutal dissent of the totalitarian regime with Poles. A tsar’s deportations, or even a captivity, is something completely different from the Stalinist gulags, prisons and exile. They are connected only by the geographical direction – East.
Siberia, exile, wandering, captivity – there are an experiences accompanying the another generations of Poles, who were affected by the oppressive policy of the eastern neighbor of our country – Russia (USSR). Independently from the historical forms of power that had been governed over the Neva or the Kremlin, the Polish fates in the East bring to mind most often these martyrological pages of the history of the native. In fact, the repressions suffered by many Poles from the Russian (and Soviet) state were so severe that it is difficult to make other associations. The first generation of Polish exiles in Siberia was found themselves there in the XVIIIth century after defeat of the Bar Confederation. The next, significant in terms of numbers the deportations, became a consequence of further lost XIXth century national uprisings, and in the last decades of the annexation era, they were the result of underground and revolutionary activity undertaken by later generations of Poles. Twentieth century history is an another chapter – mass repressions against Poles-citizens of the USSR in the 1930s, exiles and deportations of the inhabitants of the Second Polish Republic during World War II, or imprisonment in the camps of the „GULAG archipelago” in the post-war Stalinist period is an era of brutal dissent of the totalitarian regime with Poles. A tsar’s deportations, or even a captivity, is something completely different from the Stalinist gulags, prisons and exile. They are connected only by the geographical direction – East.
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