Amnesty for Polish citizens in the Soviet Union

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Amnesty for Polish citizens in USSR
The NKVD release document from the Gulag for a Polish soldier and surviving members of his family, dated 7 September 1941
Evacuation stages
  • Over 30,000 military personnel and about 11,000 children evacuated from 24 March until the first days of April 1942
  • Over 43,000 military personnel and about 25,000 civilians evacuated by sea from 10 August to 1 September 1942

Amnesty for Polish citizens in USSR was the one-time

Kazakh SSR. The amnesty of 1941 was directed specifically at Polish victims of those deportations.[5]

The opportunity for

General Anders lasted from March to September 1942. Well over 110,000 Poles rescued by the Polish government travelled to Iran including 36,000 women and children.[7] The decision whom to consider Polish belonged to the Soviet side. As of 1 December 1941, the release of Polish nationals no longer included members of prewar minorities. All Polish Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Jews were considered Soviet and excluded from the amnesty.[8]

History

The

Sikorski-Mayski Negotiations[11] led to the change of Soviet policies towards the Poles, as leniency was needed if Soviets were to recruit and create a Polish force under their command. On 12 August of that year Soviets issued an amnesty to Polish citizens.[2]

Those who could prove they were Polish citizens had their citizenship restored (it had been annulled in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion in 1939). Yet there was no clear definition of the "

Polish Jews, but not the Ukrainian or Belarusians who were former citizens of the Second Polish Republic).[12][13] The decree did not cover people imprisoned or under investigation by the Soviets; and it was common for 'special cases' to be denied the amnesty on technical grounds[14] or even denied information about the amnesty[15] or the possibility of joining the Polish forces.[2] Also some commanders of labour camps refused to release Polish citizens enslaved in them.[1] According to an NKVD document of 1 August, 381,220 people were to be covered by the amnesty;[16][17] however the generally accepted figure was over 1.5 million were deported.[18][19][20][21][22][23][24]

General Anders
, 1942

The term

Dr. Józef Retinger — of whom Anthony Eden had said that after Sikorski was the most important person in the negotiations — states that the blame for using the word "amnesty" rather than "release" was entirely on the Polish side and not the Russians. In his memoirs Retinger writes; "I am afraid that the responsibility for this lies on the shoulders of a good Polish diplomat, Mr Potulicki, who drafted this document.". According to Retinger, Potulicki had erroneously used the word "amnesty" and not "release" in the text of the treaty and there was no time to change the document before the signing took place.[26]

After

Anders Army left Soviet sphere of influence, repressions towards the Polish citizens reintensified. Stalin effectively revoked the Amnesty on 16 January 1943 [27] when all Polish citizens including Ethnic Poles were once again declared part of the population of the Soviet Union.[28]

See also

  • Katyn massacre
  • Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union
  • Repatriation of Poles (1944–1946)
  • Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939-1946)
  • List of Soviet Union prison sites that detained Poles

References

  1. ^ a b c Mikolajczyk, S. (1948) The Pattern of Soviet Domination Sampson Low, Marston & Co Pages 17-19
  2. ^
    ISBN 0-901342-24-6
    .
  3. ISBN 1571818820. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  4. ISBN 0969278411. Archived from the original
    on 2018-04-27. Retrieved 2016-07-03.
  5. ISBN 0-948202-76-9
    .
  6. ISBN 0786455365
    – via Google Books.
  7. ISBN 0786455365
    .
  8. ^ Barbara Patlewicz (2007). "Ludność cywilna i sieroty polskie po "amnestii" 12 sierpnia 1941 r." [Plight of civilians and orphans after the Amnesty of 12 August 1941] (PDF). Zesłaniec (in Polish). 32: 75.
  9. ISBN 1-84176-408-6
  10. ISBN 1-897984-00-6
  11. ISBN 0-948202-76-9
  12. ISBN 978-0-300-10851-4
    Page 139
  13. ^
    ISBN 0-14-028310-2
    Page 407
  14. ISBN 1-84341-012-5
  15. ISBN 0-8179-7471-7
    Page xxv
  16. ISBN 963-9241-73-3
    Page 118
  17. ^ Brandeis.edu (2005), Poland Lectures. PDF, Lecture 17: Poland Under Occupation. Brandeis University, Library & Technology Services.
  18. ISBN 0-19-821944-X
    Page 451
  19. ISBN 963-9241-73-3
    Page 119
  20. ISBN 0-948202-76-9
    Pages 29
  21. ^ "Holocaust Victims: Five Million Forgotten - non Jewish Victims of the Shoah".
  22. ISBN 1-897984-00-6
    Pages 8-9
  23. ISBN 0-901342-24-6
    Pages 50-51
  24. ^ Mikolajczyk, S. (1948) The Pattern of Soviet Domination Sampsons, low, Marston & Co
  25. ISBN 0-19-821944-X
  26. ISBN 0-85621-002-1
    .
  27. ISBN 0-9700432-0-1
  28. ^ Voigt, F.A. (1943) Poland, Russia and Great Britain

Further reading

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