POLAND UNDER SOVIET TERROR    When the Red Army invaded eastern Poland on September 17, 1939, they began the first of three waves of Sovietization -    the execution of thousands of Polish intelligentsia, and mass deportations. Hundreds of thousands of Poles, military and    civilian, were arrested, and deported to the Russian gulags. They were shoved into trainsheaded for the farthest reaches of    Russia.  The voyage took over a week -  there was no food, no water, no heat (in sub-zero temperatures), no window, no    toilets.  Many people died - standing. Upon arrival, those who were too weak to work were shot.  Within two years, over 1.5    million Poles were interned in Russian labor camps and concentration camps throughout Russia.  Fifty-two per cent of    them were ethnic Poles, 30% were Jewish, and18% Ukrainians and Byelorussians.    Stalin's objective was to finish what the tsars, emperors and kaisers could not accomplish in the past centuries: the total    destruction of the Polish nation off the face of the earth. Lenin established the first totalitarian rule, but Stalin perfected    it. The entire Russian territory literally became an open prison with thousands of internment camps.  Stalin imposed the    death penalty on children as young as twelve years old - just for stealing a loaf of bread.  He treated animals better than    human beings.  While horses were well fed, kept in separate stalls with warm blankets, the prisoners were helpless -    trying to keep warm by covering themselves with dirty rags, and were given rotting fish heads to eat, and very little water.    Stalin was a killer.  He surpassed even Hitler in the brutality and the number of  victims that were massacred by his    decree. The most infamous was the Katyn Massacre, where the NKVD under orders by Stalin, arrested and detained    15,000 Polish officers and systematically executed them, burying them in mass graves. These graves were discovered    German troops when they invaded Russia.  After examining the corpses, the Germans accused the Russians of  the    atrocity, but the Russians denied any responsibility.   The Soviet-Maisky agreement made between Russian and Poland re-established diplomatic ties, and called for the   creation of a new Polish army to be assembled on Russian soil. Though Stalin gave the order to release Polish POWs from   Soviet camps, he allowed only about 100,000 of them to leave. The Poles came from as far away as Lake Baikal, and the   borders of Mancukug and Manchuria.  The remaining 1.4 million Poles were detained as prisoners and not permitted   to leave.  The NKVD made every effort to obstruct the passage of the refugees trying to reach army checkpoints.  Thousands   of Poles died travelling on foot through the Russian Steppes, with no food, no water, and insufficient clothing - in the worst   sub-zero temperatures.  Many refugees managed to reach safety and enlisted in the Polish Army, but once there they faced   other perils.  Already sick and severely emaciated from years of Soviet oppression, they were not given enough food to eat,   although Stalin did promise to promide food rations for them all.  The NKVD even prevented the American Red Cross from   providing the refugees with food, medecine, and clothing. It was Stalins plan to kill as many Poles as possible - by starvation,   or on the battlefield.  He wanted to send the fledling Polish army straight into battle against the Germans, without backup   reinforcements, thus ensuring that as many Poles died as possible. General Wladyslaw Anders, the Commander of the   II Polish Corps, refused to permit it.  Of the 20,000 Poles who were sent to work in the Kolyma mines, only 170 made it to   the army camp on the Volga. Thousands of Polish prisoners were released from the gulag of Navaya Zemlya (situated near   the Arctic Circle).  They walked more than 3,000 miles.  There was only one survivor.  He died on the day he arrived at the   army camp. Of 3,000 Poles sent to work in the lead mines of North Kamchatka, all died of lead poisoning.   General Anders concern for the safety and lives of his men lead him to negotiate with the Allies for an immediate   evacuation, which began on March 1942.  It was one of the largest evacuations in modern history.  But all efforts at obtaining   the release of the remaining Polish prisoners in Russia were in vain. Stalin adamantly refused to give in, insisting that they   were Soviet citizens .Of the Polish prisoners in Russia, 415,800 died and were buried at registered graves -   434,300 were lost or disappeared, and the 681,400 were never permitted to leave Russia - dead or alive.      HOME                                                    POLAND UNDER SOVIET TERROR PHOTO GALLERY