Operation Vistula ( pl, Akcja Wisła; uk, Опера́ція «Ві́сла») was a codename for the 1947

forced resettlement Population transfer or resettlement is a type of mass migration, often imposed by state policy or international authority and most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion but also due to economic development. Banishment or exile is a ...

of 150,000

Ukrainians Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian. The majority ...

(

Boykos The Boykos ( uk, Бойки, Boiky; pl, Bojkowie; sk, Pujďáci), or simply Highlanders (верховинці, ''verkhovyntsi''), are an ethnolinguistic sub-group of Ukrainians located in the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary, ...

and

Lemkos Lemkos ( rue, Лeмкы, translit= Lemkŷ; pl, Łemkowie; uk, Лемки, translit=Lemky) are an ethnic group inhabiting the Lemko Region ( rue, Лемковина, translit=Lemkovyna; uk, Лемківщина, translit=Lemkivshchyna) of Car ...

) from the south-eastern provinces of post-war Poland, to the

Recovered Territories The Recovered Territories or Regained Lands ( pl, Ziemie Odzyskane), also known as Western Borderlands ( pl, Kresy Zachodnie), and previously as Western and Northern Territories ( pl, Ziemie Zachodnie i Północne), Postulated Territories ( pl, Z ...

in the west of the country. The action was carried out by the Soviet-installed Polish communist authorities with the aim of removing material support and assistance to the

Ukrainian Insurgent Army The Ukrainian Insurgent Army ( uk, Українська повстанська армія, УПА, translit=Ukrayins'ka povstans'ka armiia, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and later partisan formation. During World ...

. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army continued its guerilla activities until 1947 in both Subcarpathian and

Lublin Voivodeship The Lublin Voivodeship, also known as the Lublin Province (Polish: ''województwo lubelskie'' ), is a voivodeship (province) of Poland, located in southeastern part of the country. It was created on January 1, 1999, out of the former Lublin, Che� ...

s with no hope for any peaceful resolution. Operation Vistula effectively brought an end to the hostilities. In a period of three months beginning on 28 April 1947 and with Soviet approval and aid, about 141,000 civilians residing around Bieszczady and

Low Beskids The Low Beskids ( sk, Nízke Beskydy) or Central Beskids ( pl, Beskidy Środkowe; cs, Centrální Beskydy; uk, Центральні Бескиди) are a mountain range in southeastern Poland and northeastern Slovakia. They constitute a middle ...

were forcibly resettled to formerly German territories, ceded to Poland at the

Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...

at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The operation was named after the

Vistula River The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...

, ''Wisła'' in Polish. Some Polish and Ukrainian politicians as well as historians condemned the operation following the 1989

fall of communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

, and described it as

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...

Timothy Snyder Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute f ...

''To Resolve the Ukrainian Question Once and for All: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943-1947.''
Journal of Cold War Studies, Spring 1999.Bohdan S. Kordan (1997), "Making Borders Stick: Population Transfer and Resettlement in the Trans-Curzon Territories, 1944–1949". ''International Migration Review'' Vol. 31, No. 3., pp. 704-720 (in)
Galicia: A Multicultured Land.
' Others argued that no other means of stopping the violence existed at the time since partisans used to regroup outside the Polish borders. At exactly the same time the Soviet Union carried out a parallel operation, dubbed "Operation West", in the

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...

. Although both operations were coordinated from Moscow, there was a shocking difference between their outcomes. Operation West was conducted in

West Ukraine Western Ukraine or West Ukraine ( uk, Західна Україна, Zakhidna Ukraina or , ) is the territory of Ukraine linked to the former Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austrian ...

by the Soviet NKVD and targeted the families of suspected UPA members. Over 114,000 individuals, mostly women and children, were deported to the

Kazakh SSR ; kk, Қазақ Советтік Социалистік Республикасы) *1991: Republic of Kazakhstan (russian: Республика Казахстан; kk, Қазақстан Республикасы) , linking_name = the ...

and Siberia and forced into

extreme poverty Extreme poverty, deep poverty, abject poverty, absolute poverty, destitution, or penury, is the most severe type of poverty, defined by the United Nations (UN) as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, includi ...

. Of the 19,000 adult males deported by the NKVD deportees, most were sent to coal mines and stone quarries in the north. None of the people deported by the NKVD received any farms or empty homes to live in.

Background

The stated goal of the operation was to suppress the

(UPA), which had been fighting the communist

Polish People's Army The Polish People's Army ( pl, Ludowe Wojsko Polskie , LWP) constituted the second formation of the Polish Armed Forces in the East in 1943–1945, and in 1945–1989 the armed forces of the Polish communist state ( from 1952, the Polish Peo ...

in the south-eastern territory of the

Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million nea ...

. The original codename of the operation was ''Akcja Wschód'' (Operation East), similar to Operation West (''Akcja Zachód'') conducted by the NKVD on the Soviet side of the border. It is sometimes assumed that the direct cause for Operation Vistula was the assassination on 28 March 1947 of the Polish communist General

Karol Świerczewski Karol Wacław Świerczewski (; callsign ''Walter''; 10 February 1897 – 28 March 1947) was a Polish and Soviet Red Army general and statesman. He was a Bolshevik Party member during the Russian Civil War and a Soviet officer in the wars foug ...

in an

ambush An ambush is a long-established military tactics, military tactic in which a combatant uses an advantage of concealment or the element of surprise to attack unsuspecting enemy combatants from concealed positions, such as among dense underbru ...

set up by UPA.IPN_Bulletin._Nr_11/46._''See:''_UPA_''Chrin''_and_''Stach''_''sotnia
s''..html" ;"title="sotnia">IPN Bulletin. Nr 11/46. ''See:'' UPA ''Chrin'' and ''Stach'' ''sotnia
s''.">sotnia">IPN Bulletin. Nr 11/46. ''See:'' UPA ''Chrin'' and ''Stach'' ''sotnia
s''./ref> About 12 hours after the incident, the Polish communist authorities made the decision to deport all Ukrainians and Lemkos away from the embattled region. It is known, however, that preparations for Operation Vistula had started already in January 1947, if not earlier. On 10 September 1947 the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union issued an Order No. 3214-1050, for the deportation of all Ukrainian families of alleged UPA members to Siberia. Between 1945 and 1947 over 126,000 Ukrainians were apprehended by the NKVD and almost 32,000 of the Ukrainian underground were killed, attesting to the continuity of the same Soviet policy from before 1947. In the aftermath of the death of Karol Swierczewski, Lieutenant Colonel Waclaw Kossowski, though concluding that the identity of the assailants responsible for Swierczewski's death was 'impossible to determine', nonetheless advised the Polish general staff on 11 April "As soon as possible, an Operational Group should be organized, which would elaborate a plan to include among other matters the complete extermination of the remnants of the Ukrainian population in the southeastern border region of Poland". On April 16 1947 the Civil Security Minister Brigadier General Radkevych and Marshal Zhymerski, Minister of National Defence, issued the operative and organization plan for an operation then named 'Akcja Wschód' articulating the goal of the operation "To solve the Ukrainian problem in Poland once and for all" and instructing the action participants to "Conduct evacuation from the southern and eastern border region of all the people of Ukrainian descent...and settle them in the north-western territories of Poland in the highest possible degree of scattering...".

Action participants

The operation was carried out by the Operational Group Vistula consisting of about 20,000 personnel commanded by General Stefan Mossor. The group included soldiers of the

and the

Internal Security Corps The Internal Security Corps ( pl, Korpus Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego, KBW) was a special-purpose military formation in Poland under democratic government, established by the Council of Ministers on 24 May 1945. History The KBW consisted of 10 ...

, as well as functionaries of the police

Milicja Obywatelska Milicja Obywatelska (), in English known as the Citizens' Militia and commonly abbreviated to MO, was the national police organization of the Polish People's Republic. It was established on 7 October 1944 by the Polish Committee of National Libera ...

and the Security Service

Urząd Bezpieczeństwa The Ministry of Public Security ( pl, Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego), commonly known as UB or later SB, was the secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage agency operating in the Polish People's Republic. From 1945 to 1954 it w ...

. At 4am on the 28 April 1947, six divisions of the Polish army surrounded the villages of South-eastern Poland that were inhabited by Ukrainians. In a commensurate action, Soviet internal security forces and Czechslovak border guards blocked the eastern and southern borders of Poland, preventing the deportees from fleeing. Initially, the expellees comprised about 20,000

. With time, the total number grew to 80,000 and eventually to 150,000 inhabitants of

Polesie Polesia, Polesie, or Polesye, uk, Полісся (Polissia), pl, Polesie, russian: Полесье (Polesye) is a natural and historical region that starts from the farthest edge of Central Europe and encompasses Eastern Europe, including East ...

Roztocze Roztocze ( uk, Розточчя, ''Roztochia'') is a range of hills in east-central Poland and western Ukraine which rises from the Lublin Upland and extends southeastward through Solska Forest and across the border into Ukrainian Podolia. Low and ...

, Pogórze Przemyskie, Bieszczady, Low Beskid,

Beskid Sądecki Beskid Sądecki is a mountain range in the eastern section of the Western Beskids, within the Outer Western Carpathians. It is located in the border region between Poland and Slovakia. On the Polish side, it stretches along an area of 670& ...

, and

Ruś Szlachtowska Ruś Szlachtowska (''Shlakhtov Ruthenia'') was a name introduced in 1930s by Prof. Roman Reinfuss to denote the region surrounding the villages of Biała and Czarna Woda, Jaworki, and Szlachtowa in the Grajcarek valley in the Pieniny mountains ...

. The expellees were resettled over a wide area in the Northern and Western Territories assigned to Poland by the

Potsdam Agreement The Potsdam Agreement (german: Potsdamer Abkommen) was the agreement between three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union on 1 August 1945. A product of the Potsdam Conference, it concerned th ...

including

Warmia Warmia ( pl, Warmia; Latin: ''Varmia'', ''Warmia''; ; Warmian: ''Warńija''; lt, Varmė; Old Prussian: ''Wārmi'') is both a historical and an ethnographic region in northern Poland, forming part of historical Prussia. Its historic capitals ...

and

Masuria Masuria (, german: Masuren, Masurian: ''Mazurÿ'') is a ethnographic and geographic region in northern and northeastern Poland, known for its 2,000 lakes. Masuria occupies much of the Masurian Lake District. Administratively, it is part of the ...

. A consequence of Operation Vistula was the almost total depopulation of Pogórze Przemyskie, Bieszczady and

Beskid Niski The Low Beskids ( sk, Nízke Beskydy) or Central Beskids ( pl, Beskidy Środkowe; cs, Centrální Beskydy; uk, Центральні Бескиди) are a mountain range in southeastern Poland and northeastern Slovakia. They constitute a middle ...

coupled with the NKVD-led forcible repatriation of Ukrainians from Poland to the Soviet Union (the

and

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

) in 1944–46. The relocation of the population put the UPA forces in Poland in the most difficult position; deprived of human and other resources, the outnumbered Ukrainian partisans were unable to uphold their armed resistance against the communist forces. Nevertheless, the UPA remained active for a few more years. After the last relocations, UPA's activities on Polish territory died out. Some Ukrainian partisans fled to

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

, notably to

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

, and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Process of Deportation

A principle of 'collective responsibility' was applied, all Ukrainians within the indicted area of Poland were deported regardless of political leanings, alliances and historical affiliations. Polish authorities decided to resettle "every person of Ukrainian nationality". Mixed families, communities that did not support UPA, Lemkos returning from Red Army service, "even loyal party members trained in the Soviet Union, even communists who helped 'repatriate' Ukrainians in the previous wave, were forcible resettled". Nationality was not decided by 'individual choice' but by religion, language and "frequently by the letter 'U' in the Kennkarte Polish citizens received from the Nazi occupation during the war". Those who resisted deportation were imprisoned in the Jaworzno prison camp in Silesia, in total 3,936 Ukrainians were imprisoned in Jaworzno camp, a war time affiliate of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. Of the near 4,000 Ukrainians taken to Jaworzno camp, 823 were women and children, torture, typhus epidemics and additional exigencies resulted in the several deaths and suicides in the camp. Military tribunals were also to judge civilians and sentenced to death 173 Ukrainians on the spot during Operation Vistula. The Ukrainians were transported in compact cattle and box cars, sanitary conditions were poor and food supplies irregular, many deportees died during transit. Ukrainians were packed into trains for Lublin or Oswiecim, where they were rerouted to their places of settlement. The final destination and degree of dispersal of groups was determined by the judgement of the intelligence officers, whose colleagues were waiting to receive their instruction in sealed envelopes at the end of the line.

Events

The deportations occurred in stages. Poland and the

Soviet Ukraine The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...

conducted population exchanges resulting from bilateral agreements signed on 9 September 1944 and 16 August 1945. The first transfers occurred at the end of World War II. The Poles who resided east of the newly established borders were deported to new Poland over three years. In 1944 the expulsion from Ukraine involved 117,000 Poles officially. In 1945 the number swelled to 512,000 Poles. In 1946 the total was 158,500 Poles from the Ukrainian SSR alone. Some 482,000 Ukrainians were deported to the Ukrainian SSR between September 1944 and April 1946, although some 300,000 remained in their native settlements within the borders of Poland. Many Ukrainians as well as tens of thousands of Poles (ca. 200,000 persons or more) fled from south-eastern Poland to central Poland between 1944 and 1945 independently of treaties due to the pacification campaign by the Bandera faction. Operation Vistula occurred within the Polish national borders. The transfer involved persons who were internally relocated as citizens of the country. The final relocation of Ukrainians and Poles between the state borders occurred in 1951, when Poland was forced by the Soviet Union to adjust the border in the upper

San River The San ( pl, San; uk, Сян ''Sian''; german: Saan) is a river in southeastern Poland and western Ukraine, a tributary of the river Vistula, with a length of (it is the 6th-longest Polish river) and a basin area of 16,877 km2 (14,42 ...

area and in the

Belz Belz ( uk, Белз; pl, Bełz; yi, בעלז ') is a small city in Lviv Oblast of Western Ukraine, near the border with Poland, located between the Solokiya river (a tributary of the Bug River) and the Richytsia stream. Belz hosts the administ ...

area for economic reasons. Poland gave up rich deposits of coal including the city of

Bełz Belz ( uk, Белз; pl, Bełz; yi, בעלז ') is a small city in Lviv Oblast of Western Ukraine, near the border with Poland, located between the Solokiya river (a tributary of the Bug River) and the Richytsia stream. Belz hosts the administ ...

that was in Poland, and in exchange, was assigned a stretch of barren land with low quality soil and no natural resources east of the San River and south of

Przemyśl Przemyśl (; yi, פשעמישל, Pshemishl; uk, Перемишль, Peremyshl; german: Premissel) is a city in southeastern Poland with 58,721 inhabitants, as of December 2021. In 1999, it became part of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship; it was pr ...

. The new Soviet acquisitions went to Ukraine, and populations were exchanged.Sylwester Fertacz
Krojenie mapy Polski: Bolesna granica.
''Alfa.'' Retrieved from the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

on 14 November 2011.J.A.S. Grenville
''The major international treaties, 1914–1973.''
A history with guide and text. ''Taylor & Francis.'' 572 pages. Following the transfer of land, the Soviets built large coal mines there with the total capacity of 15 million tons annually.Bogdan Kawałko
"Prostowanie granicy."
''Dziennik Wschodni'', 2006-02-03. ''Wyższa Szkoła Zarządzania i Administracji w Zamościu''.

Conditions Upon Re-Settlement

Living standards were harsh for the deported Ukrainians, as deportees were refused compensation for the property and land they were forced to leave behind and because communities and families were separated across the four provinces of Olsztyn, Szczecin, Wrocław and Gdansk, carefully dispersed so that the Ukrainian deportees did not constitute more than 10% of the local population. The expedited plan approved by Civil Security Minister Brigadier General Radkevych and Marshal Zhymerski instructed "Conduct evacuation from the Southern and Eastern border region of all the people of Ukrainian descent...and settle them in the north-western territories of Poland in the highest possible degree of scattering...". Ukrainians were faced with largely decrepitude accommodations, as most habitable buildings in the 'recovered territories' had recently been moved into by newly repatriated Poles after the 1944 Polish-Soviet population transfers. They received financial credits and material help from the government, including grain shipments and other foodstuffs. Dr Zbigniew Palski writes that new homes were renovated with public funds; in

Olsztyn Voivodeship Olsztyn Voivodeship () was an administrative division and unit of local government in Poland in the years 1945–75, and a new territorial division between 1975–1998, superseded by Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. Its capital city was Olsztyn. ...

2,427 houses were rebuilt by the state, in Szczecin Voivodeship, only 717 although the needs were exponentially greater: reaching 10,000 households, far beyond the available state budget. Most of their personal debts, however, were remitted in the following years.

Situation of Lemkos in Poland

Some five thousand Lemko families returned to their home regions in south-eastern Poland in 1957 and 1958. While the Polish census of 2003 shows only 5,800 Lemkos (self-identification), there are estimates that up to 100,000 Lemkos in total live in Poland today, and up to 10,000 of them in the area known as Lemkovyna. The largest communities of Lemkos live in the villages Łosie, Krynica, Nowica,

Zdynia Zdynia ( rue, Ждыня, uk, Ждиня, ''Zhdynia'') is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Uście Gorlickie, within Gorlice County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland, close to the border with Slovakia. It lies approxi ...

, Gładyszów, Hańczowa, Zyndranowa,

Uście Gorlickie Uście Gorlickie ( uk, Устя Руське, ''Ustia Rus’ke'') is a village in Gorlice County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland, close to the border with Slovakia. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmi ...

Bartne Bartne ', ( rue, Бортне, ''Bortne'', uk, Бортне, ''Bortne'') is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Sękowa, within Gorlice County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland, close to the border with Slovakia. It l ...

, Bielanka, and in the eastern part of Lemkovyna –

Wysoczany Wysoczany ( uk, Височани) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Komańcza, within Sanok County, in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (province) of south-eastern Poland, close to the border with Slovakia. It lies approximately ...

, Mokre,

Morochów Morochów ( uk, Морохів, ''Morokhiv'') is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Zagórz, within Sanok County, in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (province) of south-eastern Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Zagórz, s ...

Szczawne Szczawne ( uk, Щавне, ''Shchavne'') is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Komańcza, within Sanok County, in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (province) of south-eastern Poland, close to the border with Slovakia. It lies approxima ...

, Kulaszne,

Rzepedź Rzepedź ( uk, Репедь, ''Repyad’'') is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Komańcza, within Sanok County, in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (province) of south-eastern Poland, close to the border with Slovakia. It lies appr ...

Turzańsk Turzańsk ( uk, Туринське, ''Turyns’ke'') is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Komańcza, within Sanok County, in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (province) of south-eastern Poland, close to the border with Slovakia. It l ...

Komańcza Komańcza ( uk, Команча, ''Komancha'') is a village in the Sanok County, in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (province) of south-eastern Poland. It is situated in the Bukowsko Upland mountains, located near the towns of Medzilaborce and Palo ...

. Also in the towns

Sanok Sanok (in full the Royal Free City of Sanok — pl, Królewskie Wolne Miasto Sanok, rue, Санок, ''Sanok'', ua, Cянік, ''Sianik'', la, Sanocum, yi, סאניק, ''Sonik'') is a town in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of south-eastern ...

Nowy Sącz Nowy Sącz (; hu, Újszandec; yi, Tzanz, צאַנז; sk, Nový Sonč; german: Neu-Sandez) is a city in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship of southern Poland. It is the district capital of Nowy Sącz County as a separate administrative unit. It has ...

, and

Gorlice Gorlice ( uk, Горлиці, translit=''Horlytsi'') is a city and an urban municipality ("gmina") in south eastern Poland with around 29,500 inhabitants (2008). It is situated south east of Kraków and south of Tarnów between Jasło and Nowy S ...

Legacy

On 3 August 1990, the

Polish Senate The Senate ( pl, Senat) is the upper house of the Polish parliament, the lower house being the Sejm. The history of the Polish Senate stretches back over 500 years; it was one of the first constituent bodies of a bicameral parliament in Europe ...

adopted a resolution condemning the postwar Polish government's Operation Vistula. In response, the Ukrainian Parliament (

Verkhovna Rada The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ( uk, Верхо́вна Ра́да Украї́ни, translit=, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy, translation=Supreme Council of Ukraine, Ukrainian abbreviation ''ВРУ''), often simply Verkhovna Rada or just Rada, is the ...

) adopted the statement of understanding of the Polish Senate resolution as a serious step towards the correction of the injustices towards the Ukrainians in Poland. In the same resolution the Rada condemned the criminal acts of the

Stalinist Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...

regime towards the Polish people. On 18 April 2002 in

Krasiczyn Krasiczyn (; uk, Красічин, Krasichyn) is a village in Przemyśl County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Krasiczyn. The village has a population of 440. ...

, Polish President

Aleksander Kwaśniewski Aleksander Kwaśniewski (; born 15 November 1954) is a Polish politician and journalist. He served as the President of Poland from 1995 to 2005. He was born in Białogard, and during communist rule, he was active in the Socialist Union of Poli ...

expressed regret over Operation Vistula. The President described the operation as the symbol of harm against Ukrainians committed by the communist authorities. "Speaking on behalf of the Republic of Poland I want to express regret to all those wronged by the operation" - Kwaśniewski wrote in a letter to the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) and participants in the conference on the 1947 Operation Vistula and openly rejected the notion that it should in any way be linked to earlier events in Volhynia. "It was believed for years that the Vistula operation was the revenge for slaughter of Poles by the UPA forces in the east in the years 1943-1944. Such attitude is wrong and cannot be accepted. The Vistula operation should be condemned." In 2007 the presidents of Poland (

Lech Kaczyński Lech Aleksander Kaczyński (; 18 June 194910 April 2010) was a Polish politician who served as the city mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005, and as President of Poland from 2005 until his death in 2010. Before his tenure as president, he prev ...

) and Ukraine (

Viktor Yushchenko Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko ( uk, Віктор Андрійович Ющенко, ; born 23 February 1954) is a Ukrainian politician who was the third president of Ukraine from 23 January 2005 to 25 February 2010. As an informal leader of th ...

) condemned the operation as a violation of

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

. President Yushchenko also noted that the operation was executed by and was the responsibility of a "totalitarian communist regime".Office of President
Juszczenko w rocznicę akcji "Wisła": Zrobili to komuniści.
/ref>

References

Jan Jacek Bruski Jan Jacek Bruski (born 1969) is a Polish historian. His specialization is a history of 20th Century. In 1999 he gained his PhD (thesis: Centrum Państwowe Ukraińskiej Republiki Ludowej na wychodźstwie w latach 1919–1924. Monografia polityczna; ...

(28 April 2002), ''"Unjustly exiled"'',

Wprost ''Wprost'' (, meaning "Directly") is a Polish-language weekly news magazine published in Poznań, Poland.

Polish original
*

Rafał Wnuk Rafał Wnuk (born 22 May 1967, in Zamość) is a Polish historian, editor of several historical periodicals, employee of the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences and of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). Wnuk wa ...

,
Recent Polish Historiography on Polish-Ukrainian Relations during World War II and its Aftermath.
' (PDF), Columbia.

Polish sources

* PWN
„Wisła”
PWN Encyklopedia * Eugeniusz Misiło, ''Akcja "Wisła"'', . * Robert Witalec
''Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej nr 11 ""Kos" kontra UPA"''
, PDF format, last accessed 10 December 2005. * Tomasz Kalbarczyk
''Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej nr 1-2 "Powrót Łemków"''
, PDF format, last accessed 10 December 2005.
Akcja Wisła.
Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper.pl. Internet Archive. * ''Beskid Niski'', Rewasz, Pruszków 1999 (in Polish) . * Władysław A. Serczyk, ''Historia Ukrainy'', 3rd ed., Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, Wrocław 2001, * Andrzej L. Sowa, ''Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947'', Kraków 1998, *

Grzegorz Motyka Grzegorz Motyka (born 1967) is a Polish historian and author specializing in the history of Poland–Ukraine relations. Since 1992 he served at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and at the Institute of National ...

(various authors), ''Służby bezpieczeństwa Polski i Czechosłowacji wobec Ukraińców (1945–1989)'',

Instytut Pamięci Narodowej The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...

, Warszawa 2005, .

Russian and Ukrainian sources

* Roman Drozd
"Явожно– трагічний символ акції «Вісла»"
("Jaworzno - the tragic symbol of Wisła Action") in "Наше слово" weekly magazine, number 18, 2004

in Ukrainian * Roman Drozd: Droga na zachód. Osadnictwo ludności ukraińskiej na ziemiach zachodnich i północnych Polski w ramach akcji «Wisła». Warszawa: 1997. * Roman Drozd: Ukraińcy w najnowszych dziejach Polski (1918–1989). T. II: "Akcja «Wisła». Warszawa: 2005. * Roman Drozd: Ukraińcy w najnowszych dziejach Polski (1918–1989). T. III: «Akcja "Wisła". Słupsk: 2007. * Roman Drozd, Bohdan Halczak: Dzieje Ukraińców w Polsce w latach 1921–1989». Warszawa: 2010. * Дрозд Р., Гальчак Б. Історія українців у Польщі в 1921–1989 роках / Роман Дрозд, Богдан Гальчак, Ірина Мусієнко; пер. з пол. І. Мусієнко. 3-тє вид., випр., допов. – Харків : Золоті сторінки, 2013. – 272 с.

in Ukrainian. * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20050227194310/http://ukrweekly.com/Archive/1997/219702.shtml "Polish, Ukrainian presidents sign concord declaration" in Ukrainian Weekly* . Availabl
online
* Yuri Havrylyuk, "To solve conclusively the Ukrainian question in Poland", ''

Lemko sources

* ttp://www.infoukes.com/upa/series01/vol22.html Military Court of Operation Group "Wisla"* ''"Figures of the 20th century. Józef Piłsudski: the Chief who Created a State for Himself,"'' in

Zerkalo Nedeli ''Dzerkalo Tyzhnia'' ( ua, Дзеркало тижня), usually referred to in English as the ''Mirror Weekly'', was one of Ukraine's most influential analytical weekly-publisher newspapers, founded in 1994.in Russian
an
in Ukrainian
{{DEFAULTSORT:Operation Wisla Ukrainian diaspora in Poland Stalinism in Poland Post–World War II forced migrations 1947 in Poland Ethnic cleansing in Europe Deportation Ukrainian Insurgent Army Anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Europe