Amnesty for Polish citizens in USSR is the one-time

amnesty Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offici ...

in the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

for those deprived of their freedom following the

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subse ...

in World War II.Mikolajczyk, S. (1948) ''The Pattern of Soviet Domination'' Sampson Low, Marston & Co Pages 17-19 The signing of amnesty by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on 12 August 1941, resulted in temporary stop of persecutions of Polish citizens under the Soviet occupation. Their mass persecution accompanied the 1939 annexation of the entire eastern half of the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...

in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact against Poland. In order to de-Polonize all newly acquired territories, the Soviet

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

rounded up and deported between 320,000 and 1 million Polish nationals to the eastern parts of the USSR, the Urals, and Siberia in the atmosphere of terror. There were four waves of deportations of entire families with children, women and elderly aboard freight trains from 1940 until 1941. The second wave of deportations by the Soviet occupational forces across

Kresy Eastern Borderlands ( pl, Kresy Wschodnie) or simply Borderlands ( pl, Kresy, ) was a term coined for the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic, it ...

(Polish eastern borderlands), affected 300,000 to 330,000 Poles, sent primarily to

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

. The amnesty of 1941 was directed specifically at Polish victims of those deportations. The opportunity for evacuation of Polish civilians from the USSR came in a remarkable reversal of fortune. Following

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

, the USSR was forced to fight its own former ally, Nazi Germany, and in July 1941 signed the Sikorski–Mayski agreement with the

Polish government-in-exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...

. The treaty granted amnesty for Polish citizens deported within the Soviet Union. The evacuation by

General Anders A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...

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. 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.Index of articles in PDF: 2007-2016.
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History

The Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939,Zaloga, S.J. (2003) ''Poland 1939'', Osprey breaking relations with the Polish government and repressing Polish citizens in the occupied territories. Malcher, G.C. (1993) ''Blank Pages: Soviet Genocide Against the Polish People'', Pyrford The outbreak of the

Soviet-German War The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Sout ...

in 1941 and Sikorski-Mayski NegotiationsHope, M. (2005) ''Polish Deportees in the Soviet Union'' Veritas 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.Piesakowski, Tomasz (1990)
The Fate of Poles in the USSR 1939–1989
' Gryf, p.77. . 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 citizenship Polish nationality law is based primarily on the principle of jus sanguinis. Children born to at least one Polish parent acquire Polish citizenship irrespective of place of birth. Besides other things, Polish citizenship entitles the person to a ...

" and eventually the Soviets limited it only to Polish ethnicity (which ''de facto'' covered some

Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lo ...

, but not the Ukrainian or Belorussians who were former citizens of the

).Cienciala, M. (2007) ''Katyn A Crime Without Punishment'' Yale University Page 139Applebaum, A. ''GULAG A History'' Page 407 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 groundsKrupa, M. (2004) ''Shallow Graves in Siberia'' Birlinn or even denied information about the amnestyGross, J.T. & Gross, I. (Editors) ''War Through Children's Eyes'' Hoover Institution Page xxv or the possibility of joining the Polish forces. Also some commanders of labour camps refused to release Polish citizens enslaved in them. According to an

document of 1 August, 381,220 people were to be covered by the amnesty;Polian, P. (2004) ''Against their Will'' CEU Press Page 118Brandeis.edu (2005)
Poland Lectures.
PDF, Lecture 17: Poland Under Occupation. Brandeis University, Library & Technology Services. however the generally accepted figure was over 1.5 million were deported.Davies, N. (1986) ''God's Playground A History of Poland Volume II'' Clarendon Page 451Polian, P. (2004) ''Against their Will'' CEU Press Page 119Hope, M. (2005) ''Polish Deportees in the Soviet Union'', Veritas Pages 29 Malcher, G.C. (1993) ''Blank Pages'' Pyrford Pages 8-9Piesakowski, T. (1990) ''The Fate of Poles in the USSR 1939~1989'' Gryf Pages 50-51Mikolajczyk, S. (1948) ''The Pattern of Soviet Domination'' Sampsons, low, Marston & Co Evacuation of Polish Civilians From the Soviet Union To Persia, 1942 E19024

Evacuation of Polish Civilians From the Soviet Union To Persia, 1942 E19024

The term

is criticized in Polish historiography, as it implies the Soviet Union had a legal basis for persecute Polish citizens, some of whom were persecuted for "treason of Soviet Union", even though they had been Polish citizens in sovereign Poland, without ever breaking Polish law.Davies, N. ''God's Playground Volume II'' Page 451 The Soviet Union claimed that the territories they occupied in 1939 were Russian, and by virtue of a referendum they had organised, the inhabitants of these territories were therefore Russian citizens. Whereas Polish Prime Minister Sikorski's critics in the

held the view that an "amnesty" could only be granted by a State to its own citizens and these citizens were Polish. Dr. Józef Retinger — of whom

Anthony Eden Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 until his resignation in 1957. Achieving rapid promo ...

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. After

Anders Army Anders' Army was the informal yet common name of the Polish Armed Forces in the East in the 1941–42 period, in recognition of its commander Władysław Anders. The army was created in the Soviet Union but, in March 1942, based on an understandi ...

left Soviet sphere of influence, repressions towards the Polish citizens reintensified. Stalin effectively revoked the Amnesty on 16 January 1943 Hergt, K. (2000) ''Exiled to Siberia'' Crescent Lake when all Polish citizens including Ethnic Poles were once again declared part of the population of the Soviet Union.Voigt, F.A. (1943) ''Poland, Russia and Great Britain''

History

See also

References

Further reading