The Augustów roundup ( Polish ''Obława augustowska'') was a military operation against the Polish

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

anti-communist partisans and sympathizers following the Soviet takeover of Poland. The operation was undertaken by

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

forces with the assistance of Polish collaborationist units, and conducted from July 10 to July 25, 1945, in Suwałki and

Augustów Augustów is a town in north-eastern Poland. It lies on the Netta River and the Augustów Canal. It is the seat of Augustów County and of Gmina Augustów in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Augustów has an area of , and as of June 2022 it has a popul ...

region (contemporary Podlaskie) of northern Polish People's Republic. Out of 2,000 arrested by the Soviet forces, about 600 have disappeared. They are presumed to have been executed and buried in an unknown location in present-day Russia or Belarus. Polish Institute of National Remembrance has declared the 1945 Augustów roundup "the largest crime committed by the Soviets on Polish lands after World War II".Konferencja IPN "60. rocznica obławy augustowskiej." (IPN Conference: 60th Anniversary of the Augustów roundup)
Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 20 July 2005 The crime has been called "second Katyn", "small Katyn" or "little Katyn" in today's Poland, in reference to the Katyn massacre that occurred in 1940.

Background

In the aftermath of the joint German-

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Second Polish Republic, Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Polan ...

, the Polish government evacuated to the West and created the Polish Underground State. While no war was declared between Poland and the Soviet Union, the relations were tense, and eventually broke down in 1943 in the aftermath of the revelations of the Katyn massacre. The Soviets eventually created their own Polish communist puppet government, the Polish Committee of National Liberation (''Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego'', ''PKWN'') and refused to deal with the Underground State just like they refused to deal with the government-in-exile; its leaders and soldiers on "liberated" Polish territories were persecuted. Rzeczpospolita, 02.10.04 Nr 232,
Wielkie polowanie: Prześladowania akowców w Polsce Ludowej
' (Great hunt: the persecutions of AK soldiers in People's Poland). Retrieved June 7, 2006. While the Underground State's military arm, '' Armia Krajowa'', officially disbanded on January 19, 1945, to avoid armed conflict with the Soviets and a civil war, some refused to lay down their arms; others found it simply difficult to return to civilian life, as those with ties to non-communist resistance were discriminated against by the authorities. pp. 250Bohdan Kwiatkowski, Sabotaż i dywersja, Bellona, London 1949, vol.1, p.21; as cited by Marek Ney-Krwawicz
The Polish Underground State and The Home Army (1939-45)
Translated from Polish by Antoni Bohdanowicz. Article on the pages of the London Branch of the Polish Home Army Ex-Servicemen Association. Retrieved March 14, 2008.

Operation

The operation was undertaken by Soviet forces of the Red Army, the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

and SMERSH with the assistance of Polish UB and LWP units, and conducted from July 12 to July 28, 1945, in the Suwałki and

regions of northern Polish People's Republic. Agnieszka Domanowska,
Mały Katyń. 65 lat od obławy augustowskiej
'', Gazeta Wyborcza, 2010-07-20 This operation included not only Polish communist territories, but also former Polish territories annexed by the Soviet Union and given to the Lithuanian SSR (see Soviet occupation of Lithuania).

Aftermath

More than 2,000Anita Blinkiewicz, Marcin Dzierżanowski,
W służbie Moskwy
', Wprost., 28/2005 (1180) Polish (some estimate as many as 7,000) alleged anti-communist fighters and sympathizers were arrested and interrogated in two waves of mass arrests. The majority were detained in Russian

internment camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...

. The last ones were released and returned to Poland in 1956. 600 have disappeared, their fate uncertain to this day. More recent research puts the number of those disappeared at 592 or 593. They include 27 women (including pregnant ones) and 15 teenagers. Agnieszka Domanowska,
Gdzie są augustowskie ofiary?
', Gazeta Wyborcza, 2011-05-24 The "Augustów Missing" are presumed to have been executed and buried in an unknown location in present-day Russia. Despite demands from many Polish citizens for this incident to be investigated, it was denied by both the Soviet and Polish communist governments. As late as the 1980s, the last decade of the Polish People's Republic, government representative Jerzy Urban declared that the Polish government had "no evidence to support the theory that a group of Polish citizens disappeared in the Augustów region in 1945." After the fall of communism, the new Polish government supported the investigation, carried out by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which classified it as a communist crime. While it is commonly accepted that the Soviet Union, backed by communist Polish forces, arrested and likely executed approximately 600 Polish citizens connected to the anti-communist resistance, no conclusive information on their exact fate and resting place has yet been found. In 1995 the Russian government confirmed that 590 Polish citizens were arrested and 579 were put on trial, but that there is no information on their subsequent fate. In 2005 IPN noted that the research possibilities on Polish territory had been exhausted; even the archives of Polish secret services involved in the operations were analysed but contained only cursory information that they were aiding the Soviets without being given much information. However, Polish requests to the Russian government for support in the investigation were not productive, and many have been ignored. A symbolic monument has been built in the village of Giby, where a mass grave was found (these were later proven to belong to German soldiers from a nearby field hospital). In May 2011, Russian historian Nikita Petrov declared that he found a

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

document proving that the Poles were executed by NKVD.
IPN zainteresowane rosyjską książką o obławie augustowskiej
', Gazeta Wyborcza, 2011-05-24 This has evoked interest in Polish mainstream press and from the IPN, which declared that it would seek the documents located by Pietrov for further analysis. On 18 April 2012 the Polish Institute of National Remembrance announced that it has received the Soviet-era documents concerning the executions.

Gallery

File:Giby - tablica z nazwiskami.jpg, One of several tablets in Giby, containing the names of the disappeared (murdered) Polish citizens File:Giby - pomnik zginęli.jpg, Monument to the victims of Augustów chase in Giby, reading: "Died for being Poles" File:Giby - krzyż-1.jpg, Site of the monument to the victims of Augustów chase in Giby (

Podlaskie Voivodeship Podlaskie Voivodeship ( ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship in northeastern Poland. The name of the voivodeship refers to the historical region of Podlachia (in Polish, ''Podlasie''), and significant part of its territory corresponds to th ...

). Memorial procession visible in the background. File:Pomnik_Ofiar_Obławy_Augustowskiej_-_Suwałki_fot._Kamil_Korbik_2018.jpg, Monument to the victims of Augustów chase in Suwałki

References

External links

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Unsolved Communist Crimes: The Augustow Roundup in July, 1945
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Augustow roundup 1945 in Poland Anti-communism in Poland Conflicts in 1945 Poland–Soviet Union relations Soviet World War II crimes in Poland Stalinism in Poland People from wartime administrations in Poland (1939–1947)