Amnesty for Polish citizens in the Soviet Union

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

Amnesty for Polish citizens in USSR refers to a one-time amnesty in the USSR for those deprived of their freedom following the Soviet invasion of Poland in World War II. 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 in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact against Poland. In order to de-Polonize all newly acquired territories, the Soviet NKVD 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 the Kresy macroregion, affected 300,000 to 330,000 Poles, sent primarily to Kazakhstan. The amnesty of 1941 was directed specifically at Polish victims of those roundups.

The opportunity for organized flight from exile in Siberia came in a remarkable reversal of fortune. Following Operation Barbarossa, the USSR was forced to fight its own former ally, Nazi Germany, and in July 1941 signed a London treaty with Poland, granting amnesty for Polish citizens deported within the Soviet Union.The evacuation of the Polish people from Siberia by General Anders lasted from March to September 1942. Well over 110,000 Poles rescued by the Polish government-in-exile travelled to Iran including 36,000 women and children. However, the actual 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.