In the second half of 1943, Dubno became a shelter for ethnic Polish population of Volhynia, who came here to escape the Volhynian Genocide. The town was defended by a unit of Polish self-defence, which was tolerated by German authorities. On February 28, 1944, the Germans evacuated Poles from Dubno to Brody, and then to the Reich, where they became slave workers. In 1944 Dubno found itself again under Soviet occupation and after the war it was taken from Poland and annexed by the Soviet Union in accordance to the Potsdam Conference.