page_title: Evacuation of Polish civilians from the USSR in World War II
section_title: Poles that remained in Soviet Union
hierarchical_section_title: Evacuation of Polish civilians from the USSR in World War II / Poles that remained in Soviet Union
caption_attribution_description: فارسی: یادمان کشته شدگان و مهاجران لهستانی به ایران و تهران This is a photo of a monument in Iran identified by the ID 2688
context_page_description: Following the Soviet invasion of Poland at the onset of World War II in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact against Poland, the Soviet Union acquired over half of the territory of the Second Polish Republic or about 201,000 square kilometres inhabited by over 13,200,000 people. Within months, in order to de-Polonize annexed lands, 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. 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. Thanks to a remarkable reversal of fortune well over 110,000 Poles including 36,000 women and children managed to leave the Soviet Union with the Anders' Army. They ended up in Iran, India, Palestine, New Zealand, British Africa, as well as in Mexico. Among those who remained in the Soviet Union about 150,000 Poles perished before the end of the war.
context_section_description: After Polish Army had left the Soviet Union, the attitude of the Soviets towards the remaining Poles worsened. Both Soviet authorities and citizens of the country claimed that since Polish Army did not fight the Germans, Poles were not entitled to any privileges. On January 16, 1943, People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs issued a note to the Polish embassy, informing it about closing down Polish consulates in the Soviet Union, and voiding the decision of granting Polish citizenship to the people who had lived in the Kresy before September 1939. This meant that all remaining Poles were re-granted Soviet citizenship, and received Soviet passports. NKVD agents issued Soviet passports to Poles in February - May 1943. Those who refused were persecuted, sent to jails, mothers were told that if they refuse, they would be sent to labor camps, and their children would end up at orphanages. Altogether, 257,660 citizens of the Second Polish Republic (190,942 adults and 66,718 kids) received the passports. 1,583 refused, and were sent either to prisons or gulag.
  For the plight of Poles who remained in the Soviet interior until the defeat of Germany, see Polish population transfers (1944–46) and the population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine. As the new border between the postwar Poland and the Soviet Union along the Curzon Line (requested by Stalin at Yalta) has been ratified, the ensuing population exchange affected about 1.1 million Poles (including Polish Jews) as well as close to half a million ethnic Ukrainians. According to official data, during the state-controlled expulsion between 1945 and 1946, less than 50% of Poles who registered for population transfer were given the chance to leave the westernmost republics of the Soviet Union. The next transfer took place after Stalin's death in 1955–59.
caption: A memorial in Polish Cemetery in Tehran
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