Camps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland ( 1919 – 24 ) Camps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland that existed during 1919 - 1924 housed two main categories of detainees : Due to epidemics raging at the time , made worse by the very bad sanitary conditions in which the prisoners were held , largely due to overcrowding , between 16 , 000 to 20 , 000 Soviet soldiers held in the Polish POW camps died , out of the total of 80 , 000 to 85 , 000 prisoners . Background . During the Polish - Soviet War , between 80 , 000 - 85 , 000 Soviet soldiers became prisoners of war , and were held in Polish POW camp s . The conditions in these camps were bad . Thus , the existing camps , many of which were adapted from World War I German and Russian facilities or constructed by the prisoners themselves , were not adequate for holding the large number of prisoners , who suffered from hunger , bad sanitation and inadequate hygiene . Between 16 , 000 - 17 , 000 ( Polish figures ) and 18 , 000 - 20 , 000 ( Russian figures ) died , mostly as a result of catastrophic conditions and epidemics which raged in the camps . Before publications of new findings in Russia in 2004 , some Russian sources were known to give a much inflated numbers for prisoners and the death toll ( up to 165 , 000 and 70 , 000 ) , respectively . This matter caused much controversy between Poland and Russia . The camps . During a war between two countries experiencing great socioeconomic difficulties , and often unable to provide adequately for their own populations , the treatment of prisoners of war was far from adequate . The bad conditions in these camps were known to public opinion in Poland at the time , as a number of Polish newspapers openly wrote about them , criticizing the government for not correcting the situation . In modern times the issue has been addressed in a number of scholarly publications . The controversy . Until the source documents were published in Moscow in 2004 , some Russian historians had estimated the number of prisoners and the death toll to be much higher , estimating that the death toll was between 40 , 000 to over 100 , 000 . For example , Irina Mikhutina in her 1995 publications estimated the number of prisoners to be 165 , 000 and the death toll to be 70 , 000 . In 1998 Russian popular press reported that Polish internment camp in Tuchola was particularly notorious for the large number of Soviet POW ' s deaths and was dubbed a " death camp " by the Russian Emigrant press from within Poland . There have also been accusations from the Russian side that the death toll was influenced by the indifference of the camp authorities . F . e . " « From the moment of opening an infirmary in February , 1921 till May 11 , 1921 there was registered epidemic diseases 6491 , not epidemic 12294 , 2561 deaths . » " Western sources also claim that Russian historians used those numbers to justify the Katyn massacre . Such usage is called Anti - Katyn in Poland . The Russian historians arrived at this number by first estimating the number of POWs , then subtracting the number that has been repatriated to the Soviet Union after the hostilities ended , and then assuming that most of the remainder died in POW camps . Polish historians always countered this by arguing that : ( a ) the number of POWs was very difficult to estimate accurately , due to the chaotic situation prevailing for most of the war , and ( b ) many Soviet POWs lost that status after they switched sides and entered units fighting alongside Polish forces against the Red Army , or were transferred to the Whites rather than the Bolsheviks . There was also the problem that significant number of Russian POWs were left in the territory of Poland since World War I ( about 3 . 9 million soldiers of the Russian Empire were taken captive by the Central Powers ) and obviously when the Polish - Soviet conflict deteriorated , these POWs were not released to Russia . The issue was finally settled in 2004 , where a joint team of Polish and Russian historians ( prof . Waldemar Rezmer and prof . Zbigniew Karpus from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and prof . Gennady Matveyev from Moscow State University ) , after reexamining documents from Polish and Russian archives published their results ( printed in Russia by Federal Agency for Russian Archives ) . Their findings show that the number of Russian POWs can be estimated at between 80 , 000 and 85 , 000 , and that the number of deaths in the camps can be estimated from 16 , 000 ( Karpus , Rezmer ) to 20 , 000 ( Matveyev ) . Existing documents and proofs does not also confirm thesis made by many Russian historians that Russian POWs were specially exterminated in Polish camps because of their nationality , religion or other issues . They also show that the main cause of death were various illnesses and epidemics ( influenza , typhus , cholera and dysentery ) , noting that these diseases also took a heavy toll among fighting soldiers and the civilian population . According to Polish historians Karpus and Alexandrowicz , similar number of Polish POWs - about 20 , 000 out of about 51 , 000 - died in Soviet and Lithuanian camps . After 1922 the Polish and Russian prisoners were also exchanged among two sides . Ekaterina Peshkova the chairwoman of organization " Assistance to Political Prisoners " ( Pompolit , " Помощь политическим заключенным " , Помполит ) . was awarded by an order of Polish Red Cross for her participation in the exchange of POW s after the Polish - Soviet War . During the memorial ceremony for the victims of the Katyn massacre on April 7 , 2010 , attended by the Russian and Polish Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Donald Tusk , Putin said that , in his private opinion , Stalin ( whose refusal to obey orders from Kremlin resulted in the Russian defeat against Poland in 1920 ) felt personally responsible for this tragedy , and carried out the executions of Polish officers in Katyn in 1940 out of a sense of revenge "