It was very early in the morning…
In the early morning of the 10th of February 1940, loud knocking sounds were heard on doors in many thousands of houses located in the Soviet-occupied territories of pre-war Poland. The first of four deportation operations organised and carried out by the Soviets was about to begin. The first targets were forestry workers and military and civilian settlers. Typically, together with their families, they were sent off to the East. The NKVD’s operational triads breaking into the homes of Polish citizens heralded the impending tragedy of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. The events of February 1940 came as a huge surprise, as the Soviets had not yet carried out such a large-scale repressive action since the beginning of the occupation in September 1939.
They loaded us onto a cart…
After entering the house, the Soviets usually allowed inhabitants several minutes for packing their most necessary items. However, there were cases when NKVD soldiers unceremoniously seized the whole family, giving them no chance to gather together anything. They were then brought to railway stations, which they reached in numerous ways: by sleigh, by lorry, on foot… Trains with trucks awaited them there, which they were loaded onto and before being locked inside. The dramatic journey to the east had begun, a journey from which not everyone was to return. It lasted several weeks, depending on ultimate destination of a particular transport. Condemned to cramped conditions, hunger and disease, they only waited for what the Soviets had in store for them.
First installment of the tragedy
The February 1940 deportation was the largest of the four operations organised by the Soviets. Out of a total of at least 330,000 deportees between 1940 and 1941, as many as 140,000 were forcibly removed from their homes on the night of the 9/10th of February 1940. Those deported to the East in the first wave had to wait as long as 1.5 years for the chance of rescue, that is, until the announcement of an amnesty for Polish citizens in August of 1941.
In the following months of 1940 and 1941, their tragic fate was to be shared by thousands more Polish citizens.