The last weeks of World War Two in Europe. Final, but critical engagements, and at the same time, more victims. On the morning of the 16^th of April 1945 the operation involving the crossing of the Oder river began, in which soldiers of the First Polish Army took part. Among the Polish units the First Infantry Division was present, a division which one and a half years earlier had been sent to fight at the battle of Lenino. It was made up of Siberian exiles, who from 1939 to 1941 had been sent to vast areas of the Soviet Union as deportees, prisoners of forced labour camps or forcefully incorporated into the Red Army as soldiers. Once treated as “the people’s enemies”, they now had to fight shoulder to shoulder with the Soviets. It was not an easy experience but it was one they knew had to be endured. They were heading west and  they fought with both the vision of a free Poland and their own liberty in their minds, just like their brothers in arms, who fought their battles under the leadership of general Anders in Italy.

Crossing the Oder was a prelude to the final thrust towards Berlin, which ended in the capture of the city on the 2^nd of May 1945 and the capitulation of the Third Reich, which was finalised on the 8^th of May.