“Barbarossa”

On 22 June 1941, at 3:15 a.m., the first bombs and bullets fell on the Soviet Union in this war. They were fired by the Stalin’s existing ally – Germany. The Wehrmacht began to implement the the “Barbarossa” plan – an attack on the Soviets. On this summer night the alliance of the two totalitarisms came to an end. The cooperation, that has been established less than two years earlier, turned out to be only temporary. Both sides had been aware of this for a long time, and war between them was only a matter of time…

However, when the time came, it turned out that the Soviets were completely surprised. The Red Army began a rapid retreat to the east. In the summer of 1941 , German Blitzkrieg proved effective again. The Soviet authorities, headed by Stalin, were just as surprised as the Red Army soldiers who were suddenly shot at. The Kremlin quickly realized that the Germans could not be stopped single-handedly. They needed a new ally.

Bestiality, death… and new hope

The German aggression against the Soviet Union brought deaths to millions of people in the following months and years. The S oviet terror was being replaced with the German one, and the communist ideology – with the Nazi one. However, paradoxically, the tragic situation of the Soviet Union and its citizens also turned out to be a chance to save tens of thousands of people.

They were Polish citizens who in the years 1939-1941 had come to the Soviet Union as deportees, prisoners of forced labour camps, prisoners of war or soldiers forcefully conscripted into the Red Army. Their faith was now depended on the development of the international situation.

Great Britain turned out to be the new ally of the Soviet Union. However, in order to establish cooperation between Moscow and London, an agreement had to be concluded between the new friend of the British Crown and Poland – the country which was experienced ally of the United Kingdom.

The official agreement was signed over a month after the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, on 30 July 1941. Polish citizens were to become free again and they were given the opportunity to join the Polish army under the command of General Władysław Anders. A year later , most of them left the “inhuman land” to reach Italy as the 2nd Polish Corps and fight against the German s or, to find themselves, as civilians, in many countries of the world (including India, Mexico or New Zealand) in camps for Polish refugees specially prepared for them.

There are more consequences

Undoubtedly, the events of the summer of 1941 enabled the creation of another Polish “Siberian” army in the spring of 1943, this time under the command of General Zygmunt Berling. It is difficult not to notice that 22 June 1941 led to Germany’s final defeat in the war, but at the same time to the spread of Soviet influnece over half of post-war Europe. All the consequences of this event cannot be counted or listed today.

To say that the 22 June 1941 was a turning point in the course of the war is to say nothing. The moment of German aggression influenced not only milions of citizens of Soviet Union or thousands of Sybiraks, but also all of us.