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There was only the sight of German units departing the city, riding down Lipowa Street, followed by Soviet troops who entered it— a sequence of events that might well have given the impression of a ceremonial march. This was how Białystok fell under Soviet control, a situation that remained until 27 June 1941, with the city once more being seized by the Germans
If one speaks of the outbreak of the Second World War, generally September 1939 comes to mind. Particular focus is placed on 1 and 17 September —dates signifying the German and Soviet aggression against Poland. Yet nobody can be certain how events would have unfolded had it not been for events that took place in Moscow during the night of 23–24 August 1939. It was at that time that key decisions were made, decisions whose direct consequence was the two invasions of the Republic of Poland. Therefore it would not be erroneous to state that, in reality, the war actually began in August…
Soviet aggression against Poland, which began on the morning of September the 17th, 1939, came as a surprise for the authorities, the civilian population, the police, the army, and the Border Protection Corps. However, this was only a small taste of what the aggressor had in store for Poles in the coming months. A group of almost 22 thousand Polish citizens selected by the Soviets were to meet a special fate, being held in three special NKVD prisoner-of-war camps prisons in the occupied territories of Poland.
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.
On the 30th of November 1939, without officially declaring war, the Red Army launched its attack on Finland. Soviet propaganda pointed out how this came in response to Finnish provocations. The truth, however, was different – it was the Soviets who had shelled their own territory in order to obtain the pretext to attack. What the Kremlin did not expect was how embarrassing the decision to invade would ultimately turn out to be. Moreover, Vyacheslav Molotov, People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, was said to have assured that on Stalin’s birthday (the 18th of December) he would drink a cocktail in honour of his leader in captured Helsinki. Cocktails were indeed eagerly “delivered” to the Soviets, but they were Molotov cocktails, or incendiary bottles, employed by Finns to attack Soviet tanks. Their name, which was coined by Finnish soldiers, was intended as a response to the words of the People’s Commissar.
The war was still going on and the Red Army was waiting on the forefields of the fighting in Warsaw. In spite of this, the new communist authorities of Poland started to introduce reforms crucial for the shape of the future Republic. One of the inherent slogans of communism was community and collectivisation. Cooperative kolkhozy and state sovhozy had been present in the Soviet Union for many years and were symbols of the Soviet nation. Poles, who gradually fell under the Kremiln’s authority, were afraid that the same fate would befall their own farms. Those who had lived under the Soviet occupation in the years 1939-1941 were particularly afraid. But the Polish communists decided to take a different form of action…
On August 14, a Polish-Soviet military agreement regulating the formation of the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR was officially signed. Now ten of thousands of men, women and children, who wanted to escape Soviet captivity, could head towards Buzuluk, where the formation of Polish units began.
In the spring of 1943 the formation of the 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division began in Seltsy located on the Oka River in the Soviet Union. Colonel Zygmunt Berling (later a general) was placed at its head.
German soldiers on the eastern frontline, June 1941, public domain "Barbarossa" On the 22nd of June 1941, at 3:15 a.m., the first bombs fell and...
Polish flag over Berlin, 2nd May 1945, public domain When the bullets from Polish cannons and a volley of bullets from a PPSh submachine gun drove...
