Viktoryia Kolchyna
In September 1939, the Polish city of Grodno stood exactly where it had always been, but its people no longer lived in Poland by the end of the year. Overnight, they became Soviet citizens – whether they understood what that meant or not.
The shift came with a treaty. Under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union divided Poland into zones of influence. As the Wehrmacht swept eastward, Soviet troops moved into the west. For towns like Grodno, Lviv, Pinsk, Vilnius and Baranovichi, the effect was existential: citizenship, ownership, language – all were redefined by outside forces. “We were not supposed to ask why. We were just no longer living in Poland”, Grodno residents would say decades later.
Grodno didn’t surrender quietly, but it never stood a chance. Local resistance flared, then vanished under Soviet control. What followed was a carefully structured takeover of control. Polish schools were shut down or repurposed, property ownership was transferred to the state, and local populations were monitored through institutional oversight.
Drawing on interviews with those who lived through this period in Grodno, the Belarusian journalist Ruslan Kulevich – a Grodno-born journalist who left Belarus in 2020 after being detained during a protest – has documented how these changes were carried out, and even how minor dissent was managed through official state procedures.
“They said they had come to liberate us”
“When my father left to defend Poland, the Soviets arrived”, recalled Zofia Zakrzewska. “They said they had come to liberate us – but we didn’t even know we needed to be liberated. We had been just fine before they arrived”.
The Soviet occupation unfolded with calibrated intent. From 1940 to 1941, thousands of people from Kresy were deported to remote parts of the USSR. Teachers, landowners, army officers, and clergy were loaded onto trains and sent east, to remote Siberia and Kazakhstan. Trials were rare; entire social classes were marked for removal.
“But the Soviets didn’t manage to deport everyone”, remembersIrena Kizyukevich.“On the morning of June 22, German aircraft bombed the railway lines near Orsha and Baranavichi, halting the transports. Some people were killed, others made it back home. But what mattered most to those caught up in the bombing was simple: they hadn’t been sent to Siberia”.
Those who remained under Soviet rule were subject to a transformation. Polish-language schools were closed. A new curriculum replaced national memory with Soviet doctrine. Youth organisations like the Komsomol supplanted Polish scouting. Religious buildings were shuttered or repurposed. At least ten Catholic institutions in Grodno vanished from public life. Clergy were jailed. Properties – homes, businesses, pharmacies – were confiscated without compensation. Savings accounts were absorbed into a new currency system. By 1941, over 65 percent of private property in the city had been nationalised.
“We stayed in part of the house”, recalled Danat Kurianovich, “but the walls no longer belonged to us. I tried to get it back in 1990s, when I was older, but the authorities said, ‘There are no laws requiring us to return it’. If such a law existed, many people would come back from Poland to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. That’s why the law doesn’t exist”.
The Drućis family lost a plot on Żwirki Street. Their request to build another house was rejected.
“They told us, ‘you already have a roof over your head, you don’t need another house’”, she said.
The NKVD, and later the Soviet security forces, monitored daily life. Between 1939 and 1941, more than 1,200 residents of Grodno were arrested. Many were never formally charged. Surveillance relied not only on agents, but also neighbours, and even schoolchildren.
“One student was asked in class, ‘Does your father speak about Poland at home?’ Years later, she realised the question was a trap”, Kulevich notes.
Another citizen of Grodno remembered a tenant who kept Polish books under his bed.
“One woman told the NKVD. He was gone the next morning – she got his room”.
Language became a serious battleground.
“At home we still spoke Polish”, said Alena Kuźmič, “but outside, on the street, we switched to Russian. We had to”. Another citizen recalled a religious icon hidden behind a wardrobe: “We prayed there when no one was watching”.
“We were Polish, then Soviet, now Belarusian”
Now in their nineties, most of Kulevich’s interviewees recalled the period not through official edicts, but through what was no longer there: the scent of pastries that vanished from bakeries, the quiet disappearance of neighbours, the stillness where holidays had once marked the calendar.
“When they took people”, one Grodnian recalled, “We didn’t even say goodbye. One day they were there. The next, their windows were dark”.
The Soviet Union is gone; Belarus has taken its place. But in Grodno, the memory of the changes remains.
“We were Polish, then Soviet, now Belarusian”, recalled one of Kulevich’s interviewees. “But it’s all the same people, just different names”.
These stories – of erasure, confiscation, and fear – still echo in today’s Belarus, where independent journalism and historical memory remain under pressure. Few know this history more closely than Ruslan Kulevich. Now in Białystok, he runs MOST, an independent outlet, and continues his work documenting interwar Grodno memories in his books.
We spoke with Kulevich about interwar Grodno, memory, and what it means to preserve history in a country that punishes those who remember.
Viktoryia Kolchyna: How did you come to terms with exile – and how do the stories you’ve collected shape your own experience of displacement?
Ruslan Kulevich: After I fled Belarus, it was a difficult period. I carried a sense of guilt, a feeling of loss. Then one of the people I had interviewed – a man who had fled Grodno himself during the Soviet era – said something I have never forgotten. “Ruslan, do not repeat our mistake. We waited to return to Grodno from 1945 until the late 1990s. Do not wait for everything to settle – start building your life in Poland now. The day will come, and you will return”. Those words gave me something steady to hold onto. I realised I could let go of the past – and, in fact, it became easier. I let go of my life in Grodno and began to build something new; I have recently become a Polish citizen. In the late 1990s, many former residents of Grodno returned to Belarus as tourists for the first time in decades. They came back simply to see their former homes. Previously, they had not dared; now they arrived as guests. There was something painful in that, but also something freeing. But I see patterns repeating. Today, there is growing pressure on the Polish community in Grodno: schools are being closed, Polish graves are being destroyed, and Poles are portrayed as enemies. History is being rewritten. For me, this is deeply personal. When I began working on this subject, my books could still be sold in Belarusian bookstores. That is no longer the case – today, they are officially classified as ‘extremist’.
How has the narrative around the 1939 defence of Grodno changed over time in Belarusian and Polish historiography?
It used to be said that the Polish elites – the Pany– did not let Belarusians live freely, that they oppressed them. But in reality, those who wanted to work could do so. I have many memories of Grodnians who lived well before 1939, built good lives, and had friendships with Poles. No one was persecuted. The claim that Poland had occupied these lands was the result of propaganda. But the Treaty of Riga was a legally recognised agreement. Poles lived here – descendants of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. They also used to say that there was nothing to eat in Poland, that people were starving, but the shops had oranges, all kinds of sausages, and no one stood in lines like they later did under the Soviets. The arrival of Soviet forces in 1939 was presented as the beginning of a ‘full life’. Yes, it is true that more young people from villages gained access to education – that did happen. But overall, this was an occupation, not a liberation. In Grodno, a campaign of dekulakisation began. Queues and shortages appeared, people waited in line, or kolejki, for basic goods. Many began to leave. People lived in a state of uncertainty – always prepared. They kept two or three bags packed by the door, knowing that someone might come for them at any moment.
Even when repatriation was announced, not everyone believed it was safe to leave Grodno. People would come to the station and be told, “this train is going to Poland”. But they were afraid. At first, they came just to watch – to see which direction the train would go: west, toward Poland, or eastward. Only when they saw that the train really was heading west would they agree, more willingly, to board it next time. One woman from Grodno told me that they still spoke Polish in the city until the late 1940s. Then she left for a few years to work elsewhere, and when she returned she did not recognise her hometown. Everyone was speaking Russian. It was as if the Polish language had been erased. She had to relearn everything by attending Russian-language schools. The churches were closed. People still spoke to one another, of course, but Polish remained more alive in the outlying areas – in the villages, where people lived in close-knit communities – rather than in the city itself.
Why did so many Poles remain in Soviet Grodno?
People used to say: our parents are already old, what sense is there in leaving at fifty or sixty and starting from scratch in Poland? It was easier to stay; modest as it was, at least they had their own household, their corner. It was possible to get by. Leaving for Poland felt like leaving for the unknown. I heard stories of those who did go; most of them ended up in the Pomeranian region. The Germans had been expelled, and people from Grodno and other areas of the Kresy moved in to replace them, but many were hesitant to settle in former German homes. They were afraid the Germans might return and force them out again. So, they chose small cottages, outbuildings – whatever felt safe. Others, by contrast, took the opposite view: “The Germans started this war, they left. Now we live here”. They moved into well-built homes and felt no guilt about it. People adapted. They lived as best they could. In Grodno, power often changed hands. This is part of the city’s character – something I address in my books as well. People there have lived and worked under many governments and should not be judged for that. Some worked in factories, some in workshops. Not for ideology but simply to feed their families. There’s another important difference I have noticed. Here in Poland, those Grodnians who have reached old age are living a different kind of life. They have different pensions, different possibilities. They are in their nineties and using smartphones, browsing Facebook, looking at photos of their hometown, Grodno, online. They are in touch with their grandchildren – they speak the same language. But those Grodnians who remained in Belarus … that is another story. Most of those over 70 years of age exist within their immediate circle. If a grandchild brings them a phone, that is already a big deal. I cannot recall a single one of my interviewees in Belarus having a social media account, and maybe that is the clearest expression of the divide – not just between two lives, but between one version of history and another version of how it continues.
Could you compare the resistance in Grodno to what took place in other cities across the Kresy region that also faced the Soviet invasion?
Grodno, as far as I know, was the only city in the region that mounted armed resistance to the Soviet forces. It was not just protest; it was direct confrontation, for which the city was later marked for a state honour. [In 1941, Commander-in-Chief General Władysław Sikorski promised to honor the city with the Virtuti Militari war order, but this never happened – editor’s note]. And the people of Grodno are different. There is a kind of resolve, a firmness in their character that stands out.
What forms did resistance take in Grodno?
Based on the testimonies I have gathered, people came out into the streets and organised in small groups. It was mostly teenagers – fourteen, fifteen years old. They met in school buildings or gymnasiums, often under the informal guidance of a teacher or principal. They prepared bottles filled with gasoline – makeshift incendiaries – which were then handed to others to throw at Soviet tanks. It was a form of spontaneous resistance, driven from below. There were no longer regular army units in the city, just remnants of forces, a few soldiers, and mostly local youth. On some level, many never fully accepted Soviet rule, though in time they resigned themselves to it. The fighting in 1939, in that sense, felt inevitable. But what people rarely speak about is that the repression did not end with the war. The Soviet authorities began demolishing Catholic churches and, for the Polish population, this struck at the heart of their identity. The destruction of Grodno’s largest church was especially traumatic. There was even a story that circulated at the time: when the authorities threatened to tear down another church, someone sent an anonymous note: “If you demolish one more church, we will blow up the bridge”.The warning worked: the church was left standing. Indeed, the Germans destroyed much during the war. But the Soviets, as some put it, finished the job. It was not until the 1990s that people felt able to speak about such things openly. Decades had passed in silence. There is one story that is especially difficult to recount: It was 1939. A local Orthodox family had been living peacefully in Grodno when the Soviets arrived. The family had three children – two boys and a girl. When the city began its defence, the boys left the house. They later returned, quiet and unharmed. Maybe they had taken part in the resistance; maybe they had just watched. Soon after, Soviet soldiers came to the house, accompanied by a Jewish neighbour. He pointed at the boys and said: “These two were at the barricades. They took part”. They were arrested and executed. The family never recovered from that. The pain and bitterness ran deep. What made it more painful was that they had initially welcomed Soviet rule. To this day, no one knows for sure whether the boys actually joined the resistance, but the neighbour’s accusation was enough. That alone sealed their fate.
What is the legacy today of the 1939 events in Grodno? How are they remembered in Belarus?
I asked nearly all my interviewees the same question: “Was the defence of Grodno necessary?” After all, those who defended the city were later executed. They were buried on the Sobachya Gorka hills in Grodno. The site is known, the names are known, but to this day there has been no exhumation. I still hope this will happen one day. Not everyone remembers – and among those who do, answers vary. Some say: “What was the point? Just a few schoolboys went out to shoot at the Soviets. Who needed that? They should have stayed home, maybe then their families would not have been deported”. Many view the defence critically, while others take pride in the fact that a brother or a father took part. There are stories of people combing the hills of Sobachya Gora after the fighting, looking for the bodies of relatives. They searched through the dead, hoping to find family, but often failed. By various estimates, between three and four hundred people were killed. But in truth, we still do not know the exact number. The archives remain closed. Many families were deported in the aftermath. One of the more difficult aspects of that period is how people turned on one another. In 1939, some denounced Poles to the Soviets. Later, under the Germans, Poles informed on Jews. The atmosphere in Grodno, even before the war, was tense. Much of this was imported from Germany: the rhetoric, the violence. There were pogroms. Slogans painted on walls: “Do not buy from Jews”. Jews had lived in Grodno since the 14th century – over 500 years. They spoke their own language. Many were involved in trade. They extended credit. In 1935, there was a major pogrom in the city. For three days, Jewish shops were looted. People were thrown out of their homes. One of my interviewees recalled being 12 years old at the time. He went into a shop during the looting and took a pair of sandals for himself; he never told his mother, he just hid them. The police did not intervene.
Were there any personal stories that left a strong impression on you?
One that stands out was my encounter in Grodno with a man named Kazimir Salvesiuk. He told me that before 1939 he sold tennis balls. That detail alone was striking. I had never imagined such a life existed in prewar Grodno. We were always taught that life in the city had supposedly only begun after the Soviet occupation – when the so-called “liberators” arrived. But here was a completely different perspective. Kazimir Salvesiuk was a true Grodno native, someone deeply rooted in the city. It was through him that I began to think seriously about studying the city’s history through personal testimony. He told me stories from his youth: how he once stole herring from a Jewish merchant; how he fell in love with a Jewish girl. That kind of relationship was not encouraged at the time, but he genuinely loved her. She was eventually deported, and he was too, to Kazakhstan, because his father had served as a Polish officer. When the Soviets returned a second time, he was deported again. That second time, it was for years. He only returned to Grodno in old age. He became my first interviewee – and he inspired this entire research project. In my third book, which focuses on Grodno residents who eventually left Belarus, I include the story of a woman whose mother was taken to a forced-labour camp in Germany during the Nazi occupation. The girl herself was left on a farm with acquaintances. When the war ended, her mother’s sister came to retrieve her and take her to Poland, but the host family refused to give her up. They didn’t even tell her that someone had come for her. They hid her in a shed. It was not until many years later that neighbours told her the truth – that her aunt had indeed tried to bring her home. That woman spent her entire life trying to reconnect with her mother in Poland but never succeeded. She now lives in Russia. Her roots, though, are in Grodno. Her entire life, she believed no one had come for her, but that was not true. That is how it often begins: a single photograph, a passing memory, behind which unfolds an entire life.
How do you see your role in preserving the memory of pre-war Grodno – and what made you begin documenting it in the first place?
did not have grandparents; I missed that kind of conversation – the chance to hear living accounts of the past. I wanted to listen to people who had first-hand experience, who had witnessed prewar Grodno with their own eyes. At first, I published individual stories as part of a column on the website Grodno.life. People began to respond. Gradually, this material became the foundation for my first book, which was published through crowdfunding as there were no sponsors. Throughout 2017 and 2018, I collected testimonies from elderly Grodnians. That was also when I had the idea to ask each interviewee for at least one photo, which is how my archive began to take shape – a growing collection of images from the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s. In 2019, the second book was published. The volume of material had doubled – people were reaching out to me directly, offering to share their stories. Now we are preparing a third volume. Over the past five years, I have been looking for new interviewees: elderly Grodnians here in Poland – those who left but carried the memory with them. The upcoming book will include about twenty new accounts. The average age of those I interviewed was around ninety. Half of them are already gone, but their memories remain. What remains is a living record of life in prewar Grodno. Even when the crackdown began in Belarus – and my home in Grodno was searched – I had only one request for the police: “Please don’t touch the photographs. They are not mine. They are part of the city’s history. They are our shared memory”. Luckily, I brought my entire collection with me to Białystok.
From time to time, we organise photo exhibitions so that this history is not forgotten, and so that it lives in not just books but also public memory. In 2020, production began on the film Orlęta. Grodno ’39, directed by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Łukaszewicz. It was the first film to directly depict the Soviet assault on Poland in September 1939. The movie was shot in several Polish cities, with principal scenes filmed in Radom, chosen for its close resemblance to the prewar streets of Grodno. Filming in Belarus itself was, of course, not possible due to the political situation. So, the crew searched across Poland for locations that visually matched Grodno. Streets, facades, small architectural details – everything was reconstructed based on photographs and eyewitness accounts. Before filming began, the director’s team contacted me. They wrote asking for archival photos from that period. Costume and set designers used those materials to build the visual world of the film: the interiors, the clothing, and the atmosphere of pre-war Grodno. Later, we were invited to the set. Krzysztof Łukaszewicz personally approached me several times to check, “Did it really look like this? Is this how people described it?” There is one photo, depicting a teenage boy named Tadzik Jasiński, that has become a symbol of the defence of Grodno. In the film, his story appears under the name Tadzik Jasukiewicz. The teenager was captured by Soviet troops, tied to a tank, and left to die. To me, he represents an entire generation – a generation that defended its city not out of obligation, not by order, but simply because their conscience told them they must. This is how the stories outlive the silence that tries to erase them.
Viktoryia Kolchyna is a Belarusian journalist. She lives in Poland and works at the Sybir Memorial Museum.
Photographs (except for the photo by Tadeusz Jasiński) from Ruslan Kulevich’s book: Гісторыі з гродзенскіх вуліц. Гродна 1930‑40‑х вачыма жыхароў. Працяг, Гродна 2019. Published with the author’s permission.