Polish volunteer for the Anders’ Army. The part of the main exhibition of the Sybir Memorial Museum

On 12 August 1941, the authorities of the Soviet Union granted an “amnesty” to hundreds of thousands of Poles deported to Siberia. It followed a Polish-Soviet agreement signed less than two weeks earlier, commonly referred to as the Sikorski-Mayski agreement.

The Soviets were prompted to perform this “act of grace” by the German attack on 22 June and the rapid advances of the aggressors. Under this “amnesty”, citizens of the Republic of Poland – war captives, internees, prisoners, gulag prisoners, persons under investigation, deported military settlers, foresters and family members of repressed and displaced persons – were subject to immediate release. However, the Soviets were keen to ensure that as few people as possible who had been sent to slave labour abandoned it. Therefore, they tried to ensure that information about the “amnesty” did not reach all the deportees and even deliberately blocked or provided false information about the creation of a Polish Army in the Soviet Union. They also prevented the release of citizens of the Second Polish Republic whose nationality was not Polish.

The word “amnesty” is written here in inverted commas for a reason. After all, the persons who were covered by it had not committed any crimes either under Polish or international law. What is more – being citizens of the Polish state – they were not even subject to the jurisdiction of the USSR, and the repressions to which they were subjected had no legal standing. And yet, even thanks to this “amnesty”, tens of thousands of deportees managed to leave the Soviet hell. Some made it to the Anders’ Army; others – being civilians – dispersed throughout the world over time.