Lost villages of southeast Poland (THREAD): Beyond hills and forests south of Przemyśl along the Ukrainian border is a beautiful landscape, now almost empty, but once dotted with villages of Ukrainian and other interwar minorities. The inhabitants were deported after WWII. (1) 
After the deportations, the villages were completely destroyed by Polish communist forces. All that remains in empty fields are the fruit trees that once would have stood alongside the rural homes. (2)
The little chains of trees are scattered across the fields like the ghosts of the villages. The deportations formed part of anti-civilian actions in a campaign by Polish communist authorities against Ukrainian insurgents in the wake of the Wołyń massacres. (3)
Later, the territory of a dozen destroyed villages and surrounding countryside were turned into a closed recreational facility for communist dignitaries and visitors. Brezhnev, Tito, Honecker and even the last Shah of Iran spent time here (hunting was a popular activity). (4)
In 1982, during martial law, Lech Wałęsa was interned at the recreational facility. Today the main lodge is a hotel. But the hilly landscape around it is still mostly empty - just forests, fields, fruit trees and the remains of a village cemetery that escaped the destruction. (5)
