On the drawing, Adam noted: “Bolsheviks are chasing the civilian population away from train cars in which they were deporting Poles”. During #WWII, Polish civilians were deported by the USSR in four waves: February 10, 1940, April 13, 1940, June 1940, and June 1941.
This map – created by the Cartography Service of the Polish Army in the East – estimates the total number of Polish citizens (1,050,000) deported by the USSR from Soviet occupied eastern Poland during the years 1939-1941. Results are shown by region. #WWII 
Each deportation had a distinctive character and targeted specific “anti-Soviet elements” of citizens in occupied eastern Poland. The Soviet classifications of exiles in each deportation determined the length and location of exile as well as the type of labor assigned.
In early Dec. 1939, #NKVD chief L. Beria recommended the exile of military settlers, deemed to pose a significant threat to communist rule. Military settlers were veterans who fought in the Polish-Soviet War; the 1921 Treaty of Riga set Poland’s new post-war eastern boundary.
After the war, military settlers received either free plots of land from the Polish government in the newly defined eastern borderlands or were given priority for land purchase. Civilians were also eventually allowed to apply to purchase state-owned land in #Kresy.
Almost 9,000 military settlers settled in Poland's eastern borderlands by 1933. Photo: Capt. W. Sztaba (third from left) and a group of military settlers gather with a few spouses to dedicate the construction of a new home in #Dawidgródek, Poland. 1922.
The USSR ultimately expanded the deportation category of “osadnicy” to include civilian settlers & small farmers. On Dec. 29, 1939, Sovnarkom Decree No. 2122-617 authorized the deportation of military settlers and instructed the NKVD to arrange rail transports to the USSR.
The decree assigned the Polish deportees to forced labor in timber logging special settlements located in the Kirov, Perm, Vologda, Arkhangelsk, Ivanovo, Omsk, Sverdlovsk, Yaroslavl, and Novosibirsk oblasts as well as the Komi ASSR, Krasnoyarsk, and Altai Krai regions. #WWII
At the suggestion of the 1st secretary of Belorussia’s Communist Party Central Committee, foresters were also included as deportation targets. With weapons, deep knowledge of the land, military training, and extensive networks, foresters were regarded as anti-communist agents.
With lists of foresters and military settlers identified for deportation set by early January, another Sovnarkom decree was issued on Jan. 14, 1940 that added the mining of gold and copper as an additional category of forced labor for the Polish deportees.
Other populations targeted in the Feb. 10, 1940 deportation included judges, civil servants, local government officials, prosecutors, police officers, and the family members of all targeted. Ukrainians and Belorussians – some of whom were foresters – were also exiled. #WWII
The majority of Polish citizens deported on Feb. 10, 1940 were sent to special settlements in northern European Russia, particularly Arkhangelsk Oblast. This map of labor camps for the Polish population (1940-41) in #Arkhangelsk Oblast was made by A. Gurjanow of Memorial.
Mietek G. wrote about his encounter with the NKVD on the night of his deportation from the #Lwów region, and he also described the conditions of his transport in a cattle car to #Arkhangelsk oblast:
Surely a very rare exception to the wide range of behavior displayed by the NKVD towards the deportation victims on February 10 was that of this militiaman, who openly wept while evicting a family from their home:
On a night when temperatures reached -40 C in parts of the borderlands, some children froze to death before they reached the train station. Mortality rates only increased during the train journey & entry to the Soviet labor camps, when exhaustion, starvation, and illness set in.
“No corporeal punishment could be as painful as watching your loved ones slowly die of hunger.” The testimony of W. Gantek describes his Feb. 10 arrest by the NKVD, deportation, & the #Siedierga special settlement in Arkhangelsk oblast (94 on the map): bit.ly/39j5ZIn
Jan K. (third from left) and a group of Polish exiles at a timber logging labor camp in Sverdlovsk oblast were joined (on the left) by a Volga German, representing another group repressed by the USSR (and sent to labor camps after the launch of #OperationBarbarossa). 1941.
Deported by the USSR to #Kajgorodek, Komi Republic, Polish exiles prepare to raft timber for transport along the Sysola river. May 1941. #WWII
Deported by the USSR on Feb. 10, 1940 from #Tarnopol province to a labor camp in #Sverdlovsk oblast, Rosalia and Ludwik S. (flanking the cross) attend the funeral of their young daughter Kazimiera, along with a group of Polish deportees. 1940s. #WWII
The drawing tweeted at the start of this thread comes from the Hoover Archives at Stanford. In 1942, after evacuation from the USSR with #AndersArmy, children were asked to write testimonies documenting their experiences within the USSR. Some also drew.
The practice was terminated because of concern that it might cause additional trauma for the children. Hoover has archived some of these testimonies; this index lists available documents. You can contact Hoover if you find a relative on this list. bit.ly/2w6XKAZ
If you got this far in the thread, thank you for your patience. And thank you to all who have tweeted this weekend about the deportations! Every year, a little more history gets out there.
