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  • Members: 1184
  • Category: Poland
  • Founded: Sep 18, 2001
  • Language: English
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#54023 From: Barbara Dunleavy <barbaraszczepanski@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 10:44 am
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Re: Introducing new member Tracey Ashworth from Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
barbaraszcze...
Send Email Send Email
 
Hello Tracey,

What an amazing and wonderful thing that has happened for you.   It will, I am sure, be a bit of a roller coaster journey for you mixed with joy and sadness.  However, no-one can know what it feels like to find the missing parts of yourself and of your past unless they have been through it.  Some, very fortunate, people grow up always knowing - others, like most of us on this site, grow up knowing bits and pieces but always with the awareness that there are huge missing chunks.

I found my missing parts, my missing family and my lost history 2 years ago and have felt like a different person ever since - a whole person.

My warmest wishes to you Tracey and may the coming months bring you peace at last.

Barbara Dunleavy.
Nottingham, England.


From: "tracey.ashworth@..." <tracey.ashworth@...>
To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, 1 January 2013, 21:39
Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Re: Introducing new member Tracey Ashworth from Albany, Auckland, New Zealand

 
Hello everyone and greetings for the New Year. I am delighted to have connected again with my Polish roots, and plan to visit my father's grave today to pay my respects.

To have received a photo of him and his sister Anna (my aunt)onboard the boat coming to New Zealand, and to read the story of his deportation from his village in Radziule to Siberia is amazing - it is very moving.

I am grateful for this site, and also for the efforts of Mary-Anne who has already completed so much research.

Kindest regards,

Tracey Ashworth
Auckland, NZ

--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, "Lenarda Szymczak" <szymczak01@...> wrote:
>
> Mary-Anne, when I read the posts, I kept thinking you both are sisters, am I correct and now you have been reunited? This is so wonderful, more than magical. So extremely happy for all three of you, as mother has her two daughters back again.
>
> Kresy group has a strange way of finding and connecting people, they are very good at it. well done, congratulations and so happy for all. It really will be a better year and much nicer future.
>
> Lenarda, Australia
>
>
>
> From: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Mary-Anne Morgan
> Sent: Tuesday, 01 January, 2013 5:36 PM
> To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Re: Introducing new member Tracey Ashworth from Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear all
>
>
>
> My mother and our family are overjoyed to have connected with Tracey! To know she has had a happy childhood and has connected in time to meet my mother Anna, who is now nearly 90, means lots of missing pieces can be connected for her, and for us.
>
>
>
> Thank you Helen, Frances, and the Kresy Siberia website! Leonarda, you knew this was going to be a happy year for Tracey and you were right.
>
>
>
> Warmest wishes
>
> Mary-Anne
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Frances <mailto:frncsgts@...>
>
> Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 3:28 PM
>
> To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
>
> Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Re: Introducing new member Tracey Ashworth from Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hello Tracey
>
> Welcome to the group.
> There have been previous posts on this site concerning the Baziuk family - please see message #52466 dated October 2012. You will be able to contact the member who posted the message by sending a direct link to her - her name is Mary Ann Morgan, also from New Zealand.
>
> Good luck with your research - it will be wonderful for you to visit Poland and hopefully to find more about your Polish connections.
>
> Warm wishes
> Frances
> Australia
>
> --- In mailto:Kresy-Siberia%40yahoogroups.com, Helen Bitner <helen.bitner@> wrote:
> >
> > Please welcome new member Tracey to the group. She was born Catherine Anne Baziuk on 9th May 1959 in Nguarawahia, New Zealand, daughter of Zenon who married Eileen O'Keefe on 6th March 1959 in New Zealand. Her parents separated and she was placed for adoption. Only when she was re-united with her birthmother Eileen as an adult, did she learn some of her father's background - how he had been sent to a Siberian work camp as a child during the war and had suffered terribly. Zenon's father was Konstanty and his mother Jozefa. He was born in Radziule. Zenon travelled to New Zealand to set up a new life after the war had ended, and Tracey says he had sisters living in New Zealand. Tracey was told by her birthmother that Zenon (also known as Peter) had been her first love.
> > Tracey says she is very excited at the possibility of establishing contact with any of Zenon's relatives, especially as she intends to travel to Poland later this year.
> > Once again Tracey welcome and I wish you every success in your search.
> > Kind regards
> > Helen Bitner
> > Colchester
> > UK
> >
>




#54024 From: "antoni530" <askazimierski@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 10:47 am
Subject: Re: Research Podrozny
antoni530
Send Email Send Email
 
Sophea,

Happy new Yearto you!

Yes, the entry is for Podorozny (Milko) Emilian ref 791/59 792/59 but he did not
fill it in fully; so the answer is to write to Pani Irena Czernichowska  and ask
for details; she is at    czrnichowska@...   and also to write to Karta
in Warsaw to k.janiak@...  who, might have some details too.

antoni530 in UK



--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, "alphadea" <podrozny@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Dear Antoni,
>
> Thank you so much for your advice. I looked at
>
> szukajwarchiwach.pl in the Anders documents, personal card index, Dokumenty
Wladyslawa Andersa 800/1/0/-/23
>
> and yes indeed! I was very excited to find a card for my father in there. His
name is spelled Podorozny, Emilian, which is a version I have not seen before.
>
> Unfortunately, not much is written on the card - much less than many of the
other cards. It does not state where he was sent in Siberia. Because my Polish
is very limited, I cannot read the information on the card.
>
> I have posted the card (and Emil's army ID photo) in the photos section (album
alphadea). Could you please have a look at it and tell me what it says?
>
> Also can you give the address of Pani Czernichowska? The yahoo site did not
print out the e-mail address properly.
>
> Thank you again for your great help and may God Bless you with a Very Happy
New Year!
>
> Sophia Podrozny
> Guelph, Canada
>
> daughter of Emil Walter Podrozny
> born Kociubince, Ternopol, 1918
> deported to Siberia, location unknown
> joined Polish Second Corps
> served in Monte Cassino
> post war in England
> immigrated to Canada 1950
> Died Toronto, Ontario 1994
>
>
> --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, "antoni530" <askazimierski@> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Sophia,
> >
> > May I suggest you write directly to pani  czernichowska@  and ask if there
are any depositions written by Pan Podrozny; that will disclose here he was in
the camp/camps.
> > Alternatively please search at  szukajwarchiwach.pl and the section of
Hoover numbered 800 ... Anders files which are arranged alphabetically.
> > antoni530 in UK
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

#54025 From: "Lucyna Artymiuk" <lucynaartymiuk@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 1:07 pm
Subject: attention Melbourne
lucyna_98
Send Email Send Email
 

“Our Heritage Program”

The Forgotten Exiles

Polish Museum and Archives in Australia

In partnership with

Kresy Siberia Foundation

Invite you to participate in a

Workshop on historical and family research

On Saturday 2 February 2013 from 10 am to 4 pm

At Dom Polski “Millenium”, 296 Nicholson Street, Footscray

Cost - $ 15 (light lunch included)

Registrations necessary – lucynaartymiuk@... or (03) 9706-7720

TOPICS COVERED:

SOVIET DEPORTATIONS TO WORK OR DIE (1940 – 1941)

-Deportation – History of Russian instrument of repression against  Polish Citizen, the annihilation of the enemies of the system, cattle cars, frost, hunger and the course of the four major waves of deportation

-Survivor testimonies

 

Surviving wartime USSR (1941-1945)

– the struggle for survival, maintenance of national identity and return to the homeland

Places of exile of the Polish population in the Soviet Union , living conditions, work

-Soviet gulags and POW-camps in the USSR

-Relationships with the local population

-Polish graves in the East

 

AMNESTY” FOR THE INNOCENT (1941)

- “Amnesty” for Polish citizens – the different fate of deported Poles

 

GATHERING THE ARMY AND EVACUATING TO PERSIA (1941 – 1942)

-The release of the deportees and the beginning of the creation of the Polish Army in the East

-Assembly points, food shortages and health problems of former deportees and evacuation to Iran

 

CIVILIANS EXILED IN THE MIDDLE EAST, INDIA AND AFRICA (1942-50)

-Survivor’s path to Refugee camps

-Life in exile

-The fate of survivors

 

WHAT ELSE DO I NEED TO KNOW?

FAMILY TESTIMONIES – WHAT QUESTIONS TO ASK?

AM I ON THE RIGHT RESEARCH PATH?

 

WHERE CAN I GET FURTHER INFORMATION? WHO CAN HELP ME?

 

 

Lucyna Artymiuk

Melbourne Australia

 


#54026 From: "Lenarda Szymczak" <szymczak01@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 1:24 pm
Subject: RE: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] attention Melbourne
lenardaszymczak
Send Email Send Email
 

Where do my people fit in, 1937-1938 THE GREAT TERROR. (1ST WAVE OF REPRESSION) ?

 

Lenarda, Australia

 

From: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Lucyna Artymiuk
Sent: Thursday, 03 January, 2013 12:07 AM
To: com, Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.; com, POLISHAUSTRALIANGENEALOGY@yahoogroups.; Com, 300polishsquadron@Yahoogroups.
Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] attention Melbourne

 

 

“Our Heritage Program”

The Forgotten Exiles

Polish Museum and Archives in Australia

In partnership with

Kresy Siberia Foundation

Invite you to participate in a

Workshop on historical and family research

On Saturday 2 February 2013 from 10 am to 4 pm

At Dom Polski “Millenium”, 296 Nicholson Street, Footscray

Cost - $ 15 (light lunch included)

Registrations necessary – lucynaartymiuk@... or (03) 9706-7720

TOPICS COVERED:

SOVIET DEPORTATIONS TO WORK OR DIE (1940 – 1941)

-Deportation – History of Russian instrument of repression against  Polish Citizen, the annihilation of the enemies of the system, cattle cars, frost, hunger and the course of the four major waves of deportation

-Survivor testimonies

 

Surviving wartime USSR (1941-1945)

– the struggle for survival, maintenance of national identity and return to the homeland

Places of exile of the Polish population in the Soviet Union , living conditions, work

-Soviet gulags and POW-camps in the USSR

-Relationships with the local population

-Polish graves in the East

 

AMNESTY” FOR THE INNOCENT (1941)

- “Amnesty” for Polish citizens – the different fate of deported Poles

 

GATHERING THE ARMY AND EVACUATING TO PERSIA (1941 – 1942)

-The release of the deportees and the beginning of the creation of the Polish Army in the East

-Assembly points, food shortages and health problems of former deportees and evacuation to Iran

 

CIVILIANS EXILED IN THE MIDDLE EAST, INDIA AND AFRICA (1942-50)

-Survivor’s path to Refugee camps

-Life in exile

-The fate of survivors

 

WHAT ELSE DO I NEED TO KNOW?

FAMILY TESTIMONIES – WHAT QUESTIONS TO ASK?

AM I ON THE RIGHT RESEARCH PATH?

 

WHERE CAN I GET FURTHER INFORMATION? WHO CAN HELP ME?

 

 

Lucyna Artymiuk

Melbourne Australia

 


#54027 From: John Halucha <john.halucha@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 3:16 pm
Subject: Re: Stalin's western frontiers
john.halucha
Send Email Send Email
 
There sure are some interesting references in the excerpt you shared, Dan. Thank you.
It appears "prewar", as in, "prewar Soviet encroachments in Europe," is the author's own construction - it could be paraphrasing Stalin if not for the use of "encroachments". The USSR (and at least some people in successor Russia today) regarded the war as beginning in June 1941 when German forces in occupied western Poland attacked Soviet forces in occupied eastern Poland. They wanted everyone to forget that the Soviets were German allies in their coordinated attack, invasion and partition of Poland in September 1939, and that the Soviets were partners of Germany in starting the Second World War. Of course, the author may be voicing the stance often seen among Americans that the war did not begin until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Strange also, that the author would downplay and distort what the Soviets had done to Poland: "The Red Army had seized the Baltic states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland." By virtue of being the first and largest Soviet land-grab, Poland logically should be at the top of the list rather than appended to the end like an afterthought. And the USSR had not merely "taken ... former Czarist territory from ... Poland", it occupied a great chunk that had been under Austrian rule in the partitions prior to Poland regaining its independence in 1918.
Churchill's private radio message to Attlee shows that at the end of 1941 he still espoused democratic ideals as enshrined in the Atlantic Charter. If so, it would not be long before he became "realistic", in the language of his apologists, and abandoned those principles to do what he considered in the best long-term interests of his British empire. He would even adopt part of the stance of his own avowed worst enemy, Hitler, giving approval to the 1939 boundary changes that Hitler had set up with his then-pal, Stalin. Churchill had to scooch over a bit in Adolf's chair to make room for his co-signer, Roosevelt.
It often strikes me funny that when people in the West reflect that they fought the Good War in the 1940s, they can do so only if they restrict their thinking so it does not include Eastern Europe. Must be uncomfortable to recognize that the heroes Churchill and Roosevelt essentially mirrored Hitler in their agreement to give half of Poland as well as other territories to Stalin.
Another strange twist is how many people scornfully denounce British PM Neville Chamberlain as a short-sighted, dim-witted appeaser of the tyrant Hitler but at the same time revere Churchill and Roosevelt, who were demonstrated to be short-sighted, dim-witted appeasers of the tyrant Stalin. If the "peace for our time" that WSC and FDR won by their agreements with Stalin existed at all, it certainly did not materialize for another half century in Eastern Europe under the communist yoke.

John Halucha
Sault Ste Marie, Canada


From: Dan Ford <cub06h@...>
To: KRESY <Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 1, 2013 4:05:21 PM
Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Stalin's western frontiers

Stanley Weintraub has written some admirable history. "Pearl Harbor
Christmas" is not much of a book, but there were some interesting
references to how early Stalin made it clear where the Soviet Union's
postwar borders would have to be. -- Dan Ford US

Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941
<https://kindle.amazon.com/work/pearl-harbor-christmas-december-ebook/B0051OVJ7S/B005P1A46E>by
Stanley Weintraub
The PM was still aboard the Duke of York approaching the East Coast
when, on December 21, he received a radio encrypt from Eden in Moscow
that, as the price of cooperation, Stalin, optimistic now that Germany
could be turned back, had demanded secret Allied acceptance of prewar
Soviet encroachments in Europe. The Red Army had seized the Baltic
states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist
territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Although all of it
was now occupied by the Wehrmacht, the Soviets expected to outlast
Hitler. “Stalin, I believe,” Eden added, “sincerely wants military
agreements, but he will not sign until we recognize his frontiers, and
we must expect badgering on this issue.” Churchill radioed his Deputy
Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, that the demands violated the Atlantic
Charter, “to which Stalin has subscribed,” and in any case no
arrangement could be made “without prior agreement with the United
States.” Stalin’s contempt for pieces of diplomatic paper and confidence
about the Red Army’s future control of the ground in question would keep
the absorbed territories in the grip of Stalin’s successors until the
implosion of the Soviet Union decades later. Churchill advised Attlee
not to be “downhearted” if Eden should leave Moscow “without any
flourish of trumpets.” And to Eden he conceded in a radiogram,
“Naturally you will not be rough with Stalin,” but there could be no
“secret and special pacts” without the United States.

Eden’s mission to Moscow had failed. Stalin wanted no restrictions on
war materiel supplied, whatever the struggle to get it past the
Kriegsmarine in the Arctic or by any other means. Lend-Lease was neither
lend nor lease. His suspicions of the West would only be mollified, he
had insisted, by recognition by Britain and the United States of
intended Russian frontiers—land grabs—as they existed at the moment of
Hitler’s invasion on June 21, 1941. He already knew there was no chance
of Roosevelt’s agreement or that of the American



#54028 From: John Halucha <john.halucha@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 4:37 pm
Subject: Re: Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
john.halucha
Send Email Send Email
 
Dear Mark Ostrowski,
I agree with your comment, "(Although we did have a bit of a polemic re POW status which I really don't want to open up again)". You put that to rest earlier with your precise and accurate wording on the topic, "The numbers and location of POWs as defined by the Soviets ... "
Of course, to discuss Soviet numbers it is necessary to know the Soviet definitions. "As defined by the Soviets" acknowledges this without adopting the Soviet perspective; if anything it hints at the irony of the Soviet definition.
As an aside, in a parallel thread I referred to the Soviet perspective that the war did not begin until the German attack on Soviet forces in June 1941. How did the Soviets reconcile their stance that they did not wage war on Poland in 1939, with their acknowledgement that there were Polish prisoners of "war" taken at that time? True, by the Soviet definition the numbers of Polish PoWs were lower than by the Polish definition (my father, a corporal in uniform, was enslaved as a criminal rather than PoW by Soviet definition), but if there was no war then there had to be zero PoWs. No?

John Halucha
Sault Ste Marie, Canada

#54029 From: "Mark and Oyun" <mark_oyun@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 4:52 pm
Subject: Re: Stalin's western frontiers
mark_oyun
Send Email Send Email
 
Dear John,

If I may leave the POW issue aside for one minute and talk on another point (re
your previous post). Whilst I agree that the British may be criticised for many
thing; they should not have recognised the Polish Provisional Government after
the war; they probably should not have signed the Yalta Accord so readily, I
really fail to see how one can argue that the British "gave" Poland to Stalin...
or even "agreed to give" it. The British did not let the Soviet Union take
Poland... it was going to happen anyway. I have yet to see any cogent policy
brought forward that would have resulted in a solution that would have brought a
conclusion different to the one that transpired. Certainly the British and US
agreement made it legal on the world state (in not in fact de jure), but how
would it have been any different if they had not agreed. After Stalingrad and
Kursk the war, I would argue, was a foregone conclusion. Sooner or later Poland
was going to end up re-occupied by the Red Army, and not just the Kresy.
Alternative policies to prevent this? I can't think of any  not without
affecting the course of the war against Germany; the good war that definitely
needed to be fought. I know there are some who would argue that Nazi Germany and
the Soviet Union were of the same character: they were not. I have argued in
previous threads that the fact there is a Poland today is a result of Soviet
policy. 50 years of repression and communist hegemony could not wipe out Poland.
50 years of Nazi rule would have created a different reality. Yes the British
appeased Stalin, just as they appeased Hitler, but there is a difference: in the
1930s the British could have affected the result. In the 1940s this was not the
case. Having said that, a bluff is only as good as its credibility. Hitler knew
there would be no war over the Sudetenland, just as Stalin knew there would be
no war in 1944/5 over Poland... Churchill knew the same. What else was there to
do other make the best of a bad deal? Sounds like an apology? Possibly. But the
alternative?

Best regards, Mark Ostrowski


--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, John Halucha <john.halucha@...> wrote:
>
> There sure are some interesting references in the excerpt you shared, Dan.
Thank you.
> It appears "prewar", as in, "prewar Soviet encroachments in Europe," is the
author's own construction - it could be paraphrasing Stalin if not for the use
of "encroachments". The USSR (and at least some people in successor Russia
today) regarded the war as beginning in June 1941 when German forces in occupied
western Poland attacked Soviet forces in occupied eastern Poland. They wanted
everyone to forget that the Soviets were German allies in their coordinated
attack, invasion and partition of Poland in September 1939, and that the Soviets
were partners of Germany in starting the Second World War. Of course, the author
may be voicing the stance often seen among Americans that the war did not begin
until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
> Strange also, that the author would downplay and distort what the Soviets had
done to Poland: "The Red Army had seized the Baltic states in 1940, taken
territory from Finland, and former Czarist territory from Romania,
Czechoslovakia, and Poland." By virtue of being the first and largest Soviet
land-grab, Poland logically should be at the top of the list rather than
appended to the end like an afterthought. And the USSR had not merely "taken ...
former Czarist territory from ... Poland", it occupied a great chunk that had
been under Austrian rule in the partitions prior to Poland regaining its
independence in 1918.
> Churchill's private radio message to Attlee shows that at the end of 1941 he
still espoused democratic ideals as enshrined in the Atlantic Charter. If so, it
would not be long before he became "realistic", in the language of his
apologists, and abandoned those principles to do what he considered in the best
long-term interests of his British empire. He would even adopt part of the
stance of his own avowed worst enemy, Hitler, giving approval to the 1939
boundary changes that Hitler had set up with his then-pal, Stalin. Churchill had
to scooch over a bit in Adolf's chair to make room for his co-signer, Roosevelt.
> It often strikes me funny that when people in the West reflect that they
fought the Good War in the 1940s, they can do so only if they restrict their
thinking so it does not include Eastern Europe. Must be uncomfortable to
recognize that the heroes Churchill and Roosevelt essentially mirrored Hitler in
their agreement to give half of Poland as well as other territories to Stalin.
> Another strange twist is how many people scornfully denounce British PM
Neville Chamberlain as a short-sighted, dim-witted appeaser of the tyrant Hitler
but at the same time revere Churchill and Roosevelt, who were demonstrated to be
short-sighted, dim-witted appeasers of the tyrant Stalin. If the "peace for our
time" that WSC and FDR won by their agreements with Stalin existed at all, it
certainly did not materialize for another half century in Eastern Europe under
the communist yoke.
>
> John Halucha
>
> Sault Ste Marie, Canada
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Dan Ford <cub06h@...>
> To: KRESY <Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 1, 2013 4:05:21 PM
> Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Stalin's western frontiers
>
> Stanley Weintraub has written some admirable history. "Pearl Harbor
> Christmas" is not much of a book, but there were some interesting
> references to how early Stalin made it clear where the Soviet Union's
> postwar borders would have to be. -- Dan Ford US
>
> Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941
>
<https://kindle.amazon.com/work/pearl-harbor-christmas-december-ebook/B0051OVJ7S\
/B005P1A46E>by
> Stanley Weintraub
> The PM was still aboard the Duke of York approaching the East Coast
> when, on December 21, he received a radio encrypt from Eden in Moscow
> that, as the price of cooperation, Stalin, optimistic now that Germany
> could be turned back, had demanded secret Allied acceptance of prewar
> Soviet encroachments in Europe. The Red Army had seized the Baltic
> states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist
> territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Although all of it
> was now occupied by the Wehrmacht, the Soviets expected to outlast
> Hitler. “Stalin, I believe,” Eden added, “sincerely wants military
> agreements, but he will not sign until we recognize his frontiers, and
> we must expect badgering on this issue.” Churchill radioed his Deputy
> Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, that the demands violated the Atlantic
> Charter, “to which Stalin has subscribed,” and in any case no
> arrangement could be made “without prior agreement with the United
> States.” Stalin’s contempt for pieces of diplomatic paper and confidence
> about the Red Army’s future control of the ground in question would keep
> the absorbed territories in the grip of Stalin’s successors until the
> implosion of the Soviet Union decades later. Churchill advised Attlee
> not to be “downhearted” if Eden should leave Moscow “without any
> flourish of trumpets.” And to Eden he conceded in a radiogram,
> “Naturally you will not be rough with Stalin,” but there could be no
> “secret and special pacts” without the United States.
>
> Eden’s mission to Moscow had failed. Stalin wanted no restrictions on
> war materiel supplied, whatever the struggle to get it past the
> Kriegsmarine in the Arctic or by any other means. Lend-Lease was neither
> lend nor lease. His suspicions of the West would only be mollified, he
> had insisted, by recognition by Britain and the United States of
> intended Russian frontiers"land grabs"as they existed at the moment of
> Hitler’s invasion on June 21, 1941. He already knew there was no chance
> of Roosevelt’s agreement or that of the American
>

#54030 From: Barbara Milligan <bwbm5@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 7:54 pm
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Re: Stalin's western frontiers
basia5milligan
Send Email Send Email
 
Dear John and Mark,

So that you don't jump down my throat, I will state right now that I am not a great scholar of history. But, I must defend my dear old G.B.

 Churchill was on Poland's side. Roosevelt was not. He and Stalin sewed up a pact that is Yalta. Churchill had no option but to sign. No one fully realised that Russia was financially on its knees and could have been pushed back. Churchill did realise that a hugely impoverished G.B. could not fight on alone, so he had to sign. He was aware that the Brits did not have the resources or the money to fight on. The person who "gave" Poland to Stalin was Roosevelt. When America eventually gave aid to Britain, it was on the condition that every last cent was repaid with interest. We finished paying that debt a few years ago during Gordon Brown's premiership. During the war America had impounded all the assets owned by Brits living in America as security in case G.B. reneged on the debt. To cap it all, G.B. had to pay large sums to Germany in reparation for the damage they had done to it whilst defending themselves. I lived in that post-war Britain and know the privations and rationing we suffered for years after the war. It started to ease up in the 1960's.

I was talking with my Polish family who said "the war finished for you in early 1945, but we fought on and it did not finish till the early '50's" That was the case as my Grandmother had lived with her bags and cases packed and a vast store of sugar to take back to Poland for barter. I can't remember if it was in 1951 or 3 that she gave up all hope of returning home. Needless to say the sugar had solidified because their barak was so damp and was binned.

There is a goodly explosion of righteous indignation and I make no apologies for it as all the Brit bashing makes me very angry. The bulk of us would be living in Siberia now but for the Brits!

Best wishes as always,

Basia (UK)

 
On 2 Jan 2013, at 16:52, Mark and Oyun wrote:

 

Dear John,

If I may leave the POW issue aside for one minute and talk on another point (re your previous post). Whilst I agree that the British may be criticised for many thing; they should not have recognised the Polish Provisional Government after the war; they probably should not have signed the Yalta Accord so readily, I really fail to see how one can argue that the British "gave" Poland to Stalin... or even "agreed to give" it. The British did not let the Soviet Union take Poland... it was going to happen anyway. I have yet to see any cogent policy brought forward that would have resulted in a solution that would have brought a conclusion different to the one that transpired. Certainly the British and US agreement made it legal on the world state (in not in fact de jure), but how would it have been any different if they had not agreed. After Stalingrad and Kursk the war, I would argue, was a foregone conclusion. Sooner or later Poland was going to end up re-occupied by the Red Army, and not just the Kresy. Alternative policies to prevent this? I can't think of any ˆ not without affecting the course of the war against Germany; the good war that definitely needed to be fought. I know there are some who would argue that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were of the same character: they were not. I have argued in previous threads that the fact there is a Poland today is a result of Soviet policy. 50 years of repression and communist hegemony could not wipe out Poland. 50 years of Nazi rule would have created a different reality. Yes the British appeased Stalin, just as they appeased Hitler, but there is a difference: in the 1930s the British could have affected the result. In the 1940s this was not the case. Having said that, a bluff is only as good as its credibility. Hitler knew there would be no war over the Sudetenland, just as Stalin knew there would be no war in 1944/5 over Poland... Churchill knew the same. What else was there to do other make the best of a bad deal? Sounds like an apology? Possibly. But the alternative?

Best regards, Mark Ostrowski

--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, John Halucha <john.halucha@...> wrote:
>
> There sure are some interesting references in the excerpt you shared, Dan. Thank you.
> It appears "prewar", as in, "prewar Soviet encroachments in Europe," is the author's own construction - it could be paraphrasing Stalin if not for the use of "encroachments". The USSR (and at least some people in successor Russia today) regarded the war as beginning in June 1941 when German forces in occupied western Poland attacked Soviet forces in occupied eastern Poland. They wanted everyone to forget that the Soviets were German allies in their coordinated attack, invasion and partition of Poland in September 1939, and that the Soviets were partners of Germany in starting the Second World War. Of course, the author may be voicing the stance often seen among Americans that the war did not begin until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
> Strange also, that the author would downplay and distort what the Soviets had done to Poland: "The Red Army had seized the Baltic states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland." By virtue of being the first and largest Soviet land-grab, Poland logically should be at the top of the list rather than appended to the end like an afterthought. And the USSR had not merely "taken ... former Czarist territory from ... Poland", it occupied a great chunk that had been under Austrian rule in the partitions prior to Poland regaining its independence in 1918.
> Churchill's private radio message to Attlee shows that at the end of 1941 he still espoused democratic ideals as enshrined in the Atlantic Charter. If so, it would not be long before he became "realistic", in the language of his apologists, and abandoned those principles to do what he considered in the best long-term interests of his British empire. He would even adopt part of the stance of his own avowed worst enemy, Hitler, giving approval to the 1939 boundary changes that Hitler had set up with his then-pal, Stalin. Churchill had to scooch over a bit in Adolf's chair to make room for his co-signer, Roosevelt.
> It often strikes me funny that when people in the West reflect that they fought the Good War in the 1940s, they can do so only if they restrict their thinking so it does not include Eastern Europe. Must be uncomfortable to recognize that the heroes Churchill and Roosevelt essentially mirrored Hitler in their agreement to give half of Poland as well as other territories to Stalin.
> Another strange twist is how many people scornfully denounce British PM Neville Chamberlain as a short-sighted, dim-witted appeaser of the tyrant Hitler but at the same time revere Churchill and Roosevelt, who were demonstrated to be short-sighted, dim-witted appeasers of the tyrant Stalin. If the "peace for our time" that WSC and FDR won by their agreements with Stalin existed at all, it certainly did not materialize for another half century in Eastern Europe under the communist yoke.
>
> John Halucha
>
> Sault Ste Marie, Canada
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Dan Ford <cub06h@...>
> To: KRESY <Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 1, 2013 4:05:21 PM
> Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Stalin's western frontiers
>
> Stanley Weintraub has written some admirable history. "Pearl Harbor
> Christmas" is not much of a book, but there were some interesting
> references to how early Stalin made it clear where the Soviet Union's
> postwar borders would have to be. -- Dan Ford US
>
> Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941
> <https://kindle.amazon.com/work/pearl-harbor-christmas-december-ebook/B0051OVJ7S/B005P1A46E>by
> Stanley Weintraub
> The PM was still aboard the Duke of York approaching the East Coast
> when, on December 21, he received a radio encrypt from Eden in Moscow
> that, as the price of cooperation, Stalin, optimistic now that Germany
> could be turned back, had demanded secret Allied acceptance of prewar
> Soviet encroachments in Europe. The Red Army had seized the Baltic
> states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist
> territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Although all of it
> was now occupied by the Wehrmacht, the Soviets expected to outlast
> Hitler. ╲Stalin, I believe,╡ Eden added, ╲sincerely wants military
> agreements, but he will not sign until we recognize his frontiers, and
> we must expect badgering on this issue.╡ Churchill radioed his Deputy
> Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, that the demands violated the Atlantic
> Charter, ╲to which Stalin has subscribed,╡ and in any case no
> arrangement could be made ╲without prior agreement with the United
> States.╡ Stalinâ•˙s contempt for pieces of diplomatic paper and confidence
> about the Red Armyâ•˙s future control of the ground in question would keep
> the absorbed territories in the grip of Stalinâ•˙s successors until the
> implosion of the Soviet Union decades later. Churchill advised Attlee
> not to be ╲downhearted╡ if Eden should leave Moscow ╲without any
> flourish of trumpets.╡ And to Eden he conceded in a radiogram,
> ╲Naturally you will not be rough with Stalin,╡ but there could be no
> ╲secret and special pacts╡ without the United States.
>
> Edenâ•˙s mission to Moscow had failed. Stalin wanted no restrictions on
> war materiel supplied, whatever the struggle to get it past the
> Kriegsmarine in the Arctic or by any other means. Lend-Lease was neither
> lend nor lease. His suspicions of the West would only be mollified, he
> had insisted, by recognition by Britain and the United States of
> intended Russian frontiersâ•"land grabsâ•"as they existed at the moment of
> Hitlerâ•˙s invasion on June 21, 1941. He already knew there was no chance
> of Rooseveltâ•˙s agreement or that of the American
>



#54031 From: "Mark and Oyun" <mark_oyun@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 8:36 pm
Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Re: Stalin's western frontiers
mark_oyun
Send Email Send Email
 

Dear Basia,

Jump down your throat? I really have no interest in bashing my home, the US or for that matter the Soviet Union. There are enough people ready to do that. My principle objection is to the idea that somehow Britain "gave" Poland to the USSR. When the Yalta accord was signed the Red Army was just days from entering Poznan. They HAD Poland already. The Kresy, Warsaw and most of pre-war Poland was in their hands. The question then follows what could be done about it? I would argue very little.

Even at Teheran in 1943 more could have and should have been done, but given the Red Army was already on its westward March, liberating Kiev the same month as the conference, Poland's fate was fairly obvious for anyone to see and Soviet occupation was but a matter of time... in my humble opinion.

John blames Churchill, you blame Roosevelt... I blame neither. There was nothing that could be done. What I object to is the agreement to it. They could have said no. What this would have achieved on the ground I really don't know, but they could have protested. But then why would they? They were promised free elections... did they believe it? Probably not, but then we Poles also have to take some of the blame. Mikolajczyk's return to Poland did no one any favours and led to the Provisional Government in Warsaw being recognised as being representative of the Polish people. Of course it was a fiction, but Poles from London went along with it too. Again, the British Government did nothing. They could have complained but chose not to. Again, they could do nothing about it in real terms, but at least the protest would have been made for posterity.

Rightious indignation is good and I have no interest in Brit bashing, but surely the policies of governments should be open for discussion.

Best regards, Mark Ostrowski

--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Barbara Milligan wrote:
>
> Dear John and Mark,
>
> So that you don't jump down my throat, I will state right now that I am not a great scholar of history. But, I must defend my dear old G.B.
>
> Churchill was on Poland's side. Roosevelt was not. He and Stalin sewed up a pact that is Yalta. Churchill had no option but to sign. No one fully realised that Russia was financially on its knees and could have been pushed back. Churchill did realise that a hugely impoverished G.B. could not fight on alone, so he had to sign. He was aware that the Brits did not have the resources or the money to fight on. The person who "gave" Poland to Stalin was Roosevelt. When America eventually gave aid to Britain, it was on the condition that every last cent was repaid with interest. We finished paying that debt a few years ago during Gordon Brown's premiership. During the war America had impounded all the assets owned by Brits living in America as security in case G.B. reneged on the debt. To cap it all, G.B. had to pay large sums to Germany in reparation for the damage they had done to it whilst defending themselves. I lived in that post-war Britain and know the privations and rationing we suffered for years after the war. It started to ease up in the 1960's.
>
> I was talking with my Polish family who said "the war finished for you in early 1945, but we fought on and it did not finish till the early '50's" That was the case as my Grandmother had lived with her bags and cases packed and a vast store of sugar to take back to Poland for barter. I can't remember if it was in 1951 or 3 that she gave up all hope of returning home. Needless to say the sugar had solidified because their barak was so damp and was binned.
>
> There is a goodly explosion of righteous indignation and I make no apologies for it as all the Brit bashing makes me very angry. The bulk of us would be living in Siberia now but for the Brits!
>
> Best wishes as always,
>
> Basia (UK)
>
>
> On 2 Jan 2013, at 16:52, Mark and Oyun wrote:
>
> > Dear John,
> >
> > If I may leave the POW issue aside for one minute and talk on another point (re your previous post). Whilst I agree that the British may be criticised for many thing; they should not have recognised the Polish Provisional Government after the war; they probably should not have signed the Yalta Accord so readily, I really fail to see how one can argue that the British "gave" Poland to Stalin... or even "agreed to give" it. The British did not let the Soviet Union take Poland... it was going to happen anyway. I have yet to see any cogent policy brought forward that would have resulted in a solution that would have brought a conclusion different to the one that transpired. Certainly the British and US agreement made it legal on the world state (in not in fact de jure), but how would it have been any different if they had not agreed. After Stalingrad and Kursk the war, I would argue, was a foregone conclusion. Sooner or later Poland was going to end up re-occupied by the Red Army, and not just the Kresy. Alternative policies to prevent this? I can't think of any ˆ not without affecting the course of the war against Germany; the good war that definitely needed to be fought. I know there are some who would argue that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were of the same character: they were not. I have argued in previous threads that the fact there is a Poland today is a result of Soviet policy. 50 years of repression and communist hegemony could not wipe out Poland. 50 years of Nazi rule would have created a different reality. Yes the British appeased Stalin, just as they appeased Hitler, but there is a difference: in the 1930s the British could have affected the result. In the 1940s this was not the case. Having said that, a bluff is only as good as its credibility. Hitler knew there would be no war over the Sudetenland, just as Stalin knew there would be no war in 1944/5 over Poland... Churchill knew the same. What else was there to do other make the best of a bad deal? Sounds like an apology? Possibly. But the alternative?
> >
> > Best regards, Mark Ostrowski
> >
> > --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, John Halucha john.halucha@ wrote:
> > >
> > > There sure are some interesting references in the excerpt you shared, Dan. Thank you.
> > > It appears "prewar", as in, "prewar Soviet encroachments in Europe," is the author's own construction - it could be paraphrasing Stalin if not for the use of "encroachments". The USSR (and at least some people in successor Russia today) regarded the war as beginning in June 1941 when German forces in occupied western Poland attacked Soviet forces in occupied eastern Poland. They wanted everyone to forget that the Soviets were German allies in their coordinated attack, invasion and partition of Poland in September 1939, and that the Soviets were partners of Germany in starting the Second World War. Of course, the author may be voicing the stance often seen among Americans that the war did not begin until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
> > > Strange also, that the author would downplay and distort what the Soviets had done to Poland: "The Red Army had seized the Baltic states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland." By virtue of being the first and largest Soviet land-grab, Poland logically should be at the top of the list rather than appended to the end like an afterthought. And the USSR had not merely "taken ... former Czarist territory from ... Poland", it occupied a great chunk that had been under Austrian rule in the partitions prior to Poland regaining its independence in 1918.
> > > Churchill's private radio message to Attlee shows that at the end of 1941 he still espoused democratic ideals as enshrined in the Atlantic Charter. If so, it would not be long before he became "realistic", in the language of his apologists, and abandoned those principles to do what he considered in the best long-term interests of his British empire. He would even adopt part of the stance of his own avowed worst enemy, Hitler, giving approval to the 1939 boundary changes that Hitler had set up with his then-pal, Stalin. Churchill had to scooch over a bit in Adolf's chair to make room for his co-signer, Roosevelt.
> > > It often strikes me funny that when people in the West reflect that they fought the Good War in the 1940s, they can do so only if they restrict their thinking so it does not include Eastern Europe. Must be uncomfortable to recognize that the heroes Churchill and Roosevelt essentially mirrored Hitler in their agreement to give half of Poland as well as other territories to Stalin.
> > > Another strange twist is how many people scornfully denounce British PM Neville Chamberlain as a short-sighted, dim-witted appeaser of the tyrant Hitler but at the same time revere Churchill and Roosevelt, who were demonstrated to be short-sighted, dim-witted appeasers of the tyrant Stalin. If the "peace for our time" that WSC and FDR won by their agreements with Stalin existed at all, it certainly did not materialize for another half century in Eastern Europe under the communist yoke.
> > >
> > > John Halucha
> > >
> > > Sault Ste Marie, Canada
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: Dan Ford cub06h@
> > > To: KRESY Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > > Sent: Tuesday, January 1, 2013 4:05:21 PM
> > > Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Stalin's western frontiers
> > >
> > > Stanley Weintraub has written some admirable history. "Pearl Harbor
> > > Christmas" is not much of a book, but there were some interesting
> > > references to how early Stalin made it clear where the Soviet Union's
> > > postwar borders would have to be. -- Dan Ford US
> > >
> > > Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941
> > > by
> > > Stanley Weintraub
> > > The PM was still aboard the Duke of York approaching the East Coast
> > > when, on December 21, he received a radio encrypt from Eden in Moscow
> > > that, as the price of cooperation, Stalin, optimistic now that Germany
> > > could be turned back, had demanded secret Allied acceptance of prewar
> > > Soviet encroachments in Europe. The Red Army had seized the Baltic
> > > states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist
> > > territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Although all of it
> > > was now occupied by the Wehrmacht, the Soviets expected to outlast
> > > Hitler. ╲Stalin, I believe,╡ Eden added, ╲sincerely wants military
> > > agreements, but he will not sign until we recognize his frontiers, and
> > > we must expect badgering on this issue.╡ Churchill radioed his Deputy
> > > Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, that the demands violated the Atlantic
> > > Charter, ╲to which Stalin has subscribed,╡ and in any case no
> > > arrangement could be made ╲without prior agreement with the United
> > > States.╡ Stalinâ•˙s contempt for pieces of diplomatic paper and confidence
> > > about the Red Armyâ•˙s future control of the ground in question would keep
> > > the absorbed territories in the grip of Stalinâ•˙s successors until the
> > > implosion of the Soviet Union decades later. Churchill advised Attlee
> > > not to be ╲downhearted╡ if Eden should leave Moscow ╲without any
> > > flourish of trumpets.╡ And to Eden he conceded in a radiogram,
> > > ╲Naturally you will not be rough with Stalin,╡ but there could be no
> > > ╲secret and special pacts╡ without the United States.
> > >
> > > Edenâ•˙s mission to Moscow had failed. Stalin wanted no restrictions on
> > > war materiel supplied, whatever the struggle to get it past the
> > > Kriegsmarine in the Arctic or by any other means. Lend-Lease was neither
> > > lend nor lease. His suspicions of the West would only be mollified, he
> > > had insisted, by recognition by Britain and the United States of
> > > intended Russian frontiersâ•"land grabsâ•"as they existed at the moment of
> > > Hitlerâ•˙s invasion on June 21, 1941. He already knew there was no chance
> > > of Rooseveltâ•˙s agreement or that of the American
> > >
> >
> >
>

#54032 From: Dan Ford <cub06h@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 9:10 pm
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Re: Stalin's western frontiers
godanford
Send Email Send Email
 
You know, I never noticed that! Of course Mr Weintraub is an American,
so perhaps he regards The War as beginning in December 1941?

(In much the same fashion, many Europeans regard The War as ending in
May 1945....)

But more likely he simply misunderstood the August 1939 Hitler-Stalin
pact as having actually divided eastern Europe, rather than simply
agreeing to a division that took place in September.

- Dan Ford US

On 1/2/2013 10:16 AM, John Halucha wrote:
> It appears "prewar", as in, "prewar Soviet encroachments in Europe,"
> is the author's own construction - it could be paraphrasing Stalin if
> not for the use of "encroachments".

#54033 From: Stefan Jackowski <stejack@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 9:12 pm
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
stejack
Send Email Send Email
 



Dear Mark and group,


To add some info re: the situation of the Katyn survivors;

According to Prof. Zawodny, of the 15,000 + Polish Officers held in the spring of 1940 in Koselsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov, only 448 survived execution by the Soviets.

These survivors were shipped in 7 seperate transports to an empty camp at Pavelishtchev Bor, just north of Kosielsk.

April 25, 1940 - 63 men from Starobelsk, arriving at Pavelishtchev Bor on May 1, 1940
April 26, 1940 - 150 men from Koselsk, arriving on April 26, 1940
April 29, 1940 - 60 men from Ostashkov, arriving on May 4
May 12, 1940 - 95 from Kozelsk, arriving on May 14
May 12, 1940 - 16 from Starobelsk, arriving on May 17
May 13, 1940 - 45 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 18
May 16. 1940 - 16 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 20

After ongoing interogations and NKVD attempts to convert them them to Communism, the remaining men spontaneously started to split into three main groups; those with some
pro-Soviet sentiment (about 50 men), about 30 who claimed German - not Polish - ancestry,and the rest who remainded anti-Soviet. 12 of the 30 "Germans" were considered
German enough, and given over to the custody of the Soviet allies at the German Embassy.  (Of the remaining 18 "Germans", one committed suicide upon the outbreak of war
with the Nazis  .. while the fate of his teutonic companions after June 22, 1941 can be easily imagined.)

On Sept. 10, 1940, 7 of the highest ranking pro-Soviet group from the camp were taken to Moscow, where they were wined and dined as potential leadershop material in a new
Soviet Poland.  (All 7 later joined Anders Army when that opportunity arose. Zygmunt Berling later defected back to the Soviets, and, as we know, was tried by the Polish Army
in absentia, and given a death sentance.)

On June 13, 1941, just nine days before Barbarossa, the rest of the men were transported to a camp which Zadowny referrs to as "Grazovec", which very likely is the "Grazoveckom" 
listed in Memorandam No. 155, posted here on Sunday.  On Sept. 1, 1941, the NKVD gaurds and administration were withdrawn, and the camp was set up as a Polish Army unit.

Hope this is of interest.


Best regards,

Stefan Jackowski
Toronto



From: Mark and Oyun <mark_oyun@...>
To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 1:23:17 AM
Subject:
Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.

 
Dear Mark,
Actually there is little evidence to doubt this document. We know that some officers did survive. We should remember that General Anders was also not executed. Nor were the other senior officers who made up the 2nd Polish Corps. A few other Generals survived: Boruta Spiechowicz, Przezdziecki and Januszajtis are three that sring to mind.
The key being that they were in in other prisons at the time of the mass killings. Most were in Moscow in the Lubianka being tortured. Colonel Rakowski (later General Officer Commanding 2nd Armoured Division) and my grandfather's GOC 5 Division Sulik (then a colonel) were also in the Lubianka.
Others officers managed to convince their interrogators that they were either cooperative or not a threat. And others were just lucky… they were being held in other places and did not come into the Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov clearnaces.
As to the prisoners working… My estimates put the total number of POWs held by the Soviets as around 54,000. The POWs who ended up with Anders were about half of this number and they were retained by their captors to work.  The approximately 16,000 victims of Katyn are also included from this group. Several thousand have also just disappeared from the figures; mostly casualties of death marches, air raids and NKVD brutality and harsh conditions. [My post 52978 for the numbers.(Although we did have a bit of a polemic re POW status which I really don't want to open up again)]
---------------------------
â„– 130
1940 November 2, Moscow. - Memorandum from LP Beria IV Stalin's plans to set up in the Soviet Union military units of the Polish prisoners of war
[…]
b) General-Borut Spehovich [5] stated that he can take certain steps only at the direction of the "government" Sikorsky, which, in his opinion, represents the interests of the Polish people;
c) General Przhezdetsky [6] made ​​a statement similar to the statement Borut-Spehovicha;
[…]
d) several colonels and lieutenant colonels (Burling [7], Bukoemsky [8], Gorchinskiy [9], Tyshinsky [10]) stated that they fully convey himself at the disposal of the Soviet power, and that very willingly take over a) the organization and guide any military connections as well) from the Polish prisoners of war, designed a) to deal with Germany a) in the interest of Poland as a nation-state. The future of Poland is thought to be closely related in one way or another with the Soviet Union.
Regards, Mark Ostrowski

--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Mark wrote:
>
> I see this report of June 1941 seems to list the POW status at the time.
> It suggests 1259 officers are alive at that date and that Polish Army prisoners were left in the camps.
> Who were these officers who escaped Katyn?
> I did see what Dan said about confusing POWs from 'criminals', but I thought all Polish officers were deemed 'criminals', enemies of the people or whatever.
> There is also reference to "former" POWs.
> Even though I am nowhere in my research of the deports and the POWs, this is the first I heard of POWs working on an airfield in Ukr.
> Is this a real document made at the time to cover up Katyn or a newly composed document?
> What I wouldnt give to see my grandfather's file with NKWD!
>  
>
> Mark T.
> Canada
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Basia basia@...
> To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2012 10:27:52 PM
> Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
>
>
>  
>
> This is fascinating Mark, somewhere in those numbers was my father.
> Thank you
>
>
>
> Basia Zielinska (Sydney)
>
> From: Mark and Oyun mark_oyun@...Reply-To: Kresy-Siberia@...: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 20:05:57 -0000To: Kresy-Siberia@...: {Disarmed} Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
>
>  
>
>
> Dear Dan,
> To answer your question, about 26,000. probably the men listed below. Taken from the same source you are reading.
> No. 155
> June 22, 1941 Goda. Moscow. Memorandum V.v. Chernysheva and P.k. Soprunenko the existence of prisoners of war and interned in the NKVD camps
> The people's Commissar of Internal Affairs
> Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics
> Comrade Beria, L.p. [1]
> Report: ex-prisoners of war. Polish Army
> 27760:
> 14135 per. Ââ€" in the construction of airfields and roads in Western Ukraine.
> 7754. on the construction of the Northern Pechora Railway,
> 4000 people.on the construction of the airfield Ponoy River (imported 1000 persons) of the Murmansk region.
> Officers are: 1259
> in kozelsk camp Ââ€" 909 people.
> the Grâzoveckom camp is 350 people.
> The remaining numbering 270 people. in the Ûhnovskom camp (Smolensk Oblast).
> To former prisoners of war, the inhabitants of our land, take out from Western Ukraine to build airfields in Eastern Ukraine.b)
> Former prisoners of war, German citizens of Poland, moved to the camp regime and to work in remote regions: Karagandy oblast, North-Pechora trunk line, splitting the small lots, no more than 250-300 people.
> Ex-officers. the Polish Army and French (195) left in the camps, all in Gryazovetsky camp of the Vologda region.
> Chernyshov P.
> Soprunenko
>



#54034 From: Barbara Milligan <bwbm5@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 9:28 pm
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Re: Stalin's western frontiers
basia5milligan
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Dear Mark,

I did not mean to blame; I was just joining in your and John's very interesting discussion. I would not wish to offend either of you for the world. I have the greatest respect for your and John's learning and opinions and it was not fair of me to pick on this discussion to vent my accumulated "fed-upness" with what I feel is sporadic Brit blaming.est wishes,

Sorry, no offence intended.

Best wishes,

Basia (UK)
On 2 Jan 2013, at 20:36, Mark and Oyun wrote:

 


Dear Basia,

Jump down your throat? I really have no interest in bashing my home, the US or for that matter the Soviet Union. There are enough people ready to do that. My principle objection is to the idea that somehow Britain "gave" Poland to the USSR. When the Yalta accord was signed the Red Army was just days from entering Poznan. They HAD Poland already. The Kresy, Warsaw and most of pre-war Poland was in their hands. The question then follows what could be done about it? I would argue very little.

Even at Teheran in 1943 more could have and should have been done, but given the Red Army was already on its westward March, liberating Kiev the same month as the conference, Poland's fate was fairly obvious for anyone to see and Soviet occupation was but a matter of time... in my humble opinion.

John blames Churchill, you blame Roosevelt... I blame neither. There was nothing that could be done. What I object to is the agreement to it. They could have said no. What this would have achieved on the ground I really don't know, but they could have protested. But then why would they? They were promised free elections... did they believe it? Probably not, but then we Poles also have to take some of the blame. Mikolajczyk's return to Poland did no one any favours and led to the Provisional Government in Warsaw being recognised as being representative of the Polish people. Of course it was a fiction, but Poles from London went along with it too. Again, the British Government did nothing. They could have complained but chose not to. Again, they could do nothing about it in real terms, but at least the protest would have been made for posterity.

Rightious indignation is good and I have no interest in Brit bashing, but surely the policies of governments should be open for discussion.

Best regards, Mark Ostrowski

--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Barbara Milligan wrote:
>
> Dear John and Mark,
>
> So that you don't jump down my throat, I will state right now that I am not a great scholar of history. But, I must defend my dear old G.B.
>
> Churchill was on Poland's side. Roosevelt was not. He and Stalin sewed up a pact that is Yalta. Churchill had no option but to sign. No one fully realised that Russia was financially on its knees and could have been pushed back. Churchill did realise that a hugely impoverished G.B. could not fight on alone, so he had to sign. He was aware that the Brits did not have the resources or the money to fight on. The person who "gave" Poland to Stalin was Roosevelt. When America eventually gave aid to Britain, it was on the condition that every last cent was repaid with interest. We finished paying that debt a few years ago during Gordon Brown's premiership. During the war America had impounded all the assets owned by Brits living in America as security in case G.B. reneged on the debt. To cap it all, G.B. had to pay large sums to Germany in reparation for the damage they had done to it whilst defending themselves. I lived in that post-war Britain and know the privations and rationing we suffered for years after the war. It started to ease up in the 1960's.
>
> I was talking with my Polish family who said "the war finished for you in early 1945, but we fought on and it did not finish till the early '50's" That was the case as my Grandmother had lived with her bags and cases packed and a vast store of sugar to take back to Poland for barter. I can't remember if it was in 1951 or 3 that she gave up all hope of returning home. Needless to say the sugar had solidified because their barak was so damp and was binned.
>
> There is a goodly explosion of righteous indignation and I make no apologies for it as all the Brit bashing makes me very angry. The bulk of us would be living in Siberia now but for the Brits!
>
> Best wishes as always,
>
> Basia (UK)
>
>
> On 2 Jan 2013, at 16:52, Mark and Oyun wrote:
>
> > Dear John,
> >
> > If I may leave the POW issue aside for one minute and talk on another point (re your previous post). Whilst I agree that the British may be criticised for many thing; they should not have recognised the Polish Provisional Government after the war; they probably should not have signed the Yalta Accord so readily, I really fail to see how one can argue that the British "gave" Poland to Stalin... or even "agreed to give" it. The British did not let the Soviet Union take Poland... it was going to happen anyway. I have yet to see any cogent policy brought forward that would have resulted in a solution that would have brought a conclusion different to the one that transpired. Certainly the British and US agreement made it legal on the world state (in not in fact de jure), but how would it have been any different if they had not agreed. After Stalingrad and Kursk the war, I would argue, was a foregone conclusion. Sooner or later Poland was going to end up re-occupied by the Red Army, and not just the Kresy. Alternative policies to prevent this? I can't think of any ˆ not without affecting the course of the war against Germany; the good war that definitely needed to be fought. I know there are some who would argue that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were of the same character: they were not. I have argued in previous threads that the fact there is a Poland today is a result of Soviet policy. 50 years of repression and communist hegemony could not wipe out Poland. 50 years of Nazi rule would have created a different reality. Yes the British appeased Stalin, just as they appeased Hitler, but there is a difference: in the 1930s the British could have affected the result. In the 1940s this was not the case. Having said that, a bluff is only as good as its credibility. Hitler knew there would be no war over the Sudetenland, just as Stalin knew there would be no war in 1944/5 over Poland... Churchill knew the same. What else was there to do other make the best of a bad deal? Sounds like an apology? Possibly. But the alternative?
> >
> > Best regards, Mark Ostrowski
> >
> > --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, John Halucha john.halucha@ wrote:
> > >
> > > There sure are some interesting references in the excerpt you shared, Dan. Thank you.
> > > It appears "prewar", as in, "prewar Soviet encroachments in Europe," is the author's own construction - it could be paraphrasing Stalin if not for the use of "encroachments". The USSR (and at least some people in successor Russia today) regarded the war as beginning in June 1941 when German forces in occupied western Poland attacked Soviet forces in occupied eastern Poland. They wanted everyone to forget that the Soviets were German allies in their coordinated attack, invasion and partition of Poland in September 1939, and that the Soviets were partners of Germany in starting the Second World War. Of course, the author may be voicing the stance often seen among Americans that the war did not begin until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
> > > Strange also, that the author would downplay and distort what the Soviets had done to Poland: "The Red Army had seized the Baltic states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland." By virtue of being the first and largest Soviet land-grab, Poland logically should be at the top of the list rather than appended to the end like an afterthought. And the USSR had not merely "taken ... former Czarist territory from ... Poland", it occupied a great chunk that had been under Austrian rule in the partitions prior to Poland regaining its independence in 1918.
> > > Churchill's private radio message to Attlee shows that at the end of 1941 he still espoused democratic ideals as enshrined in the Atlantic Charter. If so, it would not be long before he became "realistic", in the language of his apologists, and abandoned those principles to do what he considered in the best long-term interests of his British empire. He would even adopt part of the stance of his own avowed worst enemy, Hitler, giving approval to the 1939 boundary changes that Hitler had set up with his then-pal, Stalin. Churchill had to scooch over a bit in Adolf's chair to make room for his co-signer, Roosevelt.
> > > It often strikes me funny that when people in the West reflect that they fought the Good War in the 1940s, they can do so only if they restrict their thinking so it does not include Eastern Europe. Must be uncomfortable to recognize that the heroes Churchill and Roosevelt essentially mirrored Hitler in their agreement to give half of Poland as well as other territories to Stalin.
> > > Another strange twist is how many people scornfully denounce British PM Neville Chamberlain as a short-sighted, dim-witted appeaser of the tyrant Hitler but at the same time revere Churchill and Roosevelt, who were demonstrated to be short-sighted, dim-witted appeasers of the tyrant Stalin. If the "peace for our time" that WSC and FDR won by their agreements with Stalin existed at all, it certainly did not materialize for another half century in Eastern Europe under the communist yoke.
> > >
> > > John Halucha
> > >
> > > Sault Ste Marie, Canada
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: Dan Ford cub06h@
> > > To: KRESY Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > > Sent: Tuesday, January 1, 2013 4:05:21 PM
> > > Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Stalin's western frontiers
> > >
> > > Stanley Weintraub has written some admirable history. "Pearl Harbor
> > > Christmas" is not much of a book, but there were some interesting
> > > references to how early Stalin made it clear where the Soviet Union's
> > > postwar borders would have to be. -- Dan Ford US
> > >
> > > Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941
> > > by
> > > Stanley Weintraub
> > > The PM was still aboard the Duke of York approaching the East Coast
> > > when, on December 21, he received a radio encrypt from Eden in Moscow
> > > that, as the price of cooperation, Stalin, optimistic now that Germany
> > > could be turned back, had demanded secret Allied acceptance of prewar
> > > Soviet encroachments in Europe. The Red Army had seized the Baltic
> > > states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist
> > > territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Although all of it
> > > was now occupied by the Wehrmacht, the Soviets expected to outlast
> > > Hitler. ╲Stalin, I believe,╡ Eden added, ╲sincerely wants military
> > > agreements, but he will not sign until we recognize his frontiers, and
> > > we must expect badgering on this issue.╡ Churchill radioed his Deputy
> > > Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, that the demands violated the Atlantic
> > > Charter, ╲to which Stalin has subscribed,╡ and in any case no
> > > arrangement could be made ╲without prior agreement with the United
> > > States.╡ Stalinâ•˙s contempt for pieces of diplomatic paper and confidence
> > > about the Red Armyâ•˙s future control of the ground in question would keep
> > > the absorbed territories in the grip of Stalinâ•˙s successors until the
> > > implosion of the Soviet Union decades later. Churchill advised Attlee
> > > not to be ╲downhearted╡ if Eden should leave Moscow ╲without any
> > > flourish of trumpets.╡ And to Eden he conceded in a radiogram,
> > > ╲Naturally you will not be rough with Stalin,╡ but there could be no
> > > ╲secret and special pacts╡ without the United States.
> > >
> > > Edenâ•˙s mission to Moscow had failed. Stalin wanted no restrictions on
> > > war materiel supplied, whatever the struggle to get it past the
> > > Kriegsmarine in the Arctic or by any other means. Lend-Lease was neither
> > > lend nor lease. His suspicions of the West would only be mollified, he
> > > had insisted, by recognition by Britain and the United States of
> > > intended Russian frontiersâ•"land grabsâ•"as they existed at the moment of
> > > Hitlerâ•˙s invasion on June 21, 1941. He already knew there was no chance
> > > of Rooseveltâ•˙s agreement or that of the American
> > >
> >
> >
>



#54035 From: "Mark and Oyun" <mark_oyun@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 10:03 pm
Subject: Re: Stalin's western frontiers
mark_oyun
Send Email Send Email
 


Dear Basia,
No offence taken. I have a fairly low opinion of government full stop, and personally do not consider criticism of state policy as a criticism of the people. The actions of the Polish government in the 1930s are no more a reflection of the Polish people, than are the actions of Churchill, Thatcher or Blair a reflection of the British people... and for that matter we can apply this maxim to the German and Russian people too. I think this as a point worth repeating now and then.

Best regards, Mark Ostrowski

Salomon Tauber:
"I bear no hatred nor bitterness towards the German people.
Peoples are not evil.
Only individuals are evil."

Frederick Forsyth: The Odessa File

--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Barbara Milligan wrote:
>
> Dear Mark,
>
> I did not mean to blame; I was just joining in your and John's very interesting discussion. I would not wish to offend either of you for the world. I have the greatest respect for your and John's learning and opinions and it was not fair of me to pick on this discussion to vent my accumulated "fed-upness" with what I feel is sporadic Brit blaming.est wishes,
>
> Sorry, no offence intended.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Basia (UK)
> On 2 Jan 2013, at 20:36, Mark and Oyun wrote:
>
> >
> > Dear Basia,
> >
> > Jump down your throat? I really have no interest in bashing my home, the US or for that matter the Soviet Union. There are enough people ready to do that. My principle objection is to the idea that somehow Britain "gave" Poland to the USSR. When the Yalta accord was signed the Red Army was just days from entering Poznan. They HAD Poland already. The Kresy, Warsaw and most of pre-war Poland was in their hands. The question then follows what could be done about it? I would argue very little.
> >
> > Even at Teheran in 1943 more could have and should have been done, but given the Red Army was already on its westward March, liberating Kiev the same month as the conference, Poland's fate was fairly obvious for anyone to see and Soviet occupation was but a matter of time... in my humble opinion.
> >
> > John blames Churchill, you blame Roosevelt... I blame neither. There was nothing that could be done. What I object to is the agreement to it. They could have said no. What this would have achieved on the ground I really don't know, but they could have protested. But then why would they? They were promised free elections... did they believe it? Probably not, but then we Poles also have to take some of the blame. Mikolajczyk's return to Poland did no one any favours and led to the Provisional Government in Warsaw being recognised as being representative of the Polish people. Of course it was a fiction, but Poles from London went along with it too. Again, the British Government did nothing. They could have complained but chose not to. Again, they could do nothing about it in real terms, but at least the protest would have been made for posterity.
> >
> > Rightious indignation is good and I have no interest in Brit bashing, but surely the policies of governments should be open for discussion.
> >
> > Best regards, Mark Ostrowski
> >
> > --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Barbara Milligan wrote:
> > >
> > > Dear John and Mark,
> > >
> > > So that you don't jump down my throat, I will state right now that I am not a great scholar of history. But, I must defend my dear old G.B.
> > >
> > > Churchill was on Poland's side. Roosevelt was not. He and Stalin sewed up a pact that is Yalta. Churchill had no option but to sign. No one fully realised that Russia was financially on its knees and could have been pushed back. Churchill did realise that a hugely impoverished G.B. could not fight on alone, so he had to sign. He was aware that the Brits did not have the resources or the money to fight on. The person who "gave" Poland to Stalin was Roosevelt. When America eventually gave aid to Britain, it was on the condition that every last cent was repaid with interest. We finished paying that debt a few years ago during Gordon Brown's premiership. During the war America had impounded all the assets owned by Brits living in America as security in case G.B. reneged on the debt. To cap it all, G.B. had to pay large sums to Germany in reparation for the damage they had done to it whilst defending themselves. I lived in that post-war Britain and know the privations and rationing we suffered for years after the war. It started to ease up in the 1960's.
> > >
> > > I was talking with my Polish family who said "the war finished for you in early 1945, but we fought on and it did not finish till the early '50's" That was the case as my Grandmother had lived with her bags and cases packed and a vast store of sugar to take back to Poland for barter. I can't remember if it was in 1951 or 3 that she gave up all hope of returning home. Needless to say the sugar had solidified because their barak was so damp and was binned.
> > >
> > > There is a goodly explosion of righteous indignation and I make no apologies for it as all the Brit bashing makes me very angry. The bulk of us would be living in Siberia now but for the Brits!
> > >
> > > Best wishes as always,
> > >
> > > Basia (UK)
> > >
> > >
> > > On 2 Jan 2013, at 16:52, Mark and Oyun wrote:
> > >
> > > > Dear John,
> > > >
> > > > If I may leave the POW issue aside for one minute and talk on another point (re your previous post). Whilst I agree that the British may be criticised for many thing; they should not have recognised the Polish Provisional Government after the war; they probably should not have signed the Yalta Accord so readily, I really fail to see how one can argue that the British "gave" Poland to Stalin... or even "agreed to give" it. The British did not let the Soviet Union take Poland... it was going to happen anyway. I have yet to see any cogent policy brought forward that would have resulted in a solution that would have brought a conclusion different to the one that transpired. Certainly the British and US agreement made it legal on the world state (in not in fact de jure), but how would it have been any different if they had not agreed. After Stalingrad and Kursk the war, I would argue, was a foregone conclusion. Sooner or later Poland was going to end up re-occupied by the Red Army, and not just the Kresy. Alternative policies to prevent this? I can't think of any ˆ not without affecting the course of the war against Germany; the good war that definitely needed to be fought. I know there are some who would argue that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were of the same character: they were not. I have argued in previous threads that the fact there is a Poland today is a result of Soviet policy. 50 years of repression and communist hegemony could not wipe out Poland. 50 years of Nazi rule would have created a different reality. Yes the British appeased Stalin, just as they appeased Hitler, but there is a difference: in the 1930s the British could have affected the result. In the 1940s this was not the case. Having said that, a bluff is only as good as its credibility. Hitler knew there would be no war over the Sudetenland, just as Stalin knew there would be no war in 1944/5 over Poland... Churchill knew the same. What else was there to do other make the best of a bad deal? Sounds like an apology? Possibly. But the alternative?
> > > >
> > > > Best regards, Mark Ostrowski
> > > >
> > > > --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, John Halucha john.halucha@ wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > There sure are some interesting references in the excerpt you shared, Dan. Thank you.
> > > > > It appears "prewar", as in, "prewar Soviet encroachments in Europe," is the author's own construction - it could be paraphrasing Stalin if not for the use of "encroachments". The USSR (and at least some people in successor Russia today) regarded the war as beginning in June 1941 when German forces in occupied western Poland attacked Soviet forces in occupied eastern Poland. They wanted everyone to forget that the Soviets were German allies in their coordinated attack, invasion and partition of Poland in September 1939, and that the Soviets were partners of Germany in starting the Second World War. Of course, the author may be voicing the stance often seen among Americans that the war did not begin until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
> > > > > Strange also, that the author would downplay and distort what the Soviets had done to Poland: "The Red Army had seized the Baltic states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland." By virtue of being the first and largest Soviet land-grab, Poland logically should be at the top of the list rather than appended to the end like an afterthought. And the USSR had not merely "taken ... former Czarist territory from ... Poland", it occupied a great chunk that had been under Austrian rule in the partitions prior to Poland regaining its independence in 1918.
> > > > > Churchill's private radio message to Attlee shows that at the end of 1941 he still espoused democratic ideals as enshrined in the Atlantic Charter. If so, it would not be long before he became "realistic", in the language of his apologists, and abandoned those principles to do what he considered in the best long-term interests of his British empire. He would even adopt part of the stance of his own avowed worst enemy, Hitler, giving approval to the 1939 boundary changes that Hitler had set up with his then-pal, Stalin. Churchill had to scooch over a bit in Adolf's chair to make room for his co-signer, Roosevelt.
> > > > > It often strikes me funny that when people in the West reflect that they fought the Good War in the 1940s, they can do so only if they restrict their thinking so it does not include Eastern Europe. Must be uncomfortable to recognize that the heroes Churchill and Roosevelt essentially mirrored Hitler in their agreement to give half of Poland as well as other territories to Stalin.
> > > > > Another strange twist is how many people scornfully denounce British PM Neville Chamberlain as a short-sighted, dim-witted appeaser of the tyrant Hitler but at the same time revere Churchill and Roosevelt, who were demonstrated to be short-sighted, dim-witted appeasers of the tyrant Stalin. If the "peace for our time" that WSC and FDR won by their agreements with Stalin existed at all, it certainly did not materialize for another half century in Eastern Europe under the communist yoke.
> > > > >
> > > > > John Halucha
> > > > >
> > > > > Sault Ste Marie, Canada
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > ________________________________
> > > > > From: Dan Ford cub06h@
> > > > > To: KRESY Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > > > > Sent: Tuesday, January 1, 2013 4:05:21 PM
> > > > > Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Stalin's western frontiers
> > > > >
> > > > > Stanley Weintraub has written some admirable history. "Pearl Harbor
> > > > > Christmas" is not much of a book, but there were some interesting
> > > > > references to how early Stalin made it clear where the Soviet Union's
> > > > > postwar borders would have to be. -- Dan Ford US
> > > > >
> > > > > Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941
> > > > > by
> > > > > Stanley Weintraub
> > > > > The PM was still aboard the Duke of York approaching the East Coast
> > > > > when, on December 21, he received a radio encrypt from Eden in Moscow
> > > > > that, as the price of cooperation, Stalin, optimistic now that Germany
> > > > > could be turned back, had demanded secret Allied acceptance of prewar
> > > > > Soviet encroachments in Europe. The Red Army had seized the Baltic
> > > > > states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist
> > > > > territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Although all of it
> > > > > was now occupied by the Wehrmacht, the Soviets expected to outlast
> > > > > Hitler. ╲Stalin, I believe,╡ Eden added, ╲sincerely wants military
> > > > > agreements, but he will not sign until we recognize his frontiers, and
> > > > > we must expect badgering on this issue.╡ Churchill radioed his Deputy
> > > > > Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, that the demands violated the Atlantic
> > > > > Charter, ╲to which Stalin has subscribed,╡ and in any case no
> > > > > arrangement could be made ╲without prior agreement with the United
> > > > > States.╡ Stalinâ•˙s contempt for pieces of diplomatic paper and confidence
> > > > > about the Red Armyâ•˙s future control of the ground in question would keep
> > > > > the absorbed territories in the grip of Stalinâ•˙s successors until the
> > > > > implosion of the Soviet Union decades later. Churchill advised Attlee
> > > > > not to be ╲downhearted╡ if Eden should leave Moscow ╲without any
> > > > > flourish of trumpets.╡ And to Eden he conceded in a radiogram,
> > > > > ╲Naturally you will not be rough with Stalin,╡ but there could be no
> > > > > ╲secret and special pacts╡ without the United States.
> > > > >
> > > > > Edenâ•˙s mission to Moscow had failed. Stalin wanted no restrictions on
> > > > > war materiel supplied, whatever the struggle to get it past the
> > > > > Kriegsmarine in the Arctic or by any other means. Lend-Lease was neither
> > > > > lend nor lease. His suspicions of the West would only be mollified, he
> > > > > had insisted, by recognition by Britain and the United States of
> > > > > intended Russian frontiersâ•"land grabsâ•"as they existed at the moment of
> > > > > Hitlerâ•˙s invasion on June 21, 1941. He already knew there was no chance
> > > > > of Rooseveltâ•˙s agreement or that of the American
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
>


#54036 From: "Lenarda Szymczak" <szymczak01@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 11:01 pm
Subject: RE: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Re: Stalin's western frontiers
lenardaszymczak
Send Email Send Email
 

Mark, I fully agree with your quote

 

Salomon Tauber:
"I bear no hatred nor bitterness towards the German people.
Peoples are not evil.
Only individuals are evil."

Frederick Forsyth: The Odessa File

 

My own mother was lucky and treated well by the German Farmer and was assisted by Russian and Ukrainian people when she was at home, even stood up to soldiers shooting women, children, people dead, alongside the road from Romanowka to Zwaihel, around 1939,   with a childish 14 year old courage, carrying a bag of apples from a long two day walk, bartering and trading for food,  saying  IF YOU CAN SHOOT, I CAN WATCH, speaking back to them in their own Russian Language, which they were forced by law to speak on the street along with Ukrainian,  And then ran and hid in fear, because they started chasing her on horseback through the forest, because she was a witness, she was sheltered by Ukrainian in his barn.  She went home after hiding a day and night, once home, told her mother what she witnessed, who instructed her never to speak of this, because they would kill the entire family and her mother forbade her to venture out again through the villages, looking for food, as this meant she would be gone for a day or two and in danger from Soldiers.

 

The Soviets had taken the family farm, moved the house, log by log, 10 Kilometres and imposed heavy taxes, leaving the people starving and selling household items for food or as my grandmother was trained to be a Herbalist from her father, who was an Official Natural Healer, Herbalist.

 

During THE GREAT HUNGER, HOLODOMOR 1931-1932  My grandmother  Kamila would make the medicines from herbs in the forest and sell them to the locals, for eggs, flour etc. and this is how they survived and still fed the poor who came to their door, with many dying sitting at the kitchen table waiting for soup, or dying after eating soup and the family would have to bury them in the field next to the forest, not knowing who they were. My mother  Helena remembers seeing this as a child under the age of 12 years.  she was born 1924 and celebrated her 89 birthday, yesterday.

 

Everyone has a choice, but in war it is life or death, pure survival, which way do you go? Only the individual can decide and they have a choice. The people forcing them to make these decisions are the bad ones.

 

In last years’ private research, whilst reading a Jewish site, I found that there is actual record of mass grave, newly discovered, alongside road from Romanivka/Romanowka. This confirms an old lady rambling. Scary stuff, knowing she witness much and has been keeping it secret all these years.  How many parents did this to protect their children from the suffering?  How many soldiers never spoke of battles and death to their children? How many people were instructed not to speak? And the list goes on.

 

Lenarda, Australia

 

 

 

 

From: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Mark and Oyun
Sent: Thursday, 03 January, 2013 9:04 AM
To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Re: Stalin's western frontiers

 

 


Dear Basia,
No offence taken. I have a fairly low opinion of government full stop, and personally do not consider criticism of state policy as a criticism of the people. The actions of the Polish government in the 1930s are no more a reflection of the Polish people, than are the actions of Churchill, Thatcher or Blair a reflection of the British people... and for that matter we can apply this maxim to the German and Russian people too. I think this as a point worth repeating now and then.

Best regards, Mark Ostrowski

Salomon Tauber:
"I bear no hatred nor bitterness towards the German people.
Peoples are not evil.
Only individuals are evil."

Frederick Forsyth: The Odessa File

--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Barbara Milligan wrote:
>
> Dear Mark,
>
> I did not mean to blame; I was just joining in your and John's very interesting discussion. I would not wish to offend either of you for the world. I have the greatest respect for your and John's learning and opinions and it was not fair of me to pick on this discussion to vent my accumulated "fed-upness" with what I feel is sporadic Brit blaming.est wishes,
>
> Sorry, no offence intended.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Basia (UK)
> On 2 Jan 2013, at 20:36, Mark and Oyun wrote:
>
> >
> > Dear Basia,
> >
> > Jump down your throat? I really have no interest in bashing my home, the US or for that matter the Soviet Union. There are enough people ready to do that. My principle objection is to the idea that somehow Britain "gave" Poland to the USSR. When the Yalta accord was signed the Red Army was just days from entering Poznan. They HAD Poland already. The Kresy, Warsaw and most of pre-war Poland was in their hands. The question then follows what could be done about it? I would argue – very little.
> >
> > Even at Teheran in 1943 more could have and should have been done, but given the Red Army was already on its westward March, liberating Kiev the same month as the conference, Poland's fate was fairly obvious for anyone to see and Soviet occupation was but a matter of time... in my humble opinion.
> >
> > John blames Churchill, you blame Roosevelt... I blame neither. There was nothing that could be done. What I object to is the agreement to it. They could have said no. What this would have achieved on the ground I really don't know, but they could have protested. But then why would they? They were promised free elections... did they believe it? Probably not, but then we Poles also have to take some of the blame. Mikolajczyk's return to Poland did no one any favours and led to the Provisional Government in Warsaw being recognised as being representative of the Polish people. Of course it was a fiction, but Poles from London went along with it too. Again, the British Government did nothing. They could have complained but chose not to. Again, they could do nothing about it in real terms, but at least the protest would have been made for posterity.
> >
> > Rightious indignation is good and I have no interest in Brit bashing, but surely the policies of governments should be open for discussion.
> >
> > Best regards, Mark Ostrowski
> >
> > --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Barbara Milligan wrote:
> > >
> > > Dear John and Mark,
> > >
> > > So that you don't jump down my throat, I will state right now that I am not a great scholar of history. But, I must defend my dear old G.B.
> > >
> > > Churchill was on Poland's side. Roosevelt was not. He and Stalin sewed up a pact that is Yalta. Churchill had no option but to sign. No one fully realised that Russia was financially on its knees and could have been pushed back. Churchill did realise that a hugely impoverished G.B. could not fight on alone, so he had to sign. He was aware that the Brits did not have the resources or the money to fight on. The person who "gave" Poland to Stalin was Roosevelt. When America eventually gave aid to Britain, it was on the condition that every last cent was repaid with interest. We finished paying that debt a few years ago during Gordon Brown's premiership. During the war America had impounded all the assets owned by Brits living in America as security in case G.B. reneged on the debt. To cap it all, G.B. had to pay large sums to Germany in reparation for the damage they had done to it whilst defending themselves. I lived in that post-war Britain and know the privations and rationing we suffered for years after the war. It started to ease up in the 1960's.
> > >
> > > I was talking with my Polish family who said "the war finished for you in early 1945, but we fought on and it did not finish till the early '50's" That was the case as my Grandmother had lived with her bags and cases packed and a vast store of sugar to take back to Poland for barter. I can't remember if it was in 1951 or 3 that she gave up all hope of returning home. Needless to say the sugar had solidified because their barak was so damp and was binned.
> > >
> > > There is a goodly explosion of righteous indignation and I make no apologies for it as all the Brit bashing makes me very angry. The bulk of us would be living in Siberia now but for the Brits!
> > >
> > > Best wishes as always,
> > >
> > > Basia (UK)
> > >
> > >
> > > On 2 Jan 2013, at 16:52, Mark and Oyun wrote:
> > >
> > > > Dear John,
> > > >
> > > > If I may leave the POW issue aside for one minute and talk on another point (re your previous post). Whilst I agree that the British may be criticised for many thing; they should not have recognised the Polish Provisional Government after the war; they probably should not have signed the Yalta Accord so readily, I really fail to see how one can argue that the British "gave" Poland to Stalin... or even "agreed to give" it. The British did not let the Soviet Union take Poland... it was going to happen anyway. I have yet to see any cogent policy brought forward that would have resulted in a solution that would have brought a conclusion different to the one that transpired. Certainly the British and US agreement made it legal on the world state (in not in fact de jure), but how would it have been any different if they had not agreed. After Stalingrad and Kursk the war, I would argue, was a foregone conclusion. Sooner or later Poland was going to end up re-occupied by the Red Army, and not just the Kresy. Alternative policies to prevent this? I can't think of any ˆ not without affecting the course of the war against Germany; the good war that definitely needed to be fought. I know there are some who would argue that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were of the same character: they were not. I have argued in previous threads that the fact there is a Poland today is a result of Soviet policy. 50 years of repression and communist hegemony could not wipe out Poland. 50 years of Nazi rule would have created a different reality. Yes the British appeased Stalin, just as they appeased Hitler, but there is a difference: in the 1930s the British could have affected the result. In the 1940s this was not the case. Having said that, a bluff is only as good as its credibility. Hitler knew there would be no war over the Sudetenland, just as Stalin knew there would be no war in 1944/5 over Poland... Churchill knew the same. What else was there to do other make the best of a bad deal? Sounds like an apology? Possibly. But the alternative?
> > > >
> > > > Best regards, Mark Ostrowski
> > > >
> > > > --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, John Halucha john.halucha@ wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > There sure are some interesting references in the excerpt you shared, Dan. Thank you.
> > > > > It appears "prewar", as in, "prewar Soviet encroachments in Europe," is the author's own construction - it could be paraphrasing Stalin if not for the use of "encroachments". The USSR (and at least some people in successor Russia today) regarded the war as beginning in June 1941 when German forces in occupied western Poland attacked Soviet forces in occupied eastern Poland. They wanted everyone to forget that the Soviets were German allies in their coordinated attack, invasion and partition of Poland in September 1939, and that the Soviets were partners of Germany in starting the Second World War. Of course, the author may be voicing the stance often seen among Americans that the war did not begin until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
> > > > > Strange also, that the author would downplay and distort what the Soviets had done to Poland: "The Red Army had seized the Baltic states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland." By virtue of being the first and largest Soviet land-grab, Poland logically should be at the top of the list rather than appended to the end like an afterthought. And the USSR had not merely "taken ... former Czarist territory from ... Poland", it occupied a great chunk that had been under Austrian rule in the partitions prior to Poland regaining its independence in 1918.
> > > > > Churchill's private radio message to Attlee shows that at the end of 1941 he still espoused democratic ideals as enshrined in the Atlantic Charter. If so, it would not be long before he became "realistic", in the language of his apologists, and abandoned those principles to do what he considered in the best long-term interests of his British empire. He would even adopt part of the stance of his own avowed worst enemy, Hitler, giving approval to the 1939 boundary changes that Hitler had set up with his then-pal, Stalin. Churchill had to scooch over a bit in Adolf's chair to make room for his co-signer, Roosevelt.
> > > > > It often strikes me funny that when people in the West reflect that they fought the Good War in the 1940s, they can do so only if they restrict their thinking so it does not include Eastern Europe. Must be uncomfortable to recognize that the heroes Churchill and Roosevelt essentially mirrored Hitler in their agreement to give half of Poland as well as other territories to Stalin.
> > > > > Another strange twist is how many people scornfully denounce British PM Neville Chamberlain as a short-sighted, dim-witted appeaser of the tyrant Hitler but at the same time revere Churchill and Roosevelt, who were demonstrated to be short-sighted, dim-witted appeasers of the tyrant Stalin. If the "peace for our time" that WSC and FDR won by their agreements with Stalin existed at all, it certainly did not materialize for another half century in Eastern Europe under the communist yoke.
> > > > >
> > > > > John Halucha
> > > > >
> > > > > Sault Ste Marie, Canada
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > ________________________________
> > > > > From: Dan Ford cub06h@
> > > > > To: KRESY Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > > > > Sent: Tuesday, January 1, 2013 4:05:21 PM
> > > > > Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Stalin's western frontiers
> > > > >
> > > > > Stanley Weintraub has written some admirable history. "Pearl Harbor
> > > > > Christmas" is not much of a book, but there were some interesting
> > > > > references to how early Stalin made it clear where the Soviet Union's
> > > > > postwar borders would have to be. -- Dan Ford US
> > > > >
> > > > > Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941
> > > > > by
> > > > > Stanley Weintraub
> > > > > The PM was still aboard the Duke of York approaching the East Coast
> > > > > when, on December 21, he received a radio encrypt from Eden in Moscow
> > > > > that, as the price of cooperation, Stalin, optimistic now that Germany
> > > > > could be turned back, had demanded secret Allied acceptance of prewar
> > > > > Soviet encroachments in Europe. The Red Army had seized the Baltic
> > > > > states in 1940, taken territory from Finland, and former Czarist
> > > > > territory from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Although all of it
> > > > > was now occupied by the Wehrmacht, the Soviets expected to outlast
> > > > > Hitler. ╲Stalin, I believe,╡ Eden added, ╲sincerely wants military
> > > > > agreements, but he will not sign until we recognize his frontiers, and
> > > > > we must expect badgering on this issue.╡ Churchill radioed his Deputy
> > > > > Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, that the demands violated the Atlantic
> > > > > Charter, ╲to which Stalin has subscribed,╡ and in any case no
> > > > > arrangement could be made ╲without prior agreement with the United
> > > > > States.╡ Stalinâ•˙s contempt for pieces of diplomatic paper and confidence
> > > > > about the Red Armyâ•˙s future control of the ground in question would keep
> > > > > the absorbed territories in the grip of Stalinâ•˙s successors until the
> > > > > implosion of the Soviet Union decades later. Churchill advised Attlee
> > > > > not to be ╲downhearted╡ if Eden should leave Moscow ╲without any
> > > > > flourish of trumpets.╡ And to Eden he conceded in a radiogram,
> > > > > ╲Naturally you will not be rough with Stalin,╡ but there could be no
> > > > > ╲secret and special pacts╡ without the United States.
> > > > >
> > > > > Edenâ•˙s mission to Moscow had failed. Stalin wanted no restrictions on
> > > > > war materiel supplied, whatever the struggle to get it past the
> > > > > Kriegsmarine in the Arctic or by any other means. Lend-Lease was neither
> > > > > lend nor lease. His suspicions of the West would only be mollified, he
> > > > > had insisted, by recognition by Britain and the United States of
> > > > > intended Russian frontiersâ•"land grabsâ•"as they existed at the moment of
> > > > > Hitlerâ•˙s invasion on June 21, 1941. He already knew there was no chance
> > > > > of Rooseveltâ•˙s agreement or that of the American
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
>


#54037 From: Mark <turkiewiczm@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 11:07 pm
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Katyn Bykownia Ceremony
turkiewiczm
Send Email Send Email
 
Thanks Anna, great photos to see.
Although, I have given up reaching out to that association; seems like they closed their books and my family isnt in it.
 
Mark T.
Canada
From: annapacewicz <annapacewicz@...>
To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 4:28:08 AM
Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Katyn Bykownia Ceremony
 
Dear group, there are some very good photographs and an article on the opening of the Katyn Bykownia ceremony (September 2012) in the website for the Family Police Association 1939. On the home page, click on the first tab Akualnosci. Scroll down to 21.9.2012

http://www.osrp1939.policja.katowice.pl/rp1939_1.htm

Kind regards

Anna Pacewicz
Sydney Australia


#54038 From: "Mark and Oyun" <mark_oyun@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 11:29 pm
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
mark_oyun
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Dear Stefan,

 

448 survivors? Interesting. The usual figure is 395 (also on Wikipedia  "395 prisoners were spared from the slaughter,[1] among them Stanisław Swianiewicz and Jzef Czapski.[23] They were taken to the Yukhnov camp and then to Gryazovets.[19]")   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre )

 

The number comes up again in another memo from Soprunenko:

 

No 92 May 25th 1940

 

Total sent to Yukhnovsky camp - 395      

 

Among them:

a) to the 5th Dept. [Counter intelligence] Main Directorate for State Security - 47             

b) on request of the German Embassy - 47         

c) on request of the Mission of Lithuanian - 19  

e) Germans - 24

=============  137   

e) at the disposal of Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR. Comrade Merkulov - 91              

f) other - 167     

============= 258

 

Total 395

 

Head Of The NKVD Of The USSR

in cases of prisoners of war

Security Captain

P. Soprunenko

 

 http://www.katyn-books.ru/archive/1940_2000/19402000.html#13ch

 

Regards, Mark Ostrowski

 

 


--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Stefan Jackowski wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Mark and group,
>
>
> To add some info re: the situation of the Katyn survivors;
>
>
> According to Prof. Zawodny, of the 15,000 + Polish Officers held in the spring of 1940 in Koselsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov, only 448 survived execution by the Soviets.
>
> These survivors were shipped in 7 seperate transports to an empty camp at Pavelishtchev Bor, just north of Kosielsk.
>
> April 25, 1940 - 63 men from Starobelsk, arriving at Pavelishtchev Bor on May 1, 1940
> April 26, 1940 - 150 men from Koselsk, arriving on April 26, 1940
> April 29, 1940 - 60 men from Ostashkov, arriving on May 4
> May 12, 1940 - 95 from Kozelsk, arriving on May 14
>
> May 12, 1940 - 16 from Starobelsk, arriving on May 17
> May 13, 1940 - 45 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 18
>
> May 16. 1940 - 16 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 20
>
> After ongoing interogations and NKVD attempts to convert them them to Communism, the remaining men spontaneously started to split into three main groups; those with some
> pro-Soviet sentiment (about 50 men), about 30 who claimed German - not Polish - ancestry,and the rest who remainded anti-Soviet. 12 of the 30 "Germans" were considered
>
> German enough, and given over to the custody of the Soviet allies at the German Embassy.  (Of the remaining 18 "Germans",
> one committed suicide upon the outbreak of war
>
> with the Nazis  .. while the fate
> of his teutonic companions after June 22, 1941 can be easily imagined.)
>
>
> On Sept. 10, 1940, 7 of the highest ranking pro-Soviet group from the camp were taken to Moscow, where they were wined and dined as potential leadershop material in a new
>
> Soviet Poland.  (All 7 later joined Anders Army when that opportunity arose. Zygmunt Berling later defected back to the Soviets, and, as we know, was tried by the Polish Army
>
> in absentia, and given a death sentance.)
>
>
> On June 13, 1941, just nine days before Barbarossa, the rest of the men were transported to a camp which Zadowny referrs to as "Grazovec", which very likely is the "Grazoveckom" 
> listed in Memorandam No. 155, posted here on Sunday.  On Sept. 1, 1941, the NKVD gaurds and administration were withdrawn, and the camp was set up as a Polish Army unit.
>
>
> Hope this is of interest.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Stefan Jackowski
> Toronto
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Mark and Oyun mark_oyun@...
> To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 1:23:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
>
>
>  
> Dear Mark,
> Actually there is little evidence to doubt this document. We know that some officers did survive. We should remember that General Anders was also not executed. Nor were the other senior officers who made up the 2nd Polish Corps. A few other Generals survived: Boruta Spiechowicz, Przezdziecki and Januszajtis are three that sring to mind.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieczys%C5%82aw_Boruta-Spiechowicz
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wac%C5%82aw_Prze%C5%BAdziecki
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Januszajtis-%C5%BBegota
> The key being that they were in in other prisons at the time of the mass killings. Most were in Moscow in the Lubianka being tortured. Colonel Rakowski (later General Officer Commanding 2nd Armoured Division) and my grandfather's GOC 5 Division Sulik (then a colonel) were also in the Lubianka.
> Others officers managed to convince their interrogators that they were either cooperative or not a threat. And others were just lucky… they were being held in other places and did not come into the Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov clearnaces.
> As to the prisoners working… My estimates put the total number of POWs held by the Soviets as around 54,000. The POWs who ended up with Anders were about half of this number and they were retained by their captors to work.  The approximately 16,000 victims of Katyn are also included from this group. Several thousand have also just disappeared from the figures; mostly casualties of death marches, air raids and NKVD brutality and harsh conditions. [My post 52978 for the numbers.(Although we did have a bit of a polemic re POW status which I really don't want to open up again)]
> ---------------------------
> â„" 130
> 1940 November 2, Moscow. - Memorandum from LP Beria IV Stalin's plans to set up in the Soviet Union military units of the Polish prisoners of war
> […]
> b) General-Borut Spehovich [5] stated that he can take certain steps only at the direction of the "government" Sikorsky, which, in his opinion, represents the interests of the Polish people;
> c) General Przhezdetsky [6] made ​​a statement similar to the statement Borut-Spehovicha;
> […]
> d) several colonels and lieutenant colonels (Burling [7], Bukoemsky [8], Gorchinskiy [9], Tyshinsky [10]) stated that they fully convey himself at the disposal of the Soviet power, and that very willingly take over a) the organization and guide any military connections as well) from the Polish prisoners of war, designed a) to deal with Germany a) in the interest of Poland as a nation-state. The future of Poland is thought to be closely related in one way or another with the Soviet Union.
> Regards, Mark Ostrowski
> --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Mark wrote:
> >
> > I see this report of June 1941 seems to list the POW status at the time.
> > It suggests 1259 officers are alive at that date and that Polish Army prisoners were left in the camps.
> > Who were these officers who escaped Katyn?
> > I did see what Dan said about confusing POWs from 'criminals', but I thought all Polish officers were deemed 'criminals', enemies of the people or whatever.
> > There is also reference to "former" POWs.
> > Even though I am nowhere in my research of the deports and the POWs, this is the first I heard of POWs working on an airfield in Ukr.
> > Is this a real document made at the time to cover up Katyn or a newly composed document?
> > What I wouldnt give to see my grandfather's file with NKWD!
> >  
> >
> > Mark T.
> > Canada
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Basia basia@
> > To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2012 10:27:52 PM
> > Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> > This is fascinating Mark, somewhere in those numbers was my father.
> > Thank you
> >
> >
> >
> > Basia Zielinska (Sydney)
> >
> > From: Mark and Oyun mark_oyun@...: Kresy-Siberia@...: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 20:05:57 -0000To: Kresy-Siberia@...: {Disarmed} Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> > Dear Dan,
> > To answer your question, about 26,000. probably the men listed below. Taken from the same source you are reading.
> > No. 155
> > June 22, 1941 Goda. Moscow. Memorandum V.v. Chernysheva and P.k. Soprunenko the existence of prisoners of war and interned in the NKVD camps
> > The people's Commissar of Internal Affairs
> > Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics
> > Comrade Beria, L.p. [1]
> > Report: ex-prisoners of war. Polish Army
> > 27760:
> > 14135 per. Ââ€" in the construction of airfields and roads in Western Ukraine.
> > 7754. on the construction of the Northern Pechora Railway,
> > 4000 people.on the construction of the airfield Ponoy River (imported 1000 persons) of the Murmansk region.
> > Officers are: 1259
> > in kozelsk camp Ââ€" 909 people.
> > the GrÃ'¢zoveckom camp is 350 people.
> > The remaining numbering 270 people. in the Ã'›hnovskom camp (Smolensk Oblast).
> > To former prisoners of war, the inhabitants of our land, take out from Western Ukraine to build airfields in Eastern Ukraine.b)
> > Former prisoners of war, German citizens of Poland, moved to the camp regime and to work in remote regions: Karagandy oblast, North-Pechora trunk line, splitting the small lots, no more than 250-300 people.
> > Ex-officers. the Polish Army and French (195) left in the camps, all in Gryazovetsky camp of the Vologda region.
> > Chernyshov P.
> > Soprunenko
> >
>


#54039 From: Dan Ford <cub06h@...>
Date: Wed Jan 2, 2013 11:54 pm
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents 125 - 157.
godanford
Send Email Send Email
 
That's the name I associate with the survivors. - Dan Ford USn

to Gryazovets.^[
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre#cite_note-Miednoje_Katyn-19>

#54040 From: John Halucha <john.halucha@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 12:22 am
Subject: Re: Stalin's western frontiers
john.halucha
Send Email Send Email
 
Dear Mark and Barbara,
First, let me clarify that I was not Brit-bashing or even criticizing the British for the betrayal of Poland. I was deliberately specific and spoke of Churchill and Roosevelt by name because they are personally to blame along with a small cadre of their respective staff and political cronies. Just as we have taken pains not blame the Polish people for the crimes of a few individuals nor the Russian people for the crimes of the Soviet hierarchy, neither would I blame the British or the Americans for the betrayal by Churchill and Roosevelt. There are many examples of dissident British and Americans who denounced their own leadership for the wrongs done their Ally. Indeed, I have an impression that many British and American soldiers who fought side by side with Polish soldiers against the common foe were disgusted by their politicians. Their honour code of "no man left behind" was broken big-time by those politicians in the abandonment of Poland.
Mark, you say, "I really fail to see how one can argue that the British "gave" Poland to Stalin...or even "agreed to give" it." Of course, I am saying no such thing though I have heard others say Churchill and Roosevelt "gave" Poland to Stalin or even "sold" Poland to Stalin. Poland was not theirs to give or sell to anyone. Sell down the river, yes - but that's different, isn't it?
So it is a misunderstanding to say, "John blames Churchill" for giving away Poland. John does blame Churchill for giving his approval - which again is different.
I wrote about them "giving approval to the 1939 boundary changes that Hitler had set up with his then-pal, Stalin." The point is not that they could not have done anything anyway, the point is that they deliberately and with full consideration gave their seal of approval to boundary changes that had been conceived and effected by Hitler and Stalin. They used their considerable prestige as leaders of great democratic nations to legitimize the Hitler-Stalin border.
Mark, I think we are on substantial agreement on this point. You said it much more eloquently in your followup post: "... they could have protested ... the British Government did nothing. They could have complained but chose not to. Again, they could do nothing about it in real terms, but at least the protest would have been made for posterity."
The same phrases seem to answer your own question, "Certainly the British and US agreement made it legal on the world state (in not in fact de jure), but how would it have been any different if they had not agreed." Stalin might well have occupied the territory regardless, but the British and US agreement making it "legal" in their eyes does make it different.
They didn't have to do anything, they didn't even have to threaten or "bluff". All they had to do was say that under their principles, maintaining the border where Stalin had set it with Hitler was wrong. They did the opposite, and proclaimed that the Hitler-Stalin deal was right.
Playing "what if" games is not my forte, and I don't pretend to offer alternatives other than standing up for principle. However, I was surprised when Churchill described in Chapter 5 of his book Triumph and Tragedy how desperately the Soviets reacted when the decision was taken to suspend convoys to the USSR after the winter of 1942-43 until more darkness returned in October 1943.
"It was natural that the Soviet government should look reproachfully at the suspension of the convoys, for which their armies hungered. On the evening of Sept. 21 [1943] Molotov sent for our ambassador in Moscow and asked for the sailings to be resumed. ... The Soviet government therefore insisted upon the urgent resumption of the convoys and expected His Majesty's government to take all necessary measures within the next few days." If the Soviets were so desperate for Allied aid, it seems an opportunity for Churchill and the Allies to do some insisting of their own - that Poland's borders be restored to the time before Hitler and Stalin jointly partitioned the Allied country. Churchill gives no indication of this even being hinted, less say demanded, which reflects his attitude about the need to uphold treaty obligations.
Later in the same chapter, Churchill writes: "But Mr. Eden had serious complaints about the Russian treatment of our men, and I accordingly sent the following telegram to Stalin: 'It is a very great pleasure to me to tell you that we are planning to sail a series of four convoys to north Russia in November, December, January and February, each of which will consist of approximately 35 ships, British and American.' To avoid new charges of breach of faith from the Soviet, if our efforts to help them proved vain, I inserted a safeguarding paragraph: 'However, I must put it on record that this is no contract or bargain, but rather a declaration of our solemn and earnest resolve. On this basis, I've ordered the necessary measures to be taken for the sending of these four convoys of 35 ships.' I then proceeded with our list of grievances about the treatment of our men in north Russia. 'The present numbers of our naval personnel are below what is necessary even for our present requirements, owing to them having to be sent home without relief. Your civil authorities have refused us all visas for men to go to north Russia, even to relieve those who are seriously overdue for relief. Mr. Molotov has pressed His Majesty's government to agree that the number of British personnel in north Russia should not exceed that of the Soviet personnel and trade delegations in this country. We have been unable to accept this proposal since their work is quite dissimilar and the number of men needed for war operations cannot be determined in such an unpractical way. I must therefor ask you to agree to the immediate grant of visas for the additional personnel now required, and for your assurance that you will not in future withhold visas when we find it necessary to ask for them in connection with the assistance that we are giving you in north Russia. I emphasize that of about 170 naval personnel at present in the north, over 150 should have been relieved several months ago, but Soviet visas have been withheld. The state of health of these men, who are unaccustomed to the climatic and other conditions, makes it very necessary to relieve them without further delay. I must also ask your help in remedying the conditions under which our service personnel and seamen at present find themselves in north Russia. These men are, of course, engaged in operations against the enemy in our joint interest and chiefly to bring Allied supplies to your country. They are, I am sure you will admit, in a wholly different position from ordinary individuals proceeding to Russian territory. Yet they are subjected by your authorities to the following restrictions, which seem to me inappropriate for men sent by an Ally to carry out operations of the greatest interest to the Soviet Union. (A) No one may land from one of HM's ships or from a British merchant ship except by a Soviet boat in the presence of a Soviet official and after examination of documents on each occasion. (B) No one from a British warship is allowed to proceed alongside a British merchantman without the Soviet authorities being informed beforehand. This even applies to the British admiral in charge. (C) British officers and men are required to obtain special passes before they can go from ship to shore or between two British shore stations. These passes are often much delayed with consequent dislocation of the work in hand. (D) No stores, luggage or mail for this operational force may be landed except in the presence of a Soviet official, and numerous formalities are required for the shipment of all stores and mail. (E) Private service mail is subjected to censorship, although for an operational force of this kind, censorship should, in our view, be left in the hands of British service authorities. The imposition of these restrictions makes an impression upon officers and men alike which is bad for Anglo-Soviet relations, and would be deeply injurious if Parliament got to hear of it. The cumulative effect of these formalities has been most hampering to the efficient performance of the men's duties, and on more than one occasion to urgent and important operations. No such restrictions are placed upon Soviet personnel here. I trust, indeed, Mr. Stalin, that you will find it possible to have these difficulties smoothed out in a friendly spirit so that we may help each other and the common cause to the utmost of our strength.' These were modest requests considering the efforts we were now to make."
This is an astounding admission in Churchill's own words that he put far more effort into improving the comfort of British personnel than in the lives and futures of an entire Allied people, the Poles. If he could hint at repercussions on the crucial convoys for such relatively trivial concerns as censorship inconvenience, what agreements might he have won on the Polish borders if he had made an effort of this magnitude on that account? He even could have used some of the same language: "These men [Polish soldiers] are, of course, engaged in operations against the enemy in our joint interest ... an impression upon officers and men alike which is bad for Anglo-[Polish-]Soviet relations, and would be deeply injurious if [the Poles] got to hear of it. I trust, indeed, Mr. Stalin, that you will find it possible to have these difficulties smoothed out in a friendly spirit so that we may help each other and the common cause to the utmost of our strength." Stalin and Molotov must have laughed long and hard at the naive foolishness of Churchill, and probably noted that since he put so much effort into comfort questions compared to none on border questions, the latter were not something the Soviets really had to fear might impede the continued flow of Allied goods.
I also concur in Mark's assessment that, "Even at Teheran in 1943 more could have and should have been done." The decision to rubber-stamp the Hitler-Stalin border was effectively made at Teheran and there were only some details to iron out at Yalta, including how to word the shocking announcement of the betrayal of Poland to the world.
Regarding the latter-day confidence about Churchill merely acquiescing or being bullied into endorsing the Hitler-Stalin border, two things pop to mind. One is his report about the First plenary meeting with Stalin in Teheran on Nov. 28, 1943: "Personally, I thought Poland might move westwards, like soldiers taking two steps left close."
Churchill is saying that he introduced the idea of the Polish borders being shifted westward.
Then on October 8, 1944 Churchill suggested to Stalin that the two should have an agreement on spheres of influence in Europe, calling his proposal a "naughty document". Poland was not specifically discussed, perhaps because Poland's fate had already been sealed at Teheran, but this shows that Churchill was by his own admission an architect of such deals rather than a weak cousin who just went along and did what he was told.
Mark, I also am intrigued by what you wrote in Chapter 4 of your superb thesis at http://www.angelfire.com/ok2/polisharmy/chapter4.html
"Churchill, of course, was aware of the nature of the Soviet Union but also how history would judge his dealings with it. In a telegram to Smuts he wrote:
"Will it be said of me that I was so obsessed with the destruction of Hitlerism that I neglected to see the enemy rising in the East? Will this somehow be my epitaph on everything that I have done from the Blitz, the Battle of Britain and onwards?"
I don't know what date that telegram was sent, but it seems that Churchill had some pangs about his place in history, if not pangs of conscience, about his betrayal of Poland.
Barbara, this thesis of Mark's is but one example of why it is flattering but unhappily incorrect to group Mark and me in the same sentence when you are talking about learning and opinions. Clearly, I don't let my lack of education hold me back from speaking up and I hope you and everyone else feels no such restriction either. Most of us, certainly me, are here to learn. Airing my simple understanding is a terrific way to learn more thanks to the input of other members.
I was really happy to see your post and would never have described any of it as an "explosion of righteous indignation." Your message was so reasonable that I had to re-read it to see what you said that anyone would think you needed to apologize for, and I still don't get it.

John Halucha
Sault Ste Marie, Canada

#54041 From: "Lenarda Szymczak" <szymczak01@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 12:41 am
Subject: Gryazovets - page 117 - Katyn And The Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice And Memory - George Sanford
lenardaszymczak
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Gryazovets –  page 117 free google book

 

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=PZXvUuvfv-oC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=Gryazovets+gulag&source=bl&ots=_3rsukSZ-b&sig=Ew8a9F--jDTfcfs-MD_UZxIjoc0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PtLkUKCeJYbPkQX8oICQAg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA

 

Front Cover

Katyn And The Soviet Massacre Of 1940: Truth, Justice And Memory

 By George Sanford

 

Lenarda, Australia

 


#54042 From: "Lenarda Szymczak" <szymczak01@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 1:59 am
Subject: Mapy militarne Cesarstwa Austro-Wgier z 1910 roku
lenardaszymczak
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Military map from 1910 http://www.genealogiapolska.pl/dodane/Europa.php find your village.  I found Niwna near Zytomir.  Many of these villages, towns no longer exist.

 

Lenarda, Australia


#54043 From: "Lenarda Szymczak" <szymczak01@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 2:03 am
Subject: Baziuk
lenardaszymczak
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#54044 From: JackieR <jackierz@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 2:36 am
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Introducing new member Tracey Ashworth from Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
jackie_rze
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Hi Tracey,
Welcome to the group, great to hear you are already meeting relatives and on the path to discovering more about your father's journey. The members of this group are always very helpful and have so much to share, I am sure you will discover so much more.
Happy New Year,
Jackie Rzepka
Auckland, NZ

On 31 December 2012 09:50, Helen Bitner <helen.bitner@...> wrote:

Please welcome new member Tracey to the group. She wasborn Catherine Anne Baziuk on 9thMay 1959 in Nguarawahia, New Zealand, daughter of Zenon who married Eileen OKeefe on 6thMarch 1959 in New Zealand. Her parents separated and shewas placed for adoption. Only when she was re-united with her birthmother Eileen as an adult, did she learn some of her fathers background - how he had been sent to a Siberian work camp as a child during the war and had suffered terribly. Zenons father was Konstanty and his mother Jozefa. He was born in Radziule. Zenon travelled to New Zealand to set up a new life after the war had ended, and Tracey says he had sisters living in New Zealand. Tracey was told by her birthmother that Zenon (also known as Peter) had been her first love.

Tracey says she is very excited at the possibility of establishing contact with any of Zenons relatives, especially as she intends to travel to Poland later this year.
Once again Tracey welcome and I wish you every success in your search.
Kind regards
Helen Bitner
Colchester
UK



#54045 From: "Lenarda Szymczak" <szymczak01@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 6:08 am
Subject: List murdered in Lviv region in the years 1939/1947
lenardaszymczak
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List murdered in Lviv region in the years 1939/1947

Sources: 1 The title "Martyrdom of the Polish population
in the Lviv region in the years 1939-1947. Crimes committed
by Ukrainian nationalists. "
Author: Stanislaw Jastrzebski.
Second The letter "On the borderlands."

 

http://translate.google.com.au/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=http://www.genealogia.okiem.pl/materialy/zamordowani_lwowskie1.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dstarzewski/chmielewski%2Brodzina%2Bukraina%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3Dcve%26tbo%3Dd%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1680%26bih%3D868&sa=X&ei=ZBrlUIiuFOvLmgWOv4GQDg&ved=0CEsQ7gEwAg

 

A – Z  list of names and copy of format below, unfortunately I cannot copy English version, but it is the same as Polish version, with the link above being for the English version.  This list may assist finding missing persons, also question to admin. Are these people on wall of names in KS?  =

 

 

sortuj

sortuj

Nazwisko

Imi

Informacje dodatkowe

Lat

Data mordu

Miejscowo

Gmina

Powiat

??

Anna

61

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Bartomiej

55

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Aniela

20

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Kazimiera

16

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Franciszek

40

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Anna

30

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Józef

12

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Wadysaw

31

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Józefa

33

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Kazimiera

8

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Janina

4

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Andrzej

64

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Zofia

48

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Wadysaw

50

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Franciszek

61

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Stefania

43

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Janina

24

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

??

Zofia

2

7.03.43

Kaszyce

Radymno

Jarosaw

Abczyski

Leopold

34

07/10.44

Rumno

Komarno

Rudki

Abramowicz

Ryszard

kpr WP.syn Józefa

14.03.46

Stare Sioo

Oleszyce

Lubaczów

Adamek

Bronisaw

44

45

Chlewiska- Majdan

Narol

Lubaczów

Adamko

Jan

5.03.45

Krystynopol

Krystynopol

Sokal

 

Lenarda, Australia

 


#54046 From: Basia <basia@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 6:19 am
Subject: attention Melbourne
basiazielins...
Send Email Send Email
 
Dear Lucyna

What chance of this marvellous workshop in Sydney?
I would love to participate.
Or maybe I need to make a day trip to Melbourne!


Basia Zielinska (Sydney)


 

From: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Lucyna Artymiuk
Sent: Thursday, 03 January, 2013 12:07 AM
To: com, Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.; com, POLISHAUSTRALIANGENEALOGY@yahoogroups.; Com, 300polishsquadron@Yahoogroups.
Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] attention Melbourne

 

 

“Our Heritage Program”

The Forgotten Exiles

Polish Museum and Archives in Australia

In partnership with

Kresy Siberia Foundation

Invite you to participate in a

Workshop on historical and family research

On Saturday 2 February 2013 from 10 am to 4 pm

At Dom Polski “Millenium”, 296 Nicholson Street, Footscray

Cost - $ 15 (light lunch included)

Registrations necessary – lucynaartymiuk@... or (03) 9706-7720

TOPICS COVERED:

SOVIET DEPORTATIONS TO WORK OR DIE (1940 – 1941)

-Deportation – History of Russian instrument of repression against  Polish Citizen, the annihilation of the enemies of the system, cattle cars, frost, hunger and the course of the four major waves of deportation

-Survivor testimonies

 

Surviving wartime USSR (1941-1945)

– the struggle for survival, maintenance of national identity and return to the homeland

Places of exile of the Polish population in the Soviet Union , living conditions, work

-Soviet gulags and POW-camps in the USSR

-Relationships with the local population

-Polish graves in the East

 

AMNESTY” FOR THE INNOCENT (1941)

- “Amnesty” for Polish citizens – the different fate of deported Poles

 

GATHERING THE ARMY AND EVACUATING TO PERSIA (1941 – 1942)

-The release of the deportees and the beginning of the creation of the Polish Army in the East

-Assembly points, food shortages and health problems of former deportees and evacuation to Iran

 

CIVILIANS EXILED IN THE MIDDLE EAST, INDIA AND AFRICA (1942-50)

-Survivor’s path to Refugee camps

-Life in exile

-The fate of survivors

 

WHAT ELSE DO I NEED TO KNOW?

FAMILY TESTIMONIES – WHAT QUESTIONS TO ASK?

AM I ON THE RIGHT RESEARCH PATH?

 

WHERE CAN I GET FURTHER INFORMATION? WHO CAN HELP ME?

 

 

Lucyna Artymiuk

Melbourne Australia

 


#54047 From: "Lucyna Artymiuk" <lucynaartymiuk@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 6:23 am
Subject: RE: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] attention Melbourne
lucyna_98
Send Email Send Email
 

You are welcome to stay with me

 

I am still working on powerpoint and recruiting speakers

 

If it works in melboourne it will come to Sydney and maybe other states

 

From: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Basia
Sent: Thursday, 3 January 2013 5:19 PM
To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] attention Melbourne

 

 

Dear Lucyna

 

What chance of this marvellous workshop in Sydney?

I would love to participate.

Or maybe I need to make a day trip to Melbourne!

 

 

Basia Zielinska (Sydney)

 

 

 

From: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Lucyna Artymiuk
Sent: Thursday, 03 January, 2013 12:07 AM
To: com, Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.; com, POLISHAUSTRALIANGENEALOGY@yahoogroups.; Com, 300polishsquadron@Yahoogroups.
Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] attention Melbourne

 

 

“Our Heritage Program”

The Forgotten Exiles

Polish Museum and Archives in Australia

In partnership with

Kresy Siberia Foundation

Invite you to participate in a

Workshop on historical and family research

On Saturday 2 February 2013 from 10 am to 4 pm

At Dom Polski “Millenium”, 296 Nicholson Street, Footscray

Cost - $ 15 (light lunch included)

Registrations necessary – lucynaartymiuk@... or (03) 9706-7720

TOPICS COVERED:

SOVIET DEPORTATIONS TO WORK OR DIE (1940 – 1941)

-Deportation – History of Russian instrument of repression against  Polish Citizen, the annihilation of the enemies of the system, cattle cars, frost, hunger and the course of the four major waves of deportation

-Survivor testimonies

 

Surviving wartime USSR (1941-1945)

– the struggle for survival, maintenance of national identity and return to the homeland

Places of exile of the Polish population in the Soviet Union , living conditions, work

-Soviet gulags and POW-camps in the USSR

-Relationships with the local population

-Polish graves in the East

 

AMNESTY” FOR THE INNOCENT (1941)

- “Amnesty” for Polish citizens – the different fate of deported Poles

 

GATHERING THE ARMY AND EVACUATING TO PERSIA (1941 – 1942)

-The release of the deportees and the beginning of the creation of the Polish Army in the East

-Assembly points, food shortages and health problems of former deportees and evacuation to Iran

 

CIVILIANS EXILED IN THE MIDDLE EAST, INDIA AND AFRICA (1942-50)

-Survivor’s path to Refugee camps

-Life in exile

-The fate of survivors

 

WHAT ELSE DO I NEED TO KNOW?

FAMILY TESTIMONIES – WHAT QUESTIONS TO ASK?

AM I ON THE RIGHT RESEARCH PATH?

 

WHERE CAN I GET FURTHER INFORMATION? WHO CAN HELP ME?

 

 

Lucyna Artymiuk

Melbourne Australia

 


#54048 From: Stefan Jackowski <stejack@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 7:27 am
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
stejack
Send Email Send Email
 


Hi Mark and Chris,

Thanks, Mark, as always, for your fascinating contributions, grim as they are in this case.

I had a closer look at Zadownys' book, "Death in the Forrest", and can see that his discrepency in the numbers of Katyn
survivors in 1940 vs. 1941 is clearly acknowledged.

He quotes the "448 survivors" figure on pages 78, 104, 116, 117, 120 (twice), 124, 143 and 146, so it clearly wasn't a typo,
and obviously isn't an estimate. Zadowny states that this is the number of survivors of the three main camps after the executions. This is, he says, the number of men who arrived in Pavelishtchev Bor during/immediately after the others were shot
in the spring of 1940. His source is a document prepared for the Polish Government in Exile by a Dr. Wiktor Sukiennicki entitled
"Facts and Documents concerning Polish Prisioners of War captured by the USSR during the 1939 Campaign" It was published
in London in 1946, and at the time classified as Top Secret. It is prob. available at the Sikorski Institute.(?)

He quotes "about 400" - i.e. 395 - as the number who arrived in Grazovec approx. 13 months later. The source he quotes for this number is documents in Exhibits 32 and 33 submitted in 1952 by the Polish Government in Exile to a "Congressional Select Comittee
to Conduct an Investigation of the Facts, Evidence and Circumstances of the Katyn Forrest Massacre". i.e.the Madden Committee  .. Part 4, pages 526-548 apparently contains a "complete list of officers, cadets, non-commissioned officers, privates and civilians who arrived at Grazovec". Chris, I think this is what you may be looking for. Perhaps someone in the group might be able to find the time to dig this document up  ... ? This looks like a good place to start;

 http://ca-mg4.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=4en8ke4nqgtk8
                                                                    
Regrading their 13 month imprisonment before the transfer to Grazovec, Zadowny states on page 118 of "Death in the Forrest" that "During this time, some individual Poles were placed under guard and removed from the camp. It has been established that those removed were taken to various prisons to be interrogated further by NKVD specialists for specific information regarding their civilian occupations. On June 13, 1941, the remaining prisoners were removed to Camp Grazovec. After some arrests there were now about four hundred". Uncharacteristically, he doesn't give a source, or specify how "it has been established", but it seems to make sense.

He reiterates his contentions plainly on page 124: "from the total number, only 448 survived in Camp Pavelishtchev Bor. From these about 400 arrived in Grazovec."

Incidently, he interviewed both Stanislaw Swianewicz and Josef Czapski extensively for his book and singled them both out in the
books' "Acknowledgements". Swianewicz in particular reviewed Zadownys' initial manuscipt, and would surely have felt obligated to
correct any obvious factual errors he found.

Of course, Mark, if Zadowny is correct, now there are a few more contradictions with the Soprunenko memo below;

Did the NKVD change the number of initial survivors from 448 to 395 retroactivly, to hide the fact that that a further 53 men
disappeared and were likely murdered after the initial massacres? Or was Zadowny basing his assumption of 448 initial survivors
on a faulty document?

Why does Zadowny list the camp where the survivors were first taken in May/June of 1940 as Pavelishtchev Bor, while in Soprunenkos' memo it's Yukhnovsky? 

As usual, more questions than answers  ...   Any more thoughts??


Best regards,

Stefan Jackowski
Toronto


From: Mark and Oyun <mark_oyun@...>
To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 6:29:09 PM
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.

 
Dear Stefan,
 
448 survivors? Interesting. The usual figure is 395 (also on Wikipedia  "395 prisoners were spared from the slaughter,[1] among them StanisÅ‚aw Swianiewicz and Józef Czapski.[23] They were taken to the Yukhnov camp and then to Gryazovets.[19]")   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre )
 
The number comes up again in another memo from Soprunenko:
 
No 92 May 25th 1940
 
Total sent to Yukhnovsky camp - 395      
 
Among them:
a) to the 5th Dept. [Counter intelligence] Main Directorate for State Security - 47             
b) on request of the German Embassy - 47         
c) on request of the Mission of Lithuanian - 19  
e) Germans - 24
=============  137   
e) at the disposal of Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR. Comrade Merkulov - 91              
f) other - 167     
============= 258
 
Total 395
 
Head Of The NKVD Of The USSR
in cases of prisoners of war
Security Captain
P. Soprunenko
 
 
Regards, Mark Ostrowski
 
 

--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Stefan Jackowski wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Mark and group,
>
>
> To add some info re: the situation of the Katyn survivors;
>
>
> According to Prof. Zawodny, of the 15,000 + Polish Officers held in the spring of 1940 in Koselsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov, only 448 survived execution by the Soviets.
>
> These survivors were shipped in 7 seperate transports to an empty camp at Pavelishtchev Bor, just north of Kosielsk.
>
> April 25, 1940 - 63 men from Starobelsk, arriving at Pavelishtchev Bor on May 1, 1940
> April 26, 1940 - 150 men from Koselsk, arriving on April 26, 1940
> April 29, 1940 - 60 men from Ostashkov, arriving on May 4
> May 12, 1940 - 95 from Kozelsk, arriving on May 14
>
> May 12, 1940 - 16 from Starobelsk, arriving on May 17
> May 13, 1940 - 45 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 18
>
> May 16. 1940 - 16 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 20
>
> After ongoing interogations and NKVD attempts to convert them them to Communism, the remaining men spontaneously started to split into three main groups; those with some
> pro-Soviet sentiment (about 50 men), about 30 who claimed German - not Polish - ancestry,and the rest who remainded anti-Soviet. 12 of the 30 "Germans" were considered
>
> German enough, and given over to the custody of the Soviet allies at the German Embassy.  (Of the remaining 18 "Germans",
> one committed suicide upon the outbreak of war
>
> with the Nazis  .. while the fate
> of his teutonic companions after June 22, 1941 can be easily imagined.)
>
>
> On Sept. 10, 1940, 7 of the highest ranking pro-Soviet group from the camp were taken to Moscow, where they were wined and dined as potential leadershop material in a new
>
> Soviet Poland.  (All 7 later joined Anders Army when that opportunity arose. Zygmunt Berling later defected back to the Soviets, and, as we know, was tried by the Polish Army
>
> in absentia, and given a death sentance.)
>
>
> On June 13, 1941, just nine days before Barbarossa, the rest of the men were transported to a camp which Zadowny referrs to as "Grazovec", which very likely is the "Grazoveckom" 
> listed in Memorandam No. 155, posted here on Sunday.  On Sept. 1, 1941, the NKVD gaurds and administration were withdrawn, and the camp was set up as a Polish Army unit.
>
>
> Hope this is of interest.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Stefan Jackowski
> Toronto
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Mark and Oyun mark_oyun@...
> To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 1:23:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
>
>
>  
> Dear Mark,
> Actually there is little evidence to doubt this document. We know that some officers did survive. We should remember that General Anders was also not executed. Nor were the other senior officers who made up the 2nd Polish Corps. A few other Generals survived: Boruta Spiechowicz, Przezdziecki and Januszajtis are three that sring to mind.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieczys%C5%82aw_Boruta-Spiechowicz
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wac%C5%82aw_Prze%C5%BAdziecki
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Januszajtis-%C5%BBegota
> The key being that they were in in other prisons at the time of the mass killings. Most were in Moscow in the Lubianka being tortured. Colonel Rakowski (later General Officer Commanding 2nd Armoured Division) and my grandfather's GOC 5 Division Sulik (then a colonel) were also in the Lubianka.
> Others officers managed to convince their interrogators that they were either cooperative or not a threat. And others were just lucky… they were being held in other places and did not come into the Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov clearnaces.
> As to the prisoners working… My estimates put the total number of POWs held by the Soviets as around 54,000. The POWs who ended up with Anders were about half of this number and they were retained by their captors to work.  The approximately 16,000 victims of Katyn are also included from this group. Several thousand have also just disappeared from the figures; mostly casualties of death marches, air raids and NKVD brutality and harsh conditions. [My post 52978 for the numbers.(Although we did have a bit of a polemic re POW status which I really don't want to open up again)]
> ---------------------------
> â„â€" 130
> 1940 November 2, Moscow. - Memorandum from LP Beria IV Stalin's plans to set up in the Soviet Union military units of the Polish prisoners of war
> […]
> b) General-Borut Spehovich [5] stated that he can take certain steps only at the direction of the "government" Sikorsky, which, in his opinion, represents the interests of the Polish people;
> c) General Przhezdetsky [6] made ​​a statement similar to the statement Borut-Spehovicha;
> […]
> d) several colonels and lieutenant colonels (Burling [7], Bukoemsky [8], Gorchinskiy [9], Tyshinsky [10]) stated that they fully convey himself at the disposal of the Soviet power, and that very willingly take over a) the organization and guide any military connections as well) from the Polish prisoners of war, designed a) to deal with Germany a) in the interest of Poland as a nation-state. The future of Poland is thought to be closely related in one way or another with the Soviet Union.
> Regards, Mark Ostrowski
> --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Mark wrote:
> >
> > I see this report of June 1941 seems to list the POW status at the time.
> > It suggests 1259 officers are alive at that date and that Polish Army prisoners were left in the camps.
> > Who were these officers who escaped Katyn?
> > I did see what Dan said about confusing POWs from 'criminals', but I thought all Polish officers were deemed 'criminals', enemies of the people or whatever.
> > There is also reference to "former" POWs.
> > Even though I am nowhere in my research of the deports and the POWs, this is the first I heard of POWs working on an airfield in Ukr.
> > Is this a real document made at the time to cover up Katyn or a newly composed document?
> > What I wouldnt give to see my grandfather's file with NKWD!
> >  
> >
> > Mark T.
> > Canada
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Basia basia@
> > To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2012 10:27:52 PM
> > Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> > This is fascinating Mark, somewhere in those numbers was my father.
> > Thank you
> >
> >
> >
> > Basia Zielinska (Sydney)
> >
> > From: Mark and Oyun mark_oyun@...: Kresy-Siberia@...: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 20:05:57 -0000To: Kresy-Siberia@...: {Disarmed} Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> > Dear Dan,
> > To answer your question, about 26,000. probably the men listed below. Taken from the same source you are reading.
> > No. 155
> > June 22, 1941 Goda. Moscow. Memorandum V.v. Chernysheva and P.k. Soprunenko the existence of prisoners of war and interned in the NKVD camps
> > The people's Commissar of Internal Affairs
> > Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics
> > Comrade Beria, L.p. [1]
> > Report: ex-prisoners of war. Polish Army
> > 27760:
> > 14135 per. Ââ€" in the construction of airfields and roads in Western Ukraine.
> > 7754. on the construction of the Northern Pechora Railway,
> > 4000 people.on the construction of the airfield Ponoy River (imported 1000 persons) of the Murmansk region.
> > Officers are: 1259
> > in kozelsk camp Ââ€" 909 people.
> > the GrÃÆ'¢zoveckom camp is 350 people.
> > The remaining numbering 270 people. in the ÃÆ'›hnovskom camp (Smolensk Oblast).
> > To former prisoners of war, the inhabitants of our land, take out from Western Ukraine to build airfields in Eastern Ukraine.b)
> > Former prisoners of war, German citizens of Poland, moved to the camp regime and to work in remote regions: Karagandy oblast, North-Pechora trunk line, splitting the small lots, no more than 250-300 people.
> > Ex-officers. the Polish Army and French (195) left in the camps, all in Gryazovetsky camp of the Vologda region.
> > Chernyshov P.
> > Soprunenko
> >
>



#54049 From: Stefan Jackowski <stejack@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 7:46 am
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
stejack
Send Email Send Email
 


Sorry, pls. try this link, Chris.


Stefan J.


From: Stefan Jackowski <stejack@...>
To: "Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com" <Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 3, 2013 2:27:27 AM
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.

 


Hi Mark and Chris,

Thanks, Mark, as always, for your fascinating contributions, grim as they are in this case.

I had a closer look at Zadownys' book, "Death in the Forrest", and can see that his discrepency in the numbers of Katyn
survivors in 1940 vs. 1941 is clearly acknowledged.

He quotes the "448 survivors" figure on pages 78, 104, 116, 117, 120 (twice), 124, 143 and 146, so it clearly wasn't a typo,
and obviously isn't an estimate. Zadowny states that this is the number of survivors of the three main camps after the executions. This is, he says, the number of men who arrived in Pavelishtchev Bor during/immediately after the others were shot
in the spring of 1940. His source is a document prepared for the Polish Government in Exile by a Dr. Wiktor Sukiennicki entitled
"Facts and Documents concerning Polish Prisioners of War captured by the USSR during the 1939 Campaign" It was published
in London in 1946, and at the time classified as Top Secret. It is prob. available at the Sikorski Institute.(?)

He quotes "about 400" - i.e. 395 - as the number who arrived in Grazovec approx. 13 months later. The source he quotes for this number is documents in Exhibits 32 and 33 submitted in 1952 by the Polish Government in Exile to a "Congressional Select Comittee
to Conduct an Investigation of the Facts, Evidence and Circumstances of the Katyn Forrest Massacre". i.e.the Madden Committee  .. Part 4, pages 526-548 apparently contains a "complete list of officers, cadets, non-commissioned officers, privates and civilians who arrived at Grazovec". Chris, I think this is what you may be looking for. Perhaps someone in the group might be able to find the time to dig this document up  ... ? This looks like a good place to start;

 http://ca-mg4.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=4en8ke4nqgtk8
                                                                    
Regrading their 13 month imprisonment before the transfer to Grazovec, Zadowny states on page 118 of "Death in the Forrest" that "During this time, some individual Poles were placed under guard and removed from the camp. It has been established that those removed were taken to various prisons to be interrogated further by NKVD specialists for specific information regarding their civilian occupations. On June 13, 1941, the remaining prisoners were removed to Camp Grazovec. After some arrests there were now about four hundred". Uncharacteristically, he doesn't give a source, or specify how "it has been established", but it seems to make sense.

He reiterates his contentions plainly on page 124: "from the total number, only 448 survived in Camp Pavelishtchev Bor. From these about 400 arrived in Grazovec."

Incidently, he interviewed both Stanislaw Swianewicz and Josef Czapski extensively for his book and singled them both out in the
books' "Acknowledgements". Swianewicz in particular reviewed Zadownys' initial manuscipt, and would surely have felt obligated to
correct any obvious factual errors he found.

Of course, Mark, if Zadowny is correct, now there are a few more contradictions with the Soprunenko memo below;

Did the NKVD change the number of initial survivors from 448 to 395 retroactivly, to hide the fact that that a further 53 men
disappeared and were likely murdered after the initial massacres? Or was Zadowny basing his assumption of 448 initial survivors
on a faulty document?

Why does Zadowny list the camp where the survivors were first taken in May/June of 1940 as Pavelishtchev Bor, while in Soprunenkos' memo it's Yukhnovsky? 

As usual, more questions than answers  ...   Any more thoughts??


Best regards,

Stefan Jackowski
Toronto


From: Mark and Oyun <mark_oyun@...>
To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 6:29:09 PM
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.

 
Dear Stefan,
 
448 survivors? Interesting. The usual figure is 395 (also on Wikipedia  "395 prisoners were spared from the slaughter,[1] among them StanisÅ‚aw Swianiewicz and Józef Czapski.[23] They were taken to the Yukhnov camp and then to Gryazovets.[19]")   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre )
 
The number comes up again in another memo from Soprunenko:
 
No 92 May 25th 1940
 
Total sent to Yukhnovsky camp - 395      
 
Among them:
a) to the 5th Dept. [Counter intelligence] Main Directorate for State Security - 47             
b) on request of the German Embassy - 47         
c) on request of the Mission of Lithuanian - 19  
e) Germans - 24
=============  137   
e) at the disposal of Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR. Comrade Merkulov - 91              
f) other - 167     
============= 258
 
Total 395
 
Head Of The NKVD Of The USSR
in cases of prisoners of war
Security Captain
P. Soprunenko
 
 
Regards, Mark Ostrowski
 
 

--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Stefan Jackowski wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Mark and group,
>
>
> To add some info re: the situation of the Katyn survivors;
>
>
> According to Prof. Zawodny, of the 15,000 + Polish Officers held in the spring of 1940 in Koselsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov, only 448 survived execution by the Soviets.
>
> These survivors were shipped in 7 seperate transports to an empty camp at Pavelishtchev Bor, just north of Kosielsk.
>
> April 25, 1940 - 63 men from Starobelsk, arriving at Pavelishtchev Bor on May 1, 1940
> April 26, 1940 - 150 men from Koselsk, arriving on April 26, 1940
> April 29, 1940 - 60 men from Ostashkov, arriving on May 4
> May 12, 1940 - 95 from Kozelsk, arriving on May 14
>
> May 12, 1940 - 16 from Starobelsk, arriving on May 17
> May 13, 1940 - 45 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 18
>
> May 16. 1940 - 16 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 20
>
> After ongoing interogations and NKVD attempts to convert them them to Communism, the remaining men spontaneously started to split into three main groups; those with some
> pro-Soviet sentiment (about 50 men), about 30 who claimed German - not Polish - ancestry,and the rest who remainded anti-Soviet. 12 of the 30 "Germans" were considered
>
> German enough, and given over to the custody of the Soviet allies at the German Embassy.  (Of the remaining 18 "Germans",
> one committed suicide upon the outbreak of war
>
> with the Nazis  .. while the fate
> of his teutonic companions after June 22, 1941 can be easily imagined.)
>
>
> On Sept. 10, 1940, 7 of the highest ranking pro-Soviet group from the camp were taken to Moscow, where they were wined and dined as potential leadershop material in a new
>
> Soviet Poland.  (All 7 later joined Anders Army when that opportunity arose. Zygmunt Berling later defected back to the Soviets, and, as we know, was tried by the Polish Army
>
> in absentia, and given a death sentance.)
>
>
> On June 13, 1941, just nine days before Barbarossa, the rest of the men were transported to a camp which Zadowny referrs to as "Grazovec", which very likely is the "Grazoveckom" 
> listed in Memorandam No. 155, posted here on Sunday.  On Sept. 1, 1941, the NKVD gaurds and administration were withdrawn, and the camp was set up as a Polish Army unit.
>
>
> Hope this is of interest.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Stefan Jackowski
> Toronto
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Mark and Oyun mark_oyun@...
> To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 1:23:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
>
>
>  
> Dear Mark,
> Actually there is little evidence to doubt this document. We know that some officers did survive. We should remember that General Anders was also not executed. Nor were the other senior officers who made up the 2nd Polish Corps. A few other Generals survived: Boruta Spiechowicz, Przezdziecki and Januszajtis are three that sring to mind.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieczys%C5%82aw_Boruta-Spiechowicz
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wac%C5%82aw_Prze%C5%BAdziecki
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Januszajtis-%C5%BBegota
> The key being that they were in in other prisons at the time of the mass killings. Most were in Moscow in the Lubianka being tortured. Colonel Rakowski (later General Officer Commanding 2nd Armoured Division) and my grandfather's GOC 5 Division Sulik (then a colonel) were also in the Lubianka.
> Others officers managed to convince their interrogators that they were either cooperative or not a threat. And others were just lucky… they were being held in other places and did not come into the Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov clearnaces.
> As to the prisoners working… My estimates put the total number of POWs held by the Soviets as around 54,000. The POWs who ended up with Anders were about half of this number and they were retained by their captors to work.  The approximately 16,000 victims of Katyn are also included from this group. Several thousand have also just disappeared from the figures; mostly casualties of death marches, air raids and NKVD brutality and harsh conditions. [My post 52978 for the numbers.(Although we did have a bit of a polemic re POW status which I really don't want to open up again)]
> ---------------------------
> â„â€" 130
> 1940 November 2, Moscow. - Memorandum from LP Beria IV Stalin's plans to set up in the Soviet Union military units of the Polish prisoners of war
> […]
> b) General-Borut Spehovich [5] stated that he can take certain steps only at the direction of the "government" Sikorsky, which, in his opinion, represents the interests of the Polish people;
> c) General Przhezdetsky [6] made ​​a statement similar to the statement Borut-Spehovicha;
> […]
> d) several colonels and lieutenant colonels (Burling [7], Bukoemsky [8], Gorchinskiy [9], Tyshinsky [10]) stated that they fully convey himself at the disposal of the Soviet power, and that very willingly take over a) the organization and guide any military connections as well) from the Polish prisoners of war, designed a) to deal with Germany a) in the interest of Poland as a nation-state. The future of Poland is thought to be closely related in one way or another with the Soviet Union.
> Regards, Mark Ostrowski
> --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Mark wrote:
> >
> > I see this report of June 1941 seems to list the POW status at the time.
> > It suggests 1259 officers are alive at that date and that Polish Army prisoners were left in the camps.
> > Who were these officers who escaped Katyn?
> > I did see what Dan said about confusing POWs from 'criminals', but I thought all Polish officers were deemed 'criminals', enemies of the people or whatever.
> > There is also reference to "former" POWs.
> > Even though I am nowhere in my research of the deports and the POWs, this is the first I heard of POWs working on an airfield in Ukr.
> > Is this a real document made at the time to cover up Katyn or a newly composed document?
> > What I wouldnt give to see my grandfather's file with NKWD!
> >  
> >
> > Mark T.
> > Canada
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Basia basia@
> > To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2012 10:27:52 PM
> > Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> > This is fascinating Mark, somewhere in those numbers was my father.
> > Thank you
> >
> >
> >
> > Basia Zielinska (Sydney)
> >
> > From: Mark and Oyun mark_oyun@...: Kresy-Siberia@...: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 20:05:57 -0000To: Kresy-Siberia@...: {Disarmed} Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> > Dear Dan,
> > To answer your question, about 26,000. probably the men listed below. Taken from the same source you are reading.
> > No. 155
> > June 22, 1941 Goda. Moscow. Memorandum V.v. Chernysheva and P.k. Soprunenko the existence of prisoners of war and interned in the NKVD camps
> > The people's Commissar of Internal Affairs
> > Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics
> > Comrade Beria, L.p. [1]
> > Report: ex-prisoners of war. Polish Army
> > 27760:
> > 14135 per. Ââ€" in the construction of airfields and roads in Western Ukraine.
> > 7754. on the construction of the Northern Pechora Railway,
> > 4000 people.on the construction of the airfield Ponoy River (imported 1000 persons) of the Murmansk region.
> > Officers are: 1259
> > in kozelsk camp Ââ€" 909 people.
> > the GrÃÆ'¢zoveckom camp is 350 people.
> > The remaining numbering 270 people. in the ÃÆ'›hnovskom camp (Smolensk Oblast).
> > To former prisoners of war, the inhabitants of our land, take out from Western Ukraine to build airfields in Eastern Ukraine.b)
> > Former prisoners of war, German citizens of Poland, moved to the camp regime and to work in remote regions: Karagandy oblast, North-Pechora trunk line, splitting the small lots, no more than 250-300 people.
> > Ex-officers. the Polish Army and French (195) left in the camps, all in Gryazovetsky camp of the Vologda region.
> > Chernyshov P.
> > Soprunenko
> >
>





#54050 From: "Mary-Anne Morgan" <ma.morgan@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 8:55 am
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Baziuk
mamorgan_14
Send Email Send Email
 
Thank you Lenarda.  Jan and Zenon are indeed our relatives, Zenon being Tracey’s birth father and my uncle.  Anna and Danuta, their sisters, are also on the memorial wall and Anna is my mother.  I have been slowly adding to their profiles as I find more and more information.  Our family is from Radziule village in the Grodno district, Gerwiaty Parish now part of Belarus.  Although I don’t read Polish, sadly, I used google translate to check the sites you kindly sent below, and the Baziuk names mentioned although similar, aren’t from that area and are not names I recognise as being relatives at this stage.
 
Many thanks and best wishes
Mary-Anne
 
 
 
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2013 3:03 PM
Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Baziuk
 

#54051 From: "Mark and Oyun" <mark_oyun@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 8:59 am
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
mark_oyun
Send Email Send Email
 

Dea Stefan,

Ok, did some digging and learnt something new. Juchnow (name of camp) and Pavelishtchev Bor (location) are the same place. A former TB sanitorium. The survivors were sent here initially before being moved to Gryazovtets. Since they were coming from three seperate places it would be sensible to group them before sending them onwards.

...juchnowski (Juchnow kolo Kalugi, Rosja) nad rzeka Ugra na drodze Malojaroslawiec Miatliewo Roslaw, faktycznie w bylym sanatorium gruzliczym Pawliszczew (Pawliszew) Bor .

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obozy_NKWD_dla_je%C5%84c%C3%B3w_polskich

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukhnov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gryazovets

As to the numbers... we'll keep digging. According to Wikipedia... (yes I know it'snot a historical source, but one hopes the information came from somewhere) the 395 were already in Gryazovets in May.

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ob%C3%B3z_jeniecki_NKWD_w_Griazowcu

Best regards, Mark Ostrowski

PS/ There is only one internet link to Pavelishtchev Bor on the internet. I think it has something to do with te transliteration/spellingand its and it comes from the full text of "The Katyn Forest Massacre : hearings before the Select Committee to Conduct an Investigation of the Facts, Evidence and Circumstances of the Katyn Forest Massacre, Eighty-second Congress, first[-second] session, on investigation of the murder of thousands of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, Russia .."

Link here:  http://www.archive.org/stream/katynforestmassa06unit/katynforestmassa06unit_djvu.txt

---------------------------------------------------------


--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Stefan Jackowski wrote:
>
>
>
> Hi Mark and Chris,
>
> Thanks, Mark, as always, for your fascinating contributions, grim as they are in this case.
>
> I had a closer look at Zadownys' book, "Death in the Forrest", and can see that his discrepency in the numbers of Katyn
> survivors in 1940 vs. 1941 is clearly acknowledged.
>
> He quotes the "448 survivors" figure on pages 78, 104, 116, 117, 120 (twice), 124, 143 and 146, so it clearly wasn't a typo,
> and obviously isn't an estimate. Zadowny states that this is the number of survivors of the three main camps after the executions. This is, he says, the number of men who arrived in Pavelishtchev Bor during/immediately after the others were shot
> in the spring of 1940. His source is a document prepared for the Polish Government in Exile by a Dr. Wiktor Sukiennicki entitled
> "Facts and Documents concerning Polish Prisioners of War captured by the USSR during the 1939 Campaign" It was published
> in London in 1946, and at the time classified as Top Secret. It is prob. available at the Sikorski Institute.(?)
>
> He quotes "about 400" - i.e. 395 - as the number who arrived in Grazovec approx. 13 months later. The source he quotes for this number is documents in Exhibits 32 and 33 submitted in 1952 by the Polish Government in Exile to a "Congressional Select Comittee
> to Conduct an Investigation of the Facts, Evidence and Circumstances of the Katyn Forrest Massacre". i.e.the Madden Committee  .. Part 4, pages 526-548 apparently contains a "complete list of officers, cadets, non-commissioned officers, privates and civilians who arrived at Grazovec". Chris, I think this is what you may be looking for. Perhaps someone in the group might be able to find the time to dig this document up  ... ? This looks like a good place to start;
>
>  http://ca-mg4.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=4en8ke4nqgtk8
>                                                                     
>
> Regrading their 13 month imprisonment before the transfer to Grazovec, Zadowny states on page 118 of "Death in the Forrest" that "During this time, some individual Poles were placed under guard and removed from the camp. It has been established that those removed were taken to various prisons to be interrogated furtherby NKVD specialists for specific information regarding their civilian occupations. On June 13, 1941, the remaining prisoners wereremoved to Camp Grazovec. After some arrests there were now about four hundred". Uncharacteristically, he doesn't give a source, or specify how "it has been established", but it seems to make sense.
>
>
> He reiterates his contentions plainly on page 124: "from the total number, only 448 survived in Camp Pavelishtchev Bor. From theseabout 400 arrived in Grazovec."
>
>
> Incidently, heinterviewed both Stanislaw Swianewicz and Josef Czapski extensively for his book and singled them both out in the
>
> books' "Acknowledgements". Swianewicz in particular reviewed Zadownys' initial manuscipt, and would surely have felt obligated to
>
> correct any obvious factual errors he found.
>
> Of course, Mark, if Zadowny is correct, now there are a few more contradictions with the Soprunenko memo below;
>
> Did the NKVD change the number of initial survivors from 448 to 395 retroactivly, to hide the fact that that a further 53 men
> disappeared and were likely murdered after the initial massacres? Or was Zadowny basing his assumption of 448 initial survivors
> on a faulty document?
>
>
> Why does Zadowny list the camp where the survivors were first taken in May/June of 1940 as Pavelishtchev Bor, while in Soprunenkos'memo it's Yukhnovsky? 
>
> As usual, more questions than answers  ...   Any more thoughts??
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Stefan Jackowski
> Toronto
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Mark and Oyun
> To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 6:29:09 PM
> Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
>
>
>  
> Dear Stefan,
>  
> 448 survivors? Interesting. The usual figure is 395 (also on Wikipedia  "395 prisoners were spared from the slaughter,[1] among them StanisÅ‚aw Swianiewicz and Józef Czapski.[23] They were taken to the Yukhnov camp and then to Gryazovets.[19]")   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre)
>  
> The number comes up again in another memo from Soprunenko:
>  
> No 92 May 25th 1940
>  
> Total sent to Yukhnovsky camp - 395      
>  
> Among them:
> a) to the 5th Dept. [Counter intelligence] Main Directorate for State Security - 47             
> b) on request of the German Embassy - 47         
> c) on request of the Mission of Lithuanian - 19  
> e) Germans - 24
> =============  137   
> e) at the disposal of Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR. Comrade Merkulov - 91              
> f) other - 167     
> ============= 258
>  
> Total 395
>  
> Head Of The NKVD Of The USSR
> in cases of prisoners of war
> Security Captain
> P. Soprunenko
>  
>  http://www.katyn-books.ru/archive/1940_2000/19402000.html#13ch
>  
> Regards, Mark Ostrowski
>  
>  
>
> --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Stefan Jackowski wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Dear Mark and group,
> >
> >
> > To add some info re: the situation of the Katyn survivors;
> >
> >
> > According to Prof. Zawodny, of the 15,000 + Polish Officers held in the spring of 1940 in Koselsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov, only 448 survived execution by the Soviets.
> >
> > These survivors were shipped in 7 seperate transports to an empty camp at Pavelishtchev Bor, just north of Kosielsk.
> >
> > April 25, 1940 - 63 men from Starobelsk, arriving at Pavelishtchev Bor on May 1, 1940
> > April 26, 1940 - 150 men from Koselsk, arriving on April 26, 1940
> > April 29, 1940 - 60 men from Ostashkov, arriving on May 4
> > May 12, 1940 - 95 from Kozelsk, arriving on May 14
> >
> > May 12, 1940 - 16 from Starobelsk, arriving on May 17
> > May 13, 1940 - 45 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 18
> >
> > May 16. 1940 - 16 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 20
> >
> > After ongoing interogations and NKVD attempts to convert them them to Communism, the remaining men spontaneously started to split into three main groups; those with some
> > pro-Soviet sentiment (about 50 men), about 30 who claimed German - not Polish - ancestry,and the rest who remainded anti-Soviet. 12 of the 30 "Germans" were considered
> >
> > German enough, and given over to the custody of the Soviet allies at the German Embassy.  (Of the remaining 18 "Germans",
> > one committed suicide upon the outbreak of war
> >
> > with the Nazis  .. while the fate
> > of his teutonic companions after June 22, 1941 can be easily imagined.)
> >
> >
> > On Sept. 10, 1940, 7 of the highest ranking pro-Soviet group from the camp were taken to Moscow, where they were wined and dined as potential leadershop material in a new
> >
> > Soviet Poland.  (All 7 later joined Anders Army when that opportunity arose. Zygmunt Berling later defected back to the Soviets, and, as we know, was tried by the Polish Army
> >
> > in absentia, and given a death sentance.)
> >
> >
> > On June 13, 1941, just nine days before Barbarossa, the rest of the men were transported to a camp which Zadowny referrs to as "Grazovec", which very likely is the "Grazoveckom" 
> > listed in Memorandam No. 155, posted here on Sunday.  On Sept. 1, 1941, the NKVD gaurds and administration were withdrawn, and the camp was set up as a Polish Army unit.
> >
> >
> > Hope this is of interest.
> >
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Stefan Jackowski
> > Toronto
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Mark and Oyun mark_oyun@
> > To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 1:23:17 AM
> > Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
> >
> >
> >  
> > Dear Mark,
> > Actually there is little evidence to doubt this document. We know that some officers did survive. We should remember that General Anders was also not executed. Nor were the other senior officers who made up the 2nd Polish Corps. A few other Generals survived: Boruta Spiechowicz, Przezdziecki and Januszajtis are three that sring to mind.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieczys%C5%82aw_Boruta-Spiechowicz
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wac%C5%82aw_Prze%C5%BAdziecki
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Januszajtis-%C5%BBegota
> > The key being that they were in in other prisons at the time of the mass killings. Most were in Moscow in the Lubianka being tortured. Colonel Rakowski (later General Officer Commanding 2nd Armoured Division) and my grandfather's GOC 5 Division Sulik (then a colonel) were also in the Lubianka.
> > Others officers managed to convince their interrogators that they were either cooperative or not a threat. And others were just lucky… they were being held in other places and did not come into the Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov clearnaces.
> > As to the prisoners working… My estimates put the total number of POWs held by the Soviets as around 54,000. The POWs who ended up with Anders were about half of this number and they were retained by their captors to work.  The approximately 16,000 victims of Katyn are also included from this group. Several thousand have also just disappeared from the figures; mostly casualties of death marches, air raids and NKVD brutality and harsh conditions. [My post 52978 for the numbers.(Although we did have a bit of a polemic re POW status which I really don't want to open up again)]
> > ---------------------------
> > â„â€" 130
> > 1940 November 2, Moscow. - Memorandum from LP Beria IV Stalin's plans to set up in the Soviet Union military units of the Polish prisoners of war
> > […]
> > b) General-Borut Spehovich [5] stated that he can take certain steps only at the direction of the "government" Sikorsky, which, in his opinion, represents the interests of the Polish people;
> > c) General Przhezdetsky [6] made ​​a statement similar to the statement Borut-Spehovicha;
> > […]
> > d) several colonels and lieutenant colonels (Burling [7], Bukoemsky [8], Gorchinskiy [9], Tyshinsky [10]) stated that they fully convey himself at the disposal of the Soviet power, and that very willingly take over a) the organization and guide any military connections as well) from the Polish prisoners of war, designed a) to deal with Germany a) in the interest of Poland as a nation-state. The future of Poland is thought to be closely related in one way or another with the Soviet Union.
> > Regards, Mark Ostrowski
> > --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Mark wrote:
> > >
> > > I see this report of June 1941 seems to list the POW status at the time.
> > > It suggests 1259 officers are alive at that date and that Polish Army prisoners were left in the camps.
> > > Who were these officers who escaped Katyn?
> > > I did see what Dan said about confusing POWs from 'criminals', but I thought all Polish officers were deemed 'criminals', enemies of the people or whatever.
> > > There is also reference to "former" POWs.
> > > Even though I am nowhere in my research of the deports and the POWs, this is the first I heard of POWs working on an airfield in Ukr.
> > > Is this a real document made at the time to cover up Katyn or a newly composed document?
> > > What I wouldnt give to see my grandfather's file with NKWD!
> > >  
> > >
> > > Mark T.
> > > Canada
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: Basia basia@
> > > To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > > Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2012 10:27:52 PM
> > > Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
> > >
> > >
> > >  
> > >
> > > This is fascinating Mark, somewhere in those numbers was my father.
> > > Thank you
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Basia Zielinska (Sydney)
> > >
> > > From: Mark and Oyun mark_oyun@: Kresy-Siberia@: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 20:05:57 -0000To: Kresy-Siberia@: {Disarmed} Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents Ã'‚¹ 125 - Ã'‚¹ 157.
> > >
> > >  
> > >
> > >
> > > Dear Dan,
> > > To answer your question, about 26,000. probably the men listed below. Taken from the same source you are reading.
> > > No. 155
> > > June 22, 1941 Goda. Moscow. Memorandum V.v. Chernysheva and P.k. Soprunenko the existence of prisoners of war and interned in the NKVD camps
> > > The people's Commissar of Internal Affairs
> > > Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics
> > > Comrade Beria, L.p. [1]
> > > Report: ex-prisoners of war. Polish Army
> > > 27760:
> > > 14135 per. Ã'‚â€" in the construction of airfields and roads in Western Ukraine.
> > > 7754. on the construction of the Northern Pechora Railway,
> > > 4000 people.on the construction of the airfield Ponoy River (imported 1000 persons) of the Murmansk region.
> > > Officers are: 1259
> > > in kozelsk camp Ã'‚â€" 909 people.
> > > the GrÃ'Æ'¢zoveckom camp is 350 people.
> > > The remaining numbering 270 people. in the Ã'Æ'›hnovskom camp (Smolensk Oblast).
> > > To former prisoners of war, the inhabitants of our land, take out from Western Ukraine to build airfields in Eastern Ukraine.b)
> > > Former prisoners of war, German citizens of Poland, moved to the camp regime and to work in remote regions: Karagandy oblast, North-Pechora trunk line, splitting the small lots, no more than 250-300 people.
> > > Ex-officers. the Polish Army and French (195) left in the camps, all in Gryazovetsky camp of the Vologda region.
> > > Chernyshov P.
> > > Soprunenko
> > >
> >
>


#54052 From: "Mark and Oyun" <mark_oyun@...>
Date: Thu Jan 3, 2013 9:48 am
Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
mark_oyun
Send Email Send Email
 

The 394[!!!] In the Yukhnovsky camp were:

 

General: 1 [Gen. Wolkowicki  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Wo%C5%82kowicki]

Colonels: 8

Lt Colonels: 16

Majors: 8

Captains: 18

Other Officers: 201

Warrant Officers 8

Police Officer (Junior Officers): 9

Police Officers (O/R): 38

Military Police (Junior Officer): 1

Military Police (O/R): 1

Prison Guards: 9

 Settlers: 2

Civil Servants: 8

Army/Border Guards (O/R): 15

Junaki: 12

Forest Workers:1

Refugees: 38

 

[There is a more complete breakdown at Memo No.103]

 

Upon arrival at the camp on May 14 and 13 the prisoners had announced a "moment of silence" that unnerved camp authorities. The camp commander of the POWs, Major J. Mara-Mey explained that this was "in tribute to the memory of fallen comrades". As it turned out later, these were the days of the anniversary of the death of J. Pilsudski.

On the 14th June 384 were sent to Gryazovets leaving 10 sick in the camp, who joined them later.

The Camp Commandant's Memo 10th June 1940 [No.96] to Merkalov clearly states as of 1st June there were 394 POWs in the camp.  This still leaves one unaccounted for!

http://www.katyn-books.ru/archive/1940_2000/19402000.html

Regards, Mark

 

--- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, "Mark and Oyun" wrote:
>
>
> Dea Stefan,
>
> Ok, did some digging and learnt something new. Juchnow (name of camp)
> and Pavelishtchev Bor (location) are the same place. A former TB
> sanitorium. The survivors were sent here initially before being moved to
> Gryazovtets. Since they were coming from three seperate places it would
> be sensible to group them before sending them onwards.
>
> ...juchnowski (Juchnow kolo Kalugi, Rosja) nad rzeka Ugra na drodze
> Malojaroslawiec Miatliewo Roslaw, faktycznie w bylym
> sanatorium gruzliczym Pawliszczew (Pawliszew) Bor .
>
> http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obozy_NKWD_dla_je%C5%84c%C3%B3w_polskich
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukhnov
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gryazovets
>
>
> As to the numbers... we'll keep digging. According to Wikipedia... (yes
> I know it'snot a historical source, but one hopes the information came
> from somewhere) the 395 were already in Gryazovets in May.
>
> http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ob%C3%B3z_jeniecki_NKWD_w_Griazowcu
>
>
> Best regards, Mark Ostrowski
>
> PS/ There is only one internet link to Pavelishtchev Bor on the
> internet. I think it has something to do with te
> transliteration/spellingand its and it comes from the full text of "The
> Katyn Forest Massacre : hearings before the Select Committee to Conduct
> an Investigation of the Facts, Evidence and Circumstances of the Katyn
> Forest Massacre, Eighty-second Congress, first[-second] session, on
> investigation of the murder of thousands of Polish officers in the Katyn
> Forest near Smolensk, Russia ..
> "
>
> Link here:
> http://www.archive.org/stream/katynforestmassa06unit/katynforestmassa06u\
> nit_djvu.txt
>
unit_djvu.txt>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Stefan Jackowski wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi Mark and Chris,
> >
> > Thanks, Mark, as always, for your fascinating contributions, grim as
> they are in this case.
> >
> > I had a closer look at Zadownys' book, "Death in the Forrest", and can
> see that his discrepency in the numbers of Katyn
> > survivors in 1940 vs. 1941 is clearly acknowledged.
> >
> > He quotes the "448 survivors" figure on pages 78, 104, 116, 117, 120
> (twice), 124, 143 and 146, so it clearly wasn't a typo,
> > and obviously isn't an estimate. Zadowny states that this is the
> number of survivors of the three main camps after the executions. This
> is, he says, the number of men who arrived in Pavelishtchev Bor
> during/immediately after the others were shot
> > in the spring of 1940. His source is a document prepared for the
> Polish Government in Exile by a Dr. Wiktor Sukiennicki entitled
> > "Facts and Documents concerning Polish Prisioners of War captured by
> the USSR during the 1939 Campaign" It was published
> > in London in 1946, and at the time classified as Top Secret. It is
> prob. available at the Sikorski Institute.(?)
> >
> > He quotes "about 400" - i.e. 395 - as the number who arrived in
> Grazovec approx. 13 months later. The source he quotes for this number
> is documents in Exhibits 32 and 33 submitted in 1952 by the Polish
> Government in Exile to a "Congressional Select Comittee
> > to Conduct an Investigation of the Facts, Evidence and Circumstances
> of the Katyn Forrest Massacre". i.e.the Madden Committee .. Part 4,
> pages 526-548 apparently contains a "complete list of officers, cadets,
> non-commissioned officers, privates and civilians who arrived at
> Grazovec". Chris, I think this is what you may be looking for. Perhaps
> someone in the group might be able to find the time to dig this document
> up ... ? This looks like a good place to start;
> >
> > http://ca-mg4.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=4en8ke4nqgtk8
> >
>
>
>
>
> >
> > Regrading their 13 month imprisonment before the transfer to Grazovec,
> Zadowny states on page 118 of "Death in the Forrest" that "During this
> time, some individual Poles were placed under guard and removed from the
> camp. It has been established that those removed were taken to various
> prisons to be interrogated furtherby NKVD specialists for specific
> information regarding their civilian occupations. On June 13, 1941, the
> remaining prisoners wereremoved to Camp Grazovec. After some arrests
> there were now about four hundred". Uncharacteristically, he doesn't
> give a source, or specify how "it has been established", but it seems to
> make sense.
> >
> >
> > He reiterates his contentions plainly on page 124: "from the total
> number, only 448 survived in Camp Pavelishtchev Bor. From theseabout 400
> arrived in Grazovec."
> >
> >
> > Incidently, heinterviewed both Stanislaw Swianewicz and Josef Czapski
> extensively for his book and singled them both out in the
> >
> > books' "Acknowledgements". Swianewicz in particular reviewed Zadownys'
> initial manuscipt, and would surely have felt obligated to
> >
> > correct any obvious factual errors he found.
> >
> > Of course, Mark, if Zadowny is correct, now there are a few more
> contradictions with the Soprunenko memo below;
> >
> > Did the NKVD change the number of initial survivors from 448 to 395
> retroactivly, to hide the fact that that a further 53 men
> > disappeared and were likely murdered after the initial massacres? Or
> was Zadowny basing his assumption of 448 initial survivors
> > on a faulty document?
> >
> >
> > Why does Zadowny list the camp where the survivors were first taken in
> May/June of 1940 as Pavelishtchev Bor, while in Soprunenkos'memo it's
> Yukhnovsky?
> >
> > As usual, more questions than answers ... Any more
> thoughts??
> >
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Stefan Jackowski
> > Toronto
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Mark and Oyun
> > To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 2, 2013 6:29:09 PM
> > Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October
> 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
> >
> >
> >
> > Dear Stefan,
> >
> > 448 survivors? Interesting. The usual figure is 395 (also on
> Wikipedia "395 prisoners were spared from the slaughter,[1] among
> them StanisÅ‚aw Swianiewicz and Józef Czapski.[23] They
> were taken to the Yukhnov camp and then to Gryazovets.[19]")
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre)
> >
> > The number comes up again in another memo from Soprunenko:
> >
> > No 92 May 25th 1940
> >
> > Total sent to Yukhnovsky camp - 395
> >
> > Among them:
> > a) to the 5th Dept. [Counter intelligence] Main Directorate for State
> Security - 47
>
> > b) on request of the German Embassy - 47
>
> > c) on request of the Mission of Lithuanian - 19
> > e) Germans - 24
> > ============= 137
> > e) at the disposal of Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of
> the USSR. Comrade Merkulov - 91
>
> > f) other - 167
> > ============= 258
> >
> > Total 395
> >
> > Head Of The NKVD Of The USSR
> > in cases of prisoners of war
> > Security Captain
> > P. Soprunenko
> >
> > http://www.katyn-books.ru/archive/1940_2000/19402000.html#13ch
> >
> > Regards, Mark Ostrowski
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Stefan Jackowski wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Dear Mark and group,
> > >
> > >
> > > To add some info re: the situation of the Katyn survivors;
> > >
> > >
> > > According to Prof. Zawodny, of the 15,000 + Polish Officers held in
> the spring of 1940 in Koselsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov, only 448
> survived execution by the Soviets.
> > >
> > > These survivors were shipped in 7 seperate transports to an empty
> camp at Pavelishtchev Bor, just north of Kosielsk.
> > >
> > > April 25, 1940 - 63 men from Starobelsk, arriving at Pavelishtchev
> Bor on May 1, 1940
> > > April 26, 1940 - 150 men from Koselsk, arriving on April 26, 1940
> > > April 29, 1940 - 60 men from Ostashkov, arriving on May 4
> > > May 12, 1940 - 95 from Kozelsk, arriving on May 14
> > >
> > > May 12, 1940 - 16 from Starobelsk, arriving on May 17
> > > May 13, 1940 - 45 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 18
> > >
> > > May 16. 1940 - 16 from Ostashkov, arriving on May 20
> > >
> > > After ongoing interogations and NKVD attempts to convert them them
> to Communism, the remaining men spontaneously started to split into
> three main groups; those with some
> > > pro-Soviet sentiment (about 50 men), about 30 who claimed German -
> not Polish - ancestry,and the rest who remainded anti-Soviet. 12 of the
> 30 "Germans" were considered
> > >
> > > German enough, and given over to the custody of the Soviet allies at
> the German Embassy. (Of the remaining 18 "Germans",
> > > one committed suicide upon the outbreak of war
> > >
> > > with the Nazis .. while the fate
> > > of his teutonic companions after June 22, 1941 can be easily
> imagined.)
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sept. 10, 1940, 7 of the highest ranking pro-Soviet group from
> the camp were taken to Moscow, where they were wined and dined as
> potential leadershop material in a new
> > >
> > > Soviet Poland. (All 7 later joined Anders Army when that
> opportunity arose. Zygmunt Berling later defected back to the Soviets,
> and, as we know, was tried by the Polish Army
> > >
> > > in absentia, and given a death sentance.)
> > >
> > >
> > > On June 13, 1941, just nine days before Barbarossa, the rest of the
> men were transported to a camp which Zadowny referrs to as "Grazovec",
> which very likely is the "Grazoveckom"Â
> > > listed in Memorandam No. 155, posted here on Sunday. On
> Sept. 1, 1941, the NKVD gaurds and administration were withdrawn, and
> the camp was set up as a Polish Army unit.
> > >
> > >
> > > Hope this is of interest.
> > >
> > >
> > > Best regards,
> > >
> > > Stefan Jackowski
> > > Toronto
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: Mark and Oyun mark_oyun@
> > > To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > > Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 1:23:17 AM
> > > Subject: Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war.
> October 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 -
> ¹ 157.
> > >
> > >
> > > Â
> > > Dear Mark,
> > > Actually there is little evidence to doubt this document. We know
> that some officers did survive. We should remember that General Anders
> was also not executed. Nor were the other senior officers who made up
> the 2nd Polish Corps. A few other Generals survived: Boruta Spiechowicz,
> Przezdziecki and Januszajtis are three that sring to mind.
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieczys%C5%82aw_Boruta-Spiechowicz
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wac%C5%82aw_Prze%C5%BAdziecki
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Januszajtis-%C5%BBegota
> > > The key being that they were in in other prisons at the time of the
> mass killings. Most were in Moscow in the Lubianka being tortured.
> Colonel Rakowski (later General Officer Commanding 2nd Armoured
> Division) and my grandfather's GOC 5 Division Sulik (then a colonel)
> were also in the Lubianka.
> > > Others officers managed to convince their interrogators that they
> were either cooperative or not a threat. And others were just
> lucky… they were being held in other places and did not come
> into the Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov clearnaces.
> > > As to the prisoners working… My estimates put the total
> number of POWs held by the Soviets as around 54,000. The POWs who ended
> up with Anders were about half of this number and they were retained by
> their captors to work. Â The approximately 16,000 victims of Katyn
> are also included from this group. Several thousand have also just
> disappeared from the figures; mostly casualties of death marches, air
> raids and NKVD brutality and harsh conditions. [My post 52978Â for
> the numbers.(Although we did have a bit of a polemic re POW
> status which I really don't want to open up again)]
> > > ---------------------------
> > > â„â€" 130
> > > 1940 November 2, Moscow. - Memorandum from LP Beria IV Stalin's
> plans to set up in the Soviet Union military units of the Polish
> prisoners of war
> > > […]
> > > b) General-Borut Spehovich [5] stated that he can take certain steps
> only at the direction of the "government" Sikorsky, which, in his
> opinion, represents the interests of the Polish people;
> > > c) General Przhezdetsky [6] made
> ​​a statement similar to
> the statement Borut-Spehovicha;
> > > […]
> > > d) several colonels and lieutenant colonels (Burling [7], Bukoemsky
> [8], Gorchinskiy [9], Tyshinsky [10]) stated that they fully convey
> himself at the disposal of the Soviet power, and that very willingly
> take over a) the organization and guide any military connections as
> well) from the Polish prisoners of war, designed a) to deal with Germany
> a) in the interest of Poland as a nation-state. The future of Poland is
> thought to be closely related in one way or another with the Soviet
> Union.
> > > Regards, Mark Ostrowski
> > > --- In Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com, Mark wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I see this report of June 1941 seems to list the POW status at the
> time.
> > > > It suggests 1259 officers are alive at that date and that Polish
> Army prisoners were left in the camps.
> > > > Who were these officers who escaped Katyn?
> > > > I did see what Dan said about confusing POWs from 'criminals', but
> I thought all Polish officers were deemed 'criminals', enemies of the
> people or whatever.
> > > > There is also reference to "former" POWs.
> > > > Even though I am nowhere in my research of the deports and the
> POWs, this is the first I heard of POWs working on an airfield in Ukr.
> > > > Is this a real document made at the time to cover up Katyn or a
> newly composed document?
> > > > What I wouldnt give to see my grandfather's file with NKWD!
> > > > ÂÂ
> > > >
> > > > Mark T.
> > > > Canada
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ________________________________
> > > > From: Basia basia@
> > > > To: Kresy-Siberia@yahoogroups.com
> > > > Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2012 10:27:52 PM
> > > > Subject: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org] Polish prisoners of war. October
> 1940 - June 1941. Documents ¹ 125 - ¹ 157.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ÂÂ
> > > >
> > > > This is fascinating Mark, somewhere in those numbers was my
> father.
> > > > Thank you
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Basia Zielinska (Sydney)
> > > >
> > > > From: Mark and Oyun mark_oyun@: Kresy-Siberia@: Sun, 30 Dec 2012
> 20:05:57 -0000To: Kresy-Siberia@: {Disarmed} Re: [www.Kresy-Siberia.org]
> Polish prisoners of war. October 1940 - June 1941. Documents
> Ã'‚¹ 125 - Ã'‚¹ 157.
> > > >
> > > > ÂÂ
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Dear Dan,
> > > > To answer your question, about 26,000. probably the men listed
> below. Taken from the same source you are reading.
> > > > No. 155
> > > > June 22, 1941 Goda. Moscow. Memorandum V.v. Chernysheva and P.k.
> Soprunenko the existence of prisoners of war and interned in the NKVD
> camps
> > > > The people's Commissar of Internal Affairs
> > > > Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics
> > > > Comrade Beria, L.p. [1]
> > > > Report: ex-prisoners of war. Polish Army
> > > > 27760:
> > > > 14135 per. Ã'‚â€" in the construction of
> airfields and roads in Western Ukraine.
> > > > 7754. on the construction of the Northern Pechora Railway,
> > > > 4000 people.on the construction of the airfield Ponoy River
> (imported 1000 persons) of the Murmansk region.
> > > > Officers are: 1259
> > > > in kozelsk camp Ã'‚â€" 909 people.
> > > > the GrÃ'Æ'¢zoveckom camp is 350 people.
> > > > The remaining numbering 270 people. in the
> Ã'Æ'›hnovskom camp (Smolensk Oblast).
> > > > To former prisoners of war, the inhabitants of our land, take out
> from Western Ukraine to build airfields in Eastern Ukraine.b)
> > > > Former prisoners of war, German citizens of Poland, moved to the
> camp regime and to work in remote regions: Karagandy oblast,
> North-Pechora trunk line, splitting the small lots, no more than 250-300
> people.
> > > > Ex-officers. the Polish Army and French (195) left in the camps,
> all in Gryazovetsky camp of the Vologda region.
> > > > Chernyshov P.
> > > > Soprunenko
> > > >
> > >
> >
>


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