REPATRIATION OF THE POLISH POPULATION FROM THE IZMAIL REGION IN 1945-1946 (ACCORDING TO THE STATE ARCHIVES OF THE ODESA REGION)
REPATRIATION OF THE POLISH POPULATION FROM THE IZMAIL REGION IN 1945-1946 (ACCORDING TO THE STATE ARCHIVES OF THE ODESA REGION)

Summary/Abstract: The article examines one of the previously unknown aspects of the deportation and repatriation policy of the USSR government in the mid-1940s. Based on the documents of the State Archives of the Odesa region, the preparation and repatriation of Polish citizens from the Izmail region of the Ukrainian SSR, who were deported to remote regions of the USSR at the beginning of the Second World War, is analyzed. The author concluded that рreparatory measures in the Danube lands were carried out mostly in the second half of 1945, after the signing on July 6, 1945 of the Agreement between the governments of the USSR and Poland on the mutual evacuation of the population. According to the considered applications by December 20, 1945 the lists of those wishing to leave the territory of the USSR were formed. They included 2,634 people from three districts of the region, and this figure allows us to define the Izmail region as one, which was home to one of the largest groups of former Polish citizens deported to the USSR since the beginning of World War II. According to the State Archives of Odesa region, they lived in 21 settlements of Tarutyn, Borodino and Artsyz districts, where they moved in 1944. Their temporary residence was mostly villages founded by German colonists, who were deported by the Soviet authorities in 1940. The immediate start of transportation of the controlled population began in early March 1946, when the first group of people left the Danube region. As a result, by the summer of 1946, the relevant authorities of the Izmail region had completed the implementation of the Soviet-Polish agreement on mutual exchange of population, and most of the Polish population had been repatriated to their homeland.

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