During two years, the Soviet communist regime murdered, arrested and tortured Polish citizens in eastern Poland. The communists also deported about 320 000 Polish citizens from Eastern Poland to remote areas in the Soviet Union. Many of them perished ...
During two years, the Soviet communist regime murdered, arrested and tortured Polish citizens in eastern Poland. The communists also deported about 320 000 Polish citizens from Eastern Poland to remote areas in the Soviet Union. Many of them perished. In fact, more Polish citizens were murdered by the Communists 1939-1941 than by the Nazis who occupied western Poland.
Both systems committed terrible crimes against humanity; the problem has been that the Communist crime - quite understandably - has been standing in the shadow of gas chambers and crematories.
On 1 September 1939 Poland was attacked by Germany. Just over two weeks later the Poles were attacked in the back when even the Red Army marched in and took part in the destruction of Poland side by side with Wehrmacht. Hitler and Stalin took their part of Polish territory. Eastern Poland, with about 13 million people, was conquered and annexed by the Soviet Union.
Unlike what happened in the Polish territories during the Nazi occupation, the fate of Eastern Poland between autumn 1939 and summer 1941 have been overlooked despite the fact that the sovietization of these lands was extremely brutal. Arrests, murders, torture and deportations affected hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens. Soviet security agencies conducted a murderous policy aimed at the physical and mental elimination of so called “class enemies” in the conquered Polish territories. Serious assaults could happen to anyone. No one was safe.
In Stalin's grip describes the tragedy in eastern Poland 1939-1941 and its prelude. The book is partly based on previously unused eyewitness accounts.