Ukrainian-Polish Population Transfers, 1944–46: Moving in Opposite Directions

Abstract

Shortly after the Red Army entered western Ukraine and eastern Poland in the summer of 1944, representatives of Soviet Ukraine and Poland, meeting in Lublin, agreed to the reciprocal transfer of Poles from the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and of ethnic Ukrainians from Poland. This chapter discusses the far-reaching consequences of the Lublin accord on ‘evacuation’. Its implementation took place against a background of extreme violence which had already induced ‘spontaneous’ migration. The evacuation took much longer than expected, and only came to an end in 1946, by which time some 483,000 Ukrainians had been moved from Poland to Ukraine, while 790,000 Poles were transported from Ukraine to Poland.¹ It represented one of the largest such transfers undertaken in postwar Europe.² Nor did Ukrainians and Poles escape the consequences of further intervention. In 1947 the ‘Vistula ction’ (Akcja Wisla) affected a further 150,000 Ukrainians who had not already resettled.³ Another phase of transfers took place following the final series of territorial adjustments under the Polish-Soviet Agreement of 15 February 1951, as a result of which some 40,000 Ukrainians were expelled from territory annexed to Poland.⁴ Finally, more than 10,000 Poles from among the Soviet deportees (spetsposelentsy) and prisoners, who had been unable hitherto to exercise their right to return, were repatriated to Poland in 1955–56.⁵