Poland marks 81st anniversary of 1939 Soviet invasion
Poland commemorates on Thursday the 81st anniversary of the country's invasion by the Soviet Union, which occurred on September 17,1939, shortly after Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany. During the day, several observances by top officials are planned.
Early in the morning, Sejm, lower house, Speaker Elzbieta Witek laid flowers at Warsaw's Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East.
The Red Army's attack on Poland came in line with a secret protocol included in the Soviet-German Treaty of August 23, 1939, referred to as the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. The consequence of the alliance of the two totalitarian systems was the division of Poland.
As a result, the Soviet Union seized lands of over 190,000 square kilometres with a population of around 13 million. A reduced Vilnius region was returned to Lithuania by the Soviet authorities at an October 1939 ceremony. However, in June 1940, Lithuania, together with Latvia and Estonia, was absorbed into the USSR.
After the invasion, over 200,000 people were arrested, including high-ranking officers, policemen, landowners and lawyers. The citizens of the Second Polish Republic were forced to have Soviet citizenship. Over 1 million Poles were deported to Siberia, and around 22,500 officers and policemen were killed in Katyn, Kharkiv and Miednoje.
The number of victims among Polish citizens who in the 1939-41 period found themselves under Soviet occupation is to this day not fully known. (PAP)
