Polscy obywatele w Kraju Ałtajskim: od deportacji do układu Sikorski-Majski (w świetle materiałów NKWD)

After the Soviet invasion of Poland in the 1940s about 25,000 Polish citizens were exiled to Altai Krai in Western Siberia. The analysis of the deportation period and the conditions of life of the exiled in Siberia, from 1940 to the establishment of the Polish government structures in London and an Embassy in Kuybyshev, shows that the conception of mass deportation to Siberia was a very scrupulously prepared plan to exploit the cheap workforce. The NKVD documents, reports and instructions confirm that people were living and working in unspeakably horrible conditions. The actions of the Soviet state authorities can be defined as “police and administrative” operation against nations, in that case the Polish nation. The situation changed slightly in 1941, after a Polish-Soviet agreement invali- dated the German-Russian treaty of 1939.