Polish Educational Care Centers in the USSR During the Second World War

• Published in: Modern History of Russia
• Main Author: Leonczyk, S.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Russian
• Published: St Petersburg State University 2021
• Subjects: Second World War; USSR; Poland; Siberia; deportations; orphanages; Union of Polish Patriots; Krasnoyarsk Krai
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu24.2021.206; http://hdl.handle.net/11701/33494

Among those Poles deported to the USSR from the eastern provinces of Poland annexed by the USSR in 1939 were many families and children. The Sikorski–Mayski agreement, signed on 30 July 1941, opened the way for Poland and the USSR to resume diplomatic relations. The Embassy of the Republic of Poland set up agencies, so-called Delegations, whose mission was, among others, to implement decisions made by the Polish- Soviet commission. The commission provided welfare services for Poles, which included opening shelters, kindergartens, schools, and orphanages. Initially, from autumn of 1941 to summer 1942, the Soviet authorities supported the establishment of such educational care centers, although after July 1942, when the Polish delegations were dissolved, some of these were shut down, and Polish children were moved to Soviet schools and orphanages. This paper describes the situation of Polish orphanages in the USSR, especially in the Siberian region of the USSR and Kazakhstan. These educational care centers received aid from the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, located in Kuybyshev (Samara). However, they were also supported in the USSR by the Soviet authorities and Union of Polish Patriots (1943–1946), who helped Polish orphans. One such children’s home is the orphanage in Mala Minusa in Krasnoyarsk Krai. Thanks to its authorities, the Polish inmates of the orphanage, who broke away from their motherland during wartime to return there only after the end of the war, have not been forgotten.