Przejęcie polskich internowanych na Litwie przez NKWD latem 1940 roku

ENOur knowledge concerning the issue of the internment of the Polish soldiers in Lithuania is already considerable, we know the details of detainees and the conditions of their stay in the camps. However, it is relatively rare in our historiography to raise the issue of the acquisition of the Poles from the internment camps by the NKVD authorities in the summer of 1940. 14-15 thousand soldiers, including approx. 2.5 thousand officers and 25 thousand civilian refugees, searched for shelter in Lithuania after the Soviet aggression against Poland. The Polish soldiers were deployed in the internment camps in which they were treated in accordance with the standing international conventions. The number of internees was steadily decreasing, which was conditioned by various circumstances - sending soldiers to France, Great Britain at their own request, soldiers’ leave or escape. At the beginning of the occupation of Lithuania by the Red Army, 4 767 people were kept in the camps. The transfer of NKVD internees took place before the official incorporation of Lithuania into the USSR.The circumstances of the acquisition of the Polish military by the NKVD from the camps in Lithuania have been restored thanks to the use of relations gathered in, the so-called, General Anders’ Archive deposited at the Hoover Institute in Stanford. The microfilms of copies of these relations are available in the Archive of New Files in Warsaw. The transport of the Polish internees from the four camps in Lithuania to the NKVD special camps took place in extremely difficult conditions. At the transshipment point in Mołodeczno, officers and policemen were separated from non-commissioned officers and privates. Transports with officers and policemen were sent to the camp in Kozielsk, whereas transports with non-commissioned officers and privates were sent to the camp in Pawliszczew Bor. Keywords: the camps for interned Poles in Lithuania, the Lithuanian camp authorities, prisoner-of-war self-government, the NKVD convoy troops, NKVD special camps: Kozielsk II and Pawliszczew Bor.