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Poland's marks 78th anniversary of Soviet invasion

PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek 17.09.2017 09:37
Polish President Andrzej Duda has laid a wreath at Warsaw's Memorial to the Fallen and Murdered in the East, marking the Red Army's attack on Poland 78 years ago.
Andrzej Duda lays a wreath at Warsaw's Memorial to the Fallen and Murdered in the East. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka.Andrzej Duda lays a wreath at Warsaw's Memorial to the Fallen and Murdered in the East. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka.

The Soviet Union invaded Poland without formally declaring war, as agreed in a secret pre-war Nazi-Soviet Pact, taking half a million Polish soldiers prisoner.

The attack was followed by Soviet occupation and massive deportations.

Historians say the number of Poles deported to the Soviet Union until to 1956 exceeded 1.3 million.

The monument in Warsaw honours the Poles who were deported to labour camps in Siberia, and the victims of Soviet executions. The memorial consists of a great number of religious symbols, both Catholic and Orthodox crosses and Jewish and Muslim symbols, placed on a railway flatcar set on tracks.

The Red Army invaded Poland with 4,000 tanks, 1,800 planes and almost two million soldiers. Poland, already fighting the Nazi Germans, could only send some 300,000 troops to face the Soviet aggression.

Soviet propaganda announced that it was acting to protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians who lived in the eastern part of Poland as the Polish state had collapsed in the face of the German attack. (mk/vb)

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