Back عملية فيستولا Arabic Аперацыя «Вісла» Byelorussian Operació Vístula Catalan Operace Visla Czech Aktion Weichsel German Επιχείρηση Βιστούλας Greek Operación Vístula Spanish Opération Vistule French Operazione Vistola Italian ヴィスワ作戦 Japanese
| Operation Vistula | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Polish–Ukrainian conflict (1939–1947) | |||||||
 UPA soldiers captured by Polish soldiers | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Polish People's Republic |
 Ukrainian Insurgent Army | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Bolesław Bierut Stefan Mossor | Various local leaders | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | 1,135 UPA soldiers killed | ||||||
|
141,000 civilians deported 2,780 civilians were detained under suspicion of collaboration with UPA | |||||||
Operation Vistula (Polish: Akcja Wisła; Ukrainian: Опера́ція «Ві́сла») was the codename for the 1947 forced resettlement of close to 150,000 Ukrainians (including Rusyns, Boykos, and Lemkos) from the southeastern provinces of postwar Poland to the Recovered Territories in the west of the country. The action was carried out by the Soviet-installed Polish communist authorities to remove material support to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.[1][2] The Ukrainian Insurgent Army continued its guerrilla activities until 1947 in Subcarpathian and Lublin Voivodeships with no hope for any peaceful resolution; Operation Vistula brought an end to the hostilities.[3]
In a period of three months beginning on 28 April 1947 and with Soviet approval and aid about 141,000 civilians residing around Bieszczady and Low Beskids were forcibly resettled to former German territories, ceded to Poland at the Yalta Conference at the end of World War II.[3][4] The operation was named after the Vistula River, Wisła in Polish; some Polish and Ukrainian politicians as well as historians condemned the operation following the 1989 fall of communism in Eastern Europe and described it as ethnic cleansing.[5][6] Others argued that no other means of stopping the violence existed since partisans used to regroup outside Polish borders.[3]
At the same time the Soviet Union carried out a parallel action, Operation West, in the Ukrainian SSR. Although both operations were coordinated from Moscow, there was a difference in their results.[3] Operation West was conducted in West Ukraine by the Soviet NKVD and targeted the families of suspected UPA members. Over 114,000 individuals, mostly women and children, were deported to the Kazakh SSR and Siberia and forced into extreme poverty.[3] Of the 19,000 adult males deported by the NKVD, most were sent to coal mines and stone quarries in the north. None of the people deported by the NKVD received any farms or empty homes to live in.[3]
- ^ "Akcja "Wisła" (Wschód) przeciw UPA". Twoje Bieszczady. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
- ^ Eugeniusz Misiło (Євген Місило), Wydział Polityczno-Wychowawczy 7 DP. "Akcja Wisła". Przebieg i statystyki wysiedleń (Introductory notes and tables of data per each voivodeship with index of reference books). Sources: A. B. Szcześniak, W. Z. Szota, Droga do nikąd. Działalność organizacji ukraińskich nacjonalistów i jej likwidacja w Polsce, MON, Warsaw 1973, 433 pages; G. Motyka, Łemkowie i Bojkowie, and Tak było w Bieszczadach, Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, nr 8-9/2001; Andrzej Kaczyński, U nas tu, u nas tam, Rzeczpospolita, nr 106, 08.05.1997. Archived from the original on January 28, 2006. Retrieved 12 July 2015.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ a b c d e f Dr Zbigniew Palski (30 May 2008). "Operacja Wisła: komunistyczna akcja represyjna, czy obrona konieczna Rzeczypospolitej? (Operation Vistula: communist repressions, or the necessary defense of the new Polish Republic?)". Dodatek Historyczny IPN Nr. 5/2008 (12). Nasz Dziennik, Institute of National Remembrance. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
- ^ The Euromosaic notes on the Ukrainian in Poland. European Commission, October 2006. Wayback Machine.
- ^ Timothy Snyder, To Resolve the Ukrainian Question Once and for All: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ukrainians in Poland, 1943-1947. Journal of Cold War Studies, Spring 1999.
- ^ Bohdan S. Kordan (1997), "Making Borders Stick: Population Transfer and Resettlement in the Trans-Curzon Territories, 1944–1949". International Migration Review Vol. 31, No. 3., pp. 704-720 (in) Galicia: A Multicultured Land.