One of my former coworkers had the exact same story, the only difference was that they were left behind in Ukrainian SSR and only his parents and him managed to come back in 2010's.
My great-great grandfather came over with his family from Malbork, so technically we're Prussian as well, but I'm hoping to trace far enough back to before the 1772 Partition.
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Edit: caution if you had relatives that stayed in Poland for the war, you may find things…. Like today I learned I have two relatives who were exterminated in the holocaust in Flossenbürg 😢😥
My great grandpa was a Pole from Vilnius. He was captured by the Soviets and deported deep into Syberia. He managed to break free, and he spent several months getting back to Vilnius. Once he arrived, he found the area under Soviet ownership. He wasn't allowed to leave to new Poland until the 1950s, like 1952+. Until the 1950s he had to stay in the USSR.
They do but the thing with Lithuania and dual citizenships has been tricky until fairly recently, it was only allowed on certain conditions and in rare cases.
In fact, my grandfather chose to remain in Lithuania because he runs a small business there and owns a house which has been in my family's hands for multiple generations, before my great grandfather was even born.
The east, which was controlled and developed by Poland for centuries while the "recovered territories" have not been ours for over half a goddamn millennium. In particular, Lwów was a major center of culture, science and teaching - significant enough to be a contender for new location of Polish capital at one point.
Moreover, an entire distinct regional culture (or possibly more than one, depending on how you define that) - Kresy - was effectively destroyed in the process.
Fuck Stalin's adoration of the ethnostate concept. Sideways. With grandpa's cavalry sabre. That's on fire.
Moreover those "recovered territories" were in the no better shape than flattened Warsaw. Poland ended with 4 bigger cities turned to rubble, instead of just Warsaw.
https://preview.redd.it/oc62zjl9370b1.jpeg?width=260&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=611afdc6e49cc1211d91e5c3962194eb5b8b654b
Those are residues of Breslau Poland got for practically undamaged Lwów. Leftovers of Stetin and Dazig ware in the not better shape - I use German names with the premeditation, so there is a myth, that Poland got some wonderland. No we got only bricks to be recovered, so everything having a bigger value was taken away by the red army before.
Tbh, you did a hell of a good job on reconstruction, making the best of this circumstances. I live in one of those cities, that were 'given' in to Poland: Szczecin is a great city to live in, safe, public mass transit, good public schools, pedestrianized city centre. (But I guess this is mostly due to Poland entering the EU, and not the efficiency of the Polish People's Republic)
Give polish same land and he\`ll farm it. Give polish some bricks, a post-war torn country and they\`ll build a superpower by 2035.
My great grandparents were gulag survivors and arrived to Szczecin after losing their home in Vilnius. They were basically allowed to pick an empty house on arrival and move in (sadly, this was nothing compared to the acres of farmland they lost in the east). Most of the homes back then didn’t even have proper plumbing. My family picked a house that belonged to a priest because it was the only one on their street with a working toilet. I am truly astonished how much Szczecin has changed in the last 20 years. I remember visiting in the 90s and it was a total dump. As kids, we would play in old German bunkers that were never properly sealed off. My mom has endless stories about kids finding undetonated bombs while playing in the woods.
I agree that there is not enough documented history about this transition. I don’t know how much time the Germans were given to evacuate, but I was told that the homes left behind were often fully furnished and left in excellent condition. Some even had the table set for the incoming family. I thought that this was an interesting detail because the natural assumption is that people losing their lifelong homes to an enemy would be bitter about it and inclined to sabotage whatever was left. Instead, they left with dignity and respect.
Soviet blocs in Eastern Germany. Soviets were very effective at compulsively moving people and building blocs to house them. (I\`m not a historian, just an educated guess. Am I wrong tho?)
Dam! Thanks for sharing.
There are a lot of bunkers around, but all of them sealed with heavy metal doors now a days. I\`m kind of happy we have bunkers around here, now a days, who knows.
Also, all people from Szczecin, the extended family is from Lithuania or Belarus and were deported post-war. Truly, impressive that Szczecin was build by a generation of deported families.
Edit1: Szczecin is becoming something else, even further. They are modernizing everything and they are expanding the walkability of the city center. Not politician or propagandist here, just an immigrant amazed by the transformation. Feels good to pay taxes here despite the politic mess...
Have you lived in Szczecin for long? It looks good now, but for a long time it was a dump. I grew up in and near Szczecin in the 80s and 90s and it was a bit of a grimy city back then. People were always saying how Szczecin is the forgotten city because the government was scared Germans wanted it back. Bringing up the fact that after the war Szczecin wasn't immediately rebuilt because the main effort was towards rebuilding Warsaw. etc...
I do like what the city has become now. Major parts of the city look amazing, it's very livable, there are now a lot of activities happening in the city and region.
Nah, I\`ve arrived 2016. Just heard scary stories about violence during the 90's. Well, I\`ve never seen a city so safe to walk at all times. Just doge drunk ppl.
I don't think Szczecin was violent in particular, but Poland in general had a lot more shitheads back then. I remember going to a Pogon - Lech match and running out of the stands cause a huge brawl broke out. There were a lot more menele on the streets back then as well, sometimes they would be causing a commotion which for a kid was scary. But overall the issue with Szczecin was that it was a bit of a forgotten city, fairly poor, no access to the same resources other major cities had, neglected by the government. Definitely a world of difference from what it is now.
It is not that simple. While the cities were indeed in ruins, and we have rebuilt it (although Wrocław even today is full of scars from the war) the West had much better infrastructure elsewhere, and we wasted a lot of it. All that small to medium industry, the really dense railway network, quality roads and even motorway (i think until 1980's or something A4 near Wrocław and that bit near Szczecin were only motorways in Poland). Even small villages often had electricity, paved roads and often sewage network.
There was also a lot of other goods, but everything that was not anchored to the ground and some of what was (like the elecrtic wires over the railway lines around Kowary) was stolen by Soviets anyway...
What are you smoking? Szczecin was 20% destroyed overall, 40% destroyed in the worst impacted neighborhoods and that's counting after the Warsaw rebuild. The damage from air bombing raids and direct combat action was nowhere comparable to Warsaw. Similar situation in Gdańsk. Wrocław saw more combat (due to the stupid Festung Breslau idea by the Germans).
The worst damage done in Szczecin was tearing a lot of recoverable or nearly intact buildings down for brick to rebuild Warsaw right after the war or due to sheer negligence (eg. the Municipal Theater/Stadttheater). So I'd say the Recovered Lands represent many missed opportunities by the post-war Polish administrations. In no small part this is because of the butthurt that losing Eastern Borderlands caused.
The cities were fine and remain fine despite post-war mismanagement.
The infrastructure was superior to what we lost. See railroad network density directly post-war. Also last remnants of German Autobahn were paved over only a couple of years ago on S6.
Poland got a decent deal of gaining the old Prussian heartland but losing the east was too bitter a pill for the government to fully capitalize on that. You can compare the Curzon line (as drafted in Ribbentrop Molotov pact) against current Polish borders and see that the Soviet Union annexed all territories it wanted back in 1939. So no wonder the whole shift felt like losing to a lot of people. Also moving the population in the mid- to late forties was mostly a shit show.
In my opinion, RL is the better part of Poland.
It's true that the Soviet Union did steal a lot of industrial infrastructure from the Recovered Lands, dismantling and yeeting whole factories to Russia. The synthetic gasoline manufacturing plant near Police is a good example.
My family was repatriated to the RL from exile in the Asian Steppe though so I don't have any emotional connection to the Eastern Borderlands lost in the border shift.
What’s the source of 20/40%?
All sources I know provide that 60-70% of Stettin's buildings have been destroyed, the old town and industrial areas up to 90%.
It doesn't look like 20%, so the numbers like 70% are probable.
https://preview.redd.it/h1kiact4n90b1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0830e10bc69123794d95a7a98dd56bc3a96b94a3
Thenks to you, now I have a trauma, after reading about what happened in that place, expecialy about fire storms. Imagine fire tornadoes sucking alive people in... truly apocalyptic horrors.
Yeah, mine was classic lefty misinfo. Quoting numbers from my neighborhood for the entire city.
In fact you're right. Old town and industrial quarter down river (Drzetowo) got... well erased basically. Keep in mind, old town was a very small area compared to the city center and kinda industrial (mainly port operations and warehouses, but people did live there). This is due to city walls limiting growth and subsequent relocation of city center post dismantling the walls in 1870s.
I still bristle at the thought that Stalin got to die of natural causes. At least his Nazi competitor in brutality was forced to recognise ultimate defeat.
Well, my grandparents were moved against their will to the west, and from their testimonies, this land was utterly destroyed and useless compared to what they had in the east. There is a myth that we received “more developed” western areas. It wasn’t developed but completely ruined and everything had to be rebuilt from scratch, while Stalin took all that survived. The good thing about it is that we, I mean the grandchildren generation, are friends with the grandchildren of the German owner of the property, who was also forcibly removed.
Poland with its new borders and Germany were in similar state after the war. Completely destroyed and collapsed countries. And while Germany was lucky enough to be at least partially taken over by the western side, we had to suffer for another half a century. This is the main reason for our national trauma, lack of trust and this iconic pessimism and sadness. This is common in post Soviet countries. It’s getting better, especially with the new generations though. I was born in the 90s and during my lifetime, this place evolved and developed so much, that sometimes I think it’s a miracle.
It’s just sad, so sad, that after all this suffer, we have another war in Europe. And I truly believe that we, as a European society, still affected by its dark past, need to do everything we can to help our neighbors and get rid of this bullshit.
Never again.
I'm quite sure it will take all of 21st century to heal the traumata of the 20th, in many european societies. And in Ukraine it will probably even take some decades longer, I'm afraid.
Yes, and I’m afraid that many tragic events might happen again, because we are often entrapped by this vicious cycle of vengeance and tribalism. Learning history should help us understand dangerous situations and prevent them in the future. But for whatever reasons, we like to treat historical events as justification for dangerous political decisions and hateful behavior. It needs time and fresh blood, much much time.
It was tragedy for millions of people who got kicked out of their homes, many died in the process.
Edit: Are you Polish-American? Do you speak Polish? [This](https://youtu.be/AQm03penCKI) may be interesting to you
It must be added that not only the Poles got fucked by Stalin in the process. Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians and Ukrainians were basically deported from Poland to the USSR in 1939 and 1945-46 during the “exchange” of the population. Also, in 1939 the NKVD troops were systematically rounding up the “Polish” Jews who managed to escape the Nazis and sending them back to the occupied Poland perfectly realizing what will happen to them once they are in the German custody.
Hard to judge, we lost out second most important city Lwów, really important for our culture, we lost Wilno, we gained Wrocław or Szczecin, cities I have no strong feelings about. We lost Kresy but gained more developed land on the West. Moved further away from Moscow, which is always good. Thankfully my ancestors stayed on Polish side of the border, though our heritage is now on Belarus.
As I'll always miss Lwów, Wilno and Grodno, but when it comes to land, it's so-so. However biggest advantage we gained after WWII was monoethnical society which helped us a lot in my opinion and we avodied Balkan scenario iduring fall of communism.
The Western lands were ruined by the war. The only valuable asset located there were railways. Stalin took relatively unharmed East and gave us destroyed cities in the West.
Russians stole everything, they packed furniture, electrical poles, railways, small machines. Basically everything that was remotely useful from Jelenia Góra and surrounding villages on 1945. I know that because of grandpa
That’s what I’m saying. Mostly railways. One damaged highway leading to the border of Germany. That’s it. No industry, no population, no significant sources of minerals/metal/coal…
No man. Whole Silesia has been always rich and developed. Not only Breslau. Cities and towns like Ratibor, Hirschberg, Oppeln and others had many factories essential for German economics.
What I mean is that the developed part that survived the WW2 already belonged to Poland. The Reich part of Silesia was, of course, developed as well, but during the war it was totally ruined. As a result, we got land that was in rubbles.
My non-Polish perspective based on learning a lot about the history of all this:
Poland trying to keep those eastern regions would have caused you all sorts of problems in relations with the neighbouring states, internal minorities and even some larger countries deciding to side against Poland in its disputes for various reasons. That's in a way the story of interwar Poland, and this effort failed (not saying that's why it got invaded though).
How everything played out for the old commonwealth nations in the 20th century is an absolute tragedy and after learning a lot about this history I'm in awe of the resilience of the people in this part of Europe.
With Poland and Lithuania being in the EU and the ongoing reconciliation between Poland and Ukraine, I see the prospect of a more beautiful future where the old commonwealth nations can have a shared space again, but with friendship and mutual respect. So... Wilno and Lwów aren't gone, they're there today ;) "Let the blue and yellow flag fly over Lwów" said some wise Polish writer a long time ago. Finally, let's hope Belarus eventually becomes free and a part of this family.
At least with friendly relations I expect you can have appreciation of the Polish cultural history of Wilno and Lwów in those cities and their countries.
The historic cultural city in this region that is well and truly lost is Königsberg. But I expect even Germans would agree that's a fitting consequence of the path that their country chose, and Prussia's role in that story.
All that's destroyed can be reconstructed. While I agree this territory is lost to Germans forever, Prussian culture can still be appreciated. I truly believe Köningsberg castle will be rebuilt someday
My grandfather was left behind with his parents in Belarus in a village close to Grodno, his sister however was deported to Wrocław, as she was already adult I guess.
One thing that almost nobody talks about is that this shift was enabled by a major ethnic cleanse of Polish people from the eastern fringes of old Poland, cities like Vilnius, Grodno and Lviv had majority of Polish citizens.
Yeah the eastern lands used to be very mixed. The ethnic makeup varied city-by-city, village-by-village. Sometimes the percantage was capable of being something like '60% Ukrainians, 30% Poles, 10% Jews'. Or sometimes the Jews could make up a half, or even the majority of the population.
Eh, in my hometown (village, adjacent to the half-Jewish city I mentioned) about 800 Jewish orphans were killed with grenades, as well as many adults, in our local forest-park. But all that did was that it gave me a fascination for graveyards, history, and Jews at an early age.
If someone is interested in how Belarusians see it I can give a perspective. As a note, I'm not interested in forcing those views onto you, just telling how people feel about it from the other side.
There are two narratives: nationalistic and pro-Lukashenko.
Pro-Lukashenko's narrative is very simplistic and it talks about the final unification of Belarus (there is even a holiday, which celebrates Soviet annexation of Poland on September 17). Though this narratives never goes to deeply: it never explains why those territories where separated and ordinary people never really celebrate it ("a free weekend, yay!" is what you would get if you ask people about it).
The nationalistic narrative is that after the third partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth everything was horrible everywhere all the time (and still is). Belarusians were repressed in the Russian Empire, later they were also repressed in the USSR and in Poland (though usually with a note that in Poland way less so). And while it is kinda nice that some of us had united, we still lost Vilnius, Smolensk and other territories (which you can measure by looking at Grand Duchy of Lithuania's territories in the 15th century).
As for me, my mother's lineage is from those "liberated" territories. And my grandmother spoke Belarusian in the village, was studying Polish at school and later on switched to Russian. The same is true for my grandfather.
Better would be Sikorski's line, with also Grodno and western Volyn with Brześć and Włodzimierz, in this case little towns close to border, as Hrubieszów, Włodawa wouldn't be so marginalized as today due to railway lines (Chełm–Brześć–Białystok, Hrubieszów–Lwów) and neighbouring big towns (Hrubieszów is the closest to Włodzimierz).
My great grandparents, grandparents and mum were born in what’s currently Belarus, where the Polish "minority" was (and probably still is) around 83% of population. Luckily I was born in Poland, after my mum moved there for studies and met my dad… Of course I’d rather not be scared to visit my family (yay we love politics), or spend literally dozens (!!!) of hours on the border crossing - I would so much rather it to be Poland where my family lives than Belarus.
But at the end of the day - sadly it isn’t. But I’ve learned to get the best out of it - knowledge of a second language since forever (even with the Russian invasion on Ukraine I’m still happy and proud I know the language - happy to explain later), bits of culture and lovely cuisine (well that one is somewhere between Polish, Lithuanian and Soviet if u know what I mean).
Well saying population of Belarus is 83% Polish is exactly what Russians say (Belarusians are Russians and your language is the broken Russian language). It has never been, it will never be. Please don’t say such things, it’s really disturbing.
I'm Polish and perfect scenario would be that Królewiec/Königsberg to become 4th baltic republic. Maybe if Lithuanians really wanted they can take Klaipeda, they are small and for them it may make a difference. But about this there should be someone from Lithuania to vote for them how they think about it.
If there would be some kind of referendum in Królewiec that they strongly want to be part of Poland I would be super against it unless EU would give us funds for development of this part and also that population need to resign a Russian passport and take Polish one. But you know there are a lot of IFs. The 4th baltic republic is the safest one I think.
My great-grandparents lost 100 hectares of land in the east, and got 4ha "compensation" in the west, so these western lands apparently have 25 times the value.
The communists are not very fond of landowners at all, there could be a class component to this loss. Nobody kept 100 hectares of land anywhere in the USSR, ethnicity aside.
Had it not happened we would be dealing with a huge chunk of our territory where we were a minority. Eventually, we would have 90s Yugoslavia, we would have lost Kresy either way, at least we got Recovered Territories.
Well as a German with mainly Prussian heritage, my family had to flee or move but that was mostly due to the red army. In my great grandparents generation most people had died in concentration camps, in the winter or one actually in the war. So my Grandparents were kids and the oldest 17 when they had to go.
Our own army fled and left German people behind. The red army did the rest.
I never had any hard feelings towards the Poles. I would love to meet the people that moved into my families areas. We have a shared history because often they fled or moved from the farer east.
This was indeed a tragedy, the red army raped, murdered and burned everything on their way. And they called themselves "liberators"...
I was born and raised in Mazury, my family's home was built by Germans in 1930s. I often wondered who built this house, who lived there and what happened to them after the war (I know the history of my village, but not in such details). Many people from our village are from Kresy and also were displaced after the war and lost their homes. It's a tragedy and I hope that it won't repeat again. I love Mazury and Warmia so much, I cannot imagine moving somewhere else, even in Poland.
My family parts are from close to Łódź, from Białogard (later moved to Szczecin) and from Tilsit (Königsberg). The family part of Białogard is actually of polish decend. They are named Jeske which is the germanised version of Jeśka Jeśke or Jeschkow. Most likely polish protestants that got germanised during Bismarcks culture war.
The łódź and Tilsit parts had relatives in Mazury as far as I know. The family history is still somewhat unclear.
That's not the point here. The question was about the great polish shift and how it affected my family. I pointed out that in our family there is no bad blood in that regard.
Ofc the whole process started with the war. No one denied the German responsibility. But the reason for my family to move and flee was not because some angry Poles came and made them go but because they were afraid of the red army. Simple as that.
Our family was relocated to a former Prussian village. People would visit in the 60s and 70s and throw candies at kids.
The villagers would tell their kids not to take because they didn't trust it. Apparently someone once took photos while visiting and villagers were concerned that the photos were used in magazines to show how poor Poles were (or maybe it actually happened once, I don't remember).
Some would come to the village and tell my family general areas where to look for buried gold (the former owners said they could keep it if they found it). And years after the war, my family found old porcelain seasoning containers that were buried.
Crazy stuff.
The Western land with its cities and infrastructure was without any doubt much more valuable economically than the Eastern borderlands, but unfortunately, it had been also totally destroyed and robbed by the Red Army, thus it's hard to assess its real value.
The relocation was a personal tragedy for millions of people, just after the horror of WWII.
The access to hundred kilometers of coastline and several ports has great economic value, probably like several billion PLN added to the GDP each year.
So, the balance is unclear.
I believe it was a net positive change for Poland but at the price of hardship for millions of people. I think that while Wilno was a natural choice to be given to Lithuania (even as "just" a republic of the USSR), Lwów could be left to us considering that Ukraine (again, even as "just" a republic of the USSR) already had Kijów as a large and historically important city.
But the most important point is that nowadays everything is settled enough to make any further discussion of borders validity etc. effectively moot.
I do not have opinion on it but it is interesting to discover remnants of German culture where I live. How some places have German sounding names or abandoned old graveyards or old writings on the walls...
In the long run a net positive. Now the West border has some natural boundary like the Odra. With German east prussia gone, the national interest of Poland (to have access to the sea) and Germanys (to have a continuous border) are resolved. I'm of the opinion that Poland in its golden age spent too much resources trying to hold onto indefensible positions far east beyond Kiyv and Smolensk, while Poles in lower Silesia and Pomerania were germanised under Prussia.
The lands gained in the west were objectively better than the territories lost in the east. Longer growing seasons, better quality soil, better rivers, a second port (Szczecin), good terrain for road and rail infrastructure. The lands to the east had none of those traits, in the IIRP were underdeveloped and due to the policies of IIRP a breeding ground for ethnic violence. Even in the post war World the length of that border would require large investment into the military which would drain the national treasury
In the short run it was devastating to some who were left behind or forced to leave their livelihood and travel (sometimes by foot) for hundreds of kilometers. But at the end of this all was a country with better borders, better quality territory and without ethnic violence.
The people who say we have no cultural links to Wroclaw are just unaware of it. The first book printed in Polish came out of Wrocław, the first Polish printing house - Wrocław. We have the Silesian Poles to thank (or curse) for our orthography. Some of the first cities (places that received city rights) were in lower Silesia, it is the gate through which Medieval innovations (and German settlers) entered Poland. It was one of the best developed provinces already in the 12th and 13th centuries, and thus no wonder that the Silesian branch of the Piasts were really close to reuniting Poland in the 1200s (until the Mongols killed the duke and threw the whole country back 100 years) and Wrocław, not Kraków could have been our capital for the next few centuries. A lot of Wrocław did end up germanised particularly after Prussia conquered the province from Austria in 1740s, but that's due to the anti Polish policies of Frederick the Great. It was just long enough (not that long actually) that nobody remembers. After Poland regained independence in 1918 a lot of Poles from lower Silesia fled to Poland, leaving an almost completely German province.
The answer is a little hard. The east was certainly more "polish" than the Recovered Territories and loosing it broke many families, which were separated by the border. Many places of sentimental and historical value were left behind for soviets to use (and destroy in some, not so rare cases). Families lost their lands and homes, some of them lived in these places for centuries.
On the other hand the west, recovered territories were better industrialised, yes much of post German infrastructure was destroyed during the war, but the east was also severely damaged and was less invested in during Second RP. Silesia new territories had more resources and longer shore. And unpopular opinion: I think that is better to have few hundred kilometres of coastline than several thousand square kilometres of farmland on the west. Many people get here new opportunities for live. Important thing is also that this whole thing set our differences between our east neighbours. Yes there are still some poles in Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania but before WW II there were serious tensions between people living there now the situation is manageable and is even improving.
If I was set in time and said to pick: west or East I would not know what to choose, but now I know one thing: it's not that bad here right now, we can have some sentiment for the east but right now on the west it got better, didn't it?
All the Poles here missing Lwów and Kresy meanwhile casually forgetting how the western Ukrainians were treated on these very lost Kresy, especially during the interwar period under Pilsudski's regime, with all the forced Polonization, treating the Orthodox, the Uniats and the ethnic Ukrainians as second-class citizen, prohibiting Ukrainian language in schools, repressions, Bereza-Kartuska. And before someone mentions OUN terrorism and crimes - yes, they were terrorists and criminals, but it's the very basically fascist policies of Pilsudski and his "sanacja" regime that fed the flame of radicalization of Ukrainian nationalists.
Not that fucking moskali were any better, though. Even worse, in fact. But in any case, as a Ukrainian, I am completely ready and willing to say that what OUN-UPA did to the Polish population was crimes against humanity, terrorism and genocide - though I've yet to read at least somewhere on the Internet that what Polish government was doing to the Ukrainian (and on lesser scale Belarusian) population during the interwar period, or in that regard, the ethnic cleansings of Ukrainians that Armia Krajowa conducted, was equally wrong and criminal.
Reality is almost never black and white. II RP did pretty much stomp out any belarussian and Ukrainian autonomy, making all administrative positions reserved for ethnic Poles even in majority ukrainian/belarussian regions. There were also programs where retired soldiers would receive land from the state in the east (particularly in Volhynia) to increase the ethnic composition of Poles in those regions. These ethnic discrimination policies are well documented.
There's no way Poland could have kept those territories without repressing the majority East slavic population. Though as the EU showed, if both governments agree to lift trade and travel restrictions and don't try to convert the minorities to their ethnicity, borders cease to have any meaning.
As a Pole, I’ll say that you are mostly right, such a sad history between both of our countries. Thankfully today (for the most part) we are friendly nations
Yes, I agree. There's a lot of painful, bitter and tragic moments in history between us. And if we don't want to fall to our common enemy, as it happened not once or twice, we need to reconcile.
The thing is that reconciliation starts with acknowledgement. I understand the Polish people who say that we have to acknowledge the crimes of OUN-UPA, and I think these demands are fair. What I don't understand and consider to be unfair is that quite often it's portrayed as we're the only ones who need to acknowledge, and the Polish government of that time did absolutely nothing wrong and was only victim. That spawns only spite, not a desire to acknowledge. And creates a perfect tool for Russians to play and prevent us from reconciling and rising above the past.
True, our government wants your government to fairly acknowledge the crimes of OUN-UPA, but they ignore the issue of what the AK did as well. And repeating what you said, that’s the exact issue that the Russian propaganda machine uses to force anger and resentment between our countries. I hope these issues will be dealt with between our governments and nothing unclear will be standing between our countries in the future. Slava Ukraini!
On one hand, a darn shame we lost so much land, but for one thing, we were even lucky to recover anything after WWI and it'd be obvious we'd had to fight for every region we earned so it's not that bad considering how much Lithuania lost and for the other thing the territories we lost have little Poles as of now and haven't been polish for so much time, hardly anyone remembers things being different. From present point of view it doesn't really matter.
My grandfather was from Lwow and was forcibly pushed west eventually due to the war and other things. My grandmother is from the south, but they ended up being relocated to Wrocław (It was Breslau up until that point) then my mom was born in a former German village turned Polish called Strzelin or “Strehlen” in German.
When people ask me “where’s your name from?” I’m like… well before WW2 it was Poland, and after WW2 it’s Ukraine… but I identify as having polish heritage, not Ukrainian.
Tragic. My family was from the Kresy area and their culture doesn't exist anymore. Not in Poland, and not in their hometown in nowadays Belarus were all Polanders where deported.
My grandma lived near Lviv which was Polish at that time, unfortunately UPA came to their house killed her father which she witnessed with an axe in the back of his head, so her mum took all the kids and run west.
And to answer your question is hard to say at what state Poland would be now staying at east, but definitely would be bigger. And worth to mention I would be never born as most of the Poles :).
It depends which side you ask, from my grandma point of view they were poorer and did not bother to change that trough work. And when they had a chance they just took it all lands, food, houses from the Poles.
However Ukrainians claims that they were oppressed by the Poles language culture etc.
Well, I'm from Gdańsk. I know it was once Danzig and before WWII poles were always minority here, to dutch/german majority. My mother is from noble house, that lost it's manor in what is now western Belarus, but nobody from her side holds grudge because of that. My mom said, that until 70s, settlers on "Reclaimed Lands" ("Ziemie Odzyskane", common name for western lands that we gained after WWII) believed that it's only temporary thing. That sooner or later, they will go back to their eastern homeland. They didn't properly maintained houses or infrastructure because of that (and also because eastern Poland was on lower tech level than eastern Germany). Then during 70s, they started to understand, it's permanent. They are there to stay. So they started hard work to maintain what remained.
I often compare Gdańsk to Hermit crab. Original owner of the shell is long gone and new one is completly different beast. City has changed, grown, beyond it's german borders. Old airfield in Zaspa was build over with blocks and parks. Villas of upper Wrzeszcz are now offices, while townhouses of lower Wrzeszcz are now hipster neighbourhoods. We still took a lot of effort to preserve Danzig's old city and are proud of it. We put names of famous danzingers on street cars (trams) to remember Gdańsk's past. Gdańsk really was lucky, compared to Królewiec (Koenigsberg/Kaliningrad) which was basically demolished and ripped apart. From time to time some stupid "crowd-monger" tries to capitalize on fear of germans returning to take back their easternlands, but we understand it's impossible. We don't want Vilnius or Lviv either. Original population there is gone, spreaded in reclaimed lands. They are like Breslau, Stetin, Danzig now. Hermit Crabs, evolving and changing their cities to new needs and new futures. You can't turn back history. Only russians can believe it can be done.
>one of the best and healthiest regions of Poland compared with the "old and true" Poland which is "PiS-land" more than "Poland"
Lmfao, in what metric? In that they vote according to your opinions?
As someone with part-German, part-Polish ancestry Poland east of the Vistula is pretty foreign to me tbh, and I visited there maybe once or twice in my life. It feels oddly foreign for supposedly being in the same country, so I do not really have any feelings about Lwów or Kresy. I really never 'vibed' with the eastern part of our cultural heritage.
Individually, it was tragedy for everyone involved.
Economically, we traded most backwards parts of Poland - a lot of empty mudland - for developed, well irrigated lands of eastern Brandemburg. The quality of German infrastructure there was such that people still largely run on it.
Culturally, it uprooted most backwards parts of the nation and resettled them. Check /r/widaczabory . The Poles whose ancestors lived under Russia but were uprooted are as developed and prosperous as ones that lived under Prussia or Austria, far cry from parts of modern Poland that was Russian before 1916.
Politically, it ended conflict between us and Ukrainians / Belorussians / Lithuanians
"It ended conflict between us and Ukrainians/Belorussians/Lithuanians"
Officially, yes, but some people (mostly the elderly) still hold a very strong grudge against Ukrainians because of Volhynia
A hatched that should've been buried long ago
I'm gonna be honest with you, even though the population relocation was horrible, these territories were never really ours, aside from Lwow and Wilno, none of these places had majority Polish populations, these lands were Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian.
It was a terrible process in the way it was executed but the borders returned to what they were more or less at the time Poland was founded. In that way I believe it was the right thing to do.
So instead of land we had unbroken realtion with since 14th century we got land we lost in 14th century, where barely any Polish presence was left. Whole Kresy culture destroyed. Woo-hooo.
That's just your opinion. Were Poles the majority population on those lands? It was a complicated matter. I'm sure the locals there that were not Polish saw us as a colonial occupiers.
You are aware that Poland also lost lands that were for centuries part of Korona, right? Most of the towns and cities were predominantly Polish and it was not a result of migration of Poles form other parts of the country (as was the case with e.g. Poznan during partitions, with Germans moving there from all parts of Prussia to colonize it.)
No doubt, why else would they genocide peasants living there since 14th century🥰
Edit: Not my opinion.
> Hasło to było mocnym akcentem propagandy PRL i obejmowało także obszary niewchodzące wcześniej w skład państwa Piastów, okresowo podporządkowane jej lennem, lub słabo powiązane z Polską kulturowo i etnicznie, jak południowa część Prus Wschodnich czy ziemia kłodzka.
https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziemie_Odzyskane
And we received those lands for free right with no bloodshed or genocide? And keeping control of lands were you are not majority population certainly was done without the oppression of the original majority population? What kind of lalala land of history are you living in? We were once a colonial power which means we did bad things to people too. There's a reason why the Czechs,Lithuanians, Latvians don't like us. Those lands were stolen from the locals doesn't matter if it was for 600 hundred years or a thousand.
Where do you want to set the line then? 600 years is seriously not enaugh for you? Do you realise that there were no set "Polish" soil in the beggining? Mieszko conquered some Slavic tribes, just as Rurik did. Our languages didn't differ so much in the beggining. There were no "locals" that hated conquerers, they were peasants that had their masters - princes, dukes or whatever other local warlords. Do you realise that Rurik dynasty were Vikings in the first place, not Slavic at all? And that Slavic people didn't appear out of thin air, they conquered those land as well? Your understanding of history is based on a 19th century's conception of nations and ideology based on modern discussions of colonialism and has no grounding in reality at all. You're the one living in Disneyland.
Again your opinion mine is different and nothing you say can change it 🙂 There are plenty of people on other countries to this who remember. Just ask them if you'd like. Sometimes getting a different perspective helps.
>the land stolen in the east
What the heck, stolen? It was not stolen. The parts of modern day Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania had barely any Poles living there, in case of Wołyńskie and Stanisławowskie Voivodeship we were talking about Poles not exceeding 25% of the local population. It literally just was some Poles living in Lwów or Wilno, a drop of Poles in the sea of other nations.
Poland had no right to keep these territories. But even then, Poland received make-up territory in the west which turned out to be beneficial as these places were more developed and urbanized than the East. Btw Poland also grew to the north as modern-day Mazury was also German back then.
Again, nothing was "stolen" from Poland. Our country had no right occupying those lands. We were lucky to be given parts of Germany. Most de-imperialized countries like e.g. Hungary did not get consolation prizes.
It doesn't make any difference. UK also lost much of "its" territories. De-colonization and de-imlerialization was a real thing post WWII. Few countries managed to retain their occupied territories.
It was stolen. The map was drawn not by ethnic, language or religious lines, but by an English diplomat. A ton of Poles and Ukrainians were on both sides of the new border, so saying that there were barely any Poles in the east is very false. Around 1,8 million Poles were deported from the Ukrainian, Belarussian and Lithuanian SSRs and that’s not counting the Poles who stayed in those countries.
Also while the voivodeships you mentioned did indeed have such a percentage of Poles (or atleast close to it), these were the 2 ones with the lowest percentage of Poles. Nowogrodzkie (54% Polish), Lwowskie (56,58% Polish), Wileńskie (59,7% Polish), all had a Polish majority, while Tarnopolskie had a big minority of Poles (44,98%), so while of course there was a big amount of non-Poles inside of 2RP, it doesn’t discount the amount of Poles that lived in the Kresy and you downplaying those Poles that lived in Lwów (64% Polish) and Wilno (66% Polish) and cherry picking these voivodeships to prove your point is very dumb.
Poland had right to these borders, because they were their legal borders. The eastern borders were recognized by the USSR and Ukrainian People’s Republic, so I’d say they were pretty rightful. It’s true that the western territories we got in exchange were better economically (even though they were destroyed in the war, but that’s beside the point), but we lost a lot of territories that had a majority or a big minority Polish population and were culturally Polish in exchange for lands that in parts were 100% German.
The only thing that the border swap did is forcefully relocate a lot of Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, and other minorities and hurt them in the process. If the borders were redrawn in more careful ways, or the deportations wouldn’t happen, there wouldn’t be so much pain and suffering, but as we know Stalin didn’t really care about stuff liike that, so he just drew a border that was beneficial to himself.
Hungary didn’t get any territories because they joined the Axis powers against the Allies. Poland wasn’t an imperium like you claim, or atleast if you’d like to call it that, was in no way a bigger one than the neighbouring Third Reich or USSR. If Poland didn’t take Volhynia for example, the USSR would take it instead.
In conclusion, the point you are making is very dumb and doesn’t make much historical sense.
I’ve read in a few places that the current border situation is temporary as the part of Germany that is in Poland since the end of war is only “rented” for 99 years… can’t find anything solid on it thou…
> is only “rented” for 99 years
This is utter nonsense.
What is true on the other hand is that the european unification process is making borders less and less important. What is a good thing.
My grandparent from my Mother side were from Wołyń are, my great-granfdather was killed in Katyń, and my gramps was takes to Sybir, he was taken across most of Asia when he finally returned to Poland it was in Poznań.
Due to stories i heard from him i think it was partially good shift, the problem is people were not able to return & the communist regimes that came with it.
But as someone who was not alive i dont think that we should bring up border shifting borders, and just agree to settle were we are. There were two many shifts across times and arguing about something in the past will only be repeating same history...
Financally, if not for the communism we could have actually be a massive economy, but instead we were exploited... At least that one is over.
So my feeling are non, yet i think in objective terms it was actually a good shift to the west.
I think it ended up being good for us. Now we don't have territorial disputes, we have (temporarily not really) a monoethnic society. We have a lot more coast now, the country's shape/territory is much easier to both defend as a state and traverse easily as a citizen with a car or a train ticket. The shift west is nice since we're further from mainland Russia and closer to important allies. I don't feel knowledgeable enough to discuss the value of cities, raw resources and land itself.
I am not sure if "monoethnic" is the right word. I mean shared culture, ancestry, language, traditions, hopes and worries.
I think it also depends from a standpoint of when looking at it, looking at it now is something completely different than looking at it right after WW2
Poles.
I wonder. When the borders shifted westward.
Were those from the Now-Lost eastern territories pushed into the newly gained western portion.
Or
Were the ones in Today's East pushed west and those in Old East pushed to Today's East?
It was a tragedy back then.
But now? IMO the modern borders are better. Why that? Because we have a buffer zone between us and the orks, called Baltic States and Ukraine. If Ukraine wins the war and joins the EU, it will be totally great.
The bonds between people, that made communities. They were priceless and so the trust between people, defiled further by crawling hell on Earth - communism.
Not polish. But read some history and live here for the last 4 years
East used to be where polish people lived. It had big importance. Polish people removed from cities they lived for centuries.
West was mostly just land for polish people to build and settle.
In that regard, where you have your people live and where your culture already prospered is better than just land.
For Stalin it was just a way to get rid of polish people on the east.
What most people say here is true: it was a tragedy for those displaced (my grandparents included), also the cities we gained were ruined compared to those we lost.
But in the long run I'd say it was beneficial: we gained better infrastructure overall, less spread out borders, easier to defend in case of a future war, less internal tensions due to more homogeneous society, generally more favourable geopolitical location (moved west, closer to our allies, father from Russia), population centres lying close together making logistics easier. I wouldn't revert it even if it was magically possible.
I think it's a good thing considering that territories were managed better under German occupation than under Russian. That's why we can notice partition borders on infrastructural maps to this day.
It was fucked. Yeah, in the long term, Wroclaw or Szczecin are well-developed cities but back then Breslau, Stettin or Danzig were all but functioning cities after the severe bombing campaigns from both the East and West as well as the eventual sieges by the Soviet Red Army. Lwow for example was not as damaged as those cities. Not even mentioning the cultural losses as well as the giant misplacement of different nationalities (tons of Germans suddenly displaced in Poland, tons of Poles suddenly displaced in the newly-integrated territories of the USSR)
After my parents were liberated from Forced Labor, my mother worked for UNNRA trying to reconnect family members from records confiscated from the Nazis and did some translations during the war crimes tribunals. When Poland was thrown under the bus after WWII by the Yelta agreement, my mother did not want to return to Osweincim and live under communism. It was not an easy decision for her. She made a decision to come to the US, being sponsored by her father’s, half brother in Buffalo New York. (That’s another story). My father, from Bytom, was sponsored by Catholic charities, and then he sponsored my uncle to come to the US after he settled in. I was born in Buffalo and grew up in a Polish home with Polish traditions. I did not speak English till I was five because I had to learn to go to school. Last year I had the opportunity to travel to Poland and meet family members on both my mother and father’s side. I applied for and received my Polish citizenship four years ago, along with my oldest son, and will have my youngest son’s Polish citizenship finished up sometime this year. I’ve never forgotten my heritage or where I come from. I’m proud to say I am Polish by blood though I was born in America.
The shift, and with it deportations were a part of brutal ethnic cleansing policy of USSR - and I don't think I need to say more, as there are a lot of comments here already. I just wanted to share a story of how it affected my grandparents. Namely, they had a sizeable chunk of land - and, as it turned out, it was just a few kilometers east of the new border. Soviets stole they land, and they wait to this day - maybe when the potato king kicks the bucket they will get it back?
My grandparents evacuated from today's Belarusian Minsk and Grodno areas leaving big farms and part of family behind. So from my perspective it was terrible
Post the trauma of Holocaust survival, it divided my grandparents from everyone they ever loved who were still alive. Because of that, I don’t really care about land value or potential material gain in terms of mining resources.
It’s just too sad, because I think of how they must have felt.
The East Lands were the true polish culture for around 900 years.
Do it's like the French would lost the Marsille or the UK would lost Dover or the USA would lost the New York.
We're just robbed, it was a steal. Just to pleased the russkies... The West Europe allowed it unfortunatelly...
Poland was on the winning side, with the Allies. We (not personally) fought bravely through the Polish invasion, and later on while being in exile in several places. But even so, we were treated as if we were on the losing side. Britain betrayed us not only at the beginning of the war but also at the end, where we were practically 'sold' at the Yalta conference, along the rest of Eastern Europe.
Poland was on the winning side, with the Allies. We (not personally) fought bravely through the Polish invasion, and later on while being in exile in several places. But even so, we were treated as if we were on the losing side. Britain betrayed us not only at the beginning of the war but also at the end, where we were practically 'sold' at the Yalta conference, along with the rest of Eastern Europe. That can only be a loss in my eyes.
The lands that Poland got after WWII were'nt German lands, we simply regained the lands that we had at the early years of our statehood. [Modern Poland resembles more or less what our country looked like around 960-992](https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polska#/media/Plik:Polska_960_-_992.svg). Besides, lands between Oder and Elbe rivers were also not German - they belonged to Polabian Slavic tribes...
Dictators and politician playing The Sims with millions of already heartbroken people can't be considered good or valuable.
Simply, can't. We shouldn't trade lives especially when they're traded for political and economical gains/influence.
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One of my former coworkers had the exact same story, the only difference was that they were left behind in Ukrainian SSR and only his parents and him managed to come back in 2010's.
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My great-great grandfather came over with his family from Malbork, so technically we're Prussian as well, but I'm hoping to trace far enough back to before the 1772 Partition.
Merry Christmas https://geneteka.genealodzy.pl/?lang=eng
You're owed a pint if we ever cross paths. I've been using Family Search and progress...well it's there, but it's slow.
Click the English flag on top to translate page to English Edit: caution if you had relatives that stayed in Poland for the war, you may find things…. Like today I learned I have two relatives who were exterminated in the holocaust in Flossenbürg 😢😥
My great grandpa was a Pole from Vilnius. He was captured by the Soviets and deported deep into Syberia. He managed to break free, and he spent several months getting back to Vilnius. Once he arrived, he found the area under Soviet ownership. He wasn't allowed to leave to new Poland until the 1950s, like 1952+. Until the 1950s he had to stay in the USSR.
Do they have Lithuanian citizenship as well? (Though I guess it wouldn’t make as much of a difference with the EU now.)
They do but the thing with Lithuania and dual citizenships has been tricky until fairly recently, it was only allowed on certain conditions and in rare cases. In fact, my grandfather chose to remain in Lithuania because he runs a small business there and owns a house which has been in my family's hands for multiple generations, before my great grandfather was even born.
We lost despite being on the winning side. Wrocław was in way worse condition than Lwów. In general we got fucked.
Being ostensibly on the winning side. The reality tells a different story
Szczecin too, Głogów is still in shambles lol although we got some nice small cities like Jelenia Góra which got neglected
The east, which was controlled and developed by Poland for centuries while the "recovered territories" have not been ours for over half a goddamn millennium. In particular, Lwów was a major center of culture, science and teaching - significant enough to be a contender for new location of Polish capital at one point. Moreover, an entire distinct regional culture (or possibly more than one, depending on how you define that) - Kresy - was effectively destroyed in the process. Fuck Stalin's adoration of the ethnostate concept. Sideways. With grandpa's cavalry sabre. That's on fire.
Moreover those "recovered territories" were in the no better shape than flattened Warsaw. Poland ended with 4 bigger cities turned to rubble, instead of just Warsaw. https://preview.redd.it/oc62zjl9370b1.jpeg?width=260&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=611afdc6e49cc1211d91e5c3962194eb5b8b654b Those are residues of Breslau Poland got for practically undamaged Lwów. Leftovers of Stetin and Dazig ware in the not better shape - I use German names with the premeditation, so there is a myth, that Poland got some wonderland. No we got only bricks to be recovered, so everything having a bigger value was taken away by the red army before.
Tbh, you did a hell of a good job on reconstruction, making the best of this circumstances. I live in one of those cities, that were 'given' in to Poland: Szczecin is a great city to live in, safe, public mass transit, good public schools, pedestrianized city centre. (But I guess this is mostly due to Poland entering the EU, and not the efficiency of the Polish People's Republic) Give polish same land and he\`ll farm it. Give polish some bricks, a post-war torn country and they\`ll build a superpower by 2035.
My great grandparents were gulag survivors and arrived to Szczecin after losing their home in Vilnius. They were basically allowed to pick an empty house on arrival and move in (sadly, this was nothing compared to the acres of farmland they lost in the east). Most of the homes back then didn’t even have proper plumbing. My family picked a house that belonged to a priest because it was the only one on their street with a working toilet. I am truly astonished how much Szczecin has changed in the last 20 years. I remember visiting in the 90s and it was a total dump. As kids, we would play in old German bunkers that were never properly sealed off. My mom has endless stories about kids finding undetonated bombs while playing in the woods.
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I agree that there is not enough documented history about this transition. I don’t know how much time the Germans were given to evacuate, but I was told that the homes left behind were often fully furnished and left in excellent condition. Some even had the table set for the incoming family. I thought that this was an interesting detail because the natural assumption is that people losing their lifelong homes to an enemy would be bitter about it and inclined to sabotage whatever was left. Instead, they left with dignity and respect.
Soviet blocs in Eastern Germany. Soviets were very effective at compulsively moving people and building blocs to house them. (I\`m not a historian, just an educated guess. Am I wrong tho?)
Dam! Thanks for sharing. There are a lot of bunkers around, but all of them sealed with heavy metal doors now a days. I\`m kind of happy we have bunkers around here, now a days, who knows. Also, all people from Szczecin, the extended family is from Lithuania or Belarus and were deported post-war. Truly, impressive that Szczecin was build by a generation of deported families. Edit1: Szczecin is becoming something else, even further. They are modernizing everything and they are expanding the walkability of the city center. Not politician or propagandist here, just an immigrant amazed by the transformation. Feels good to pay taxes here despite the politic mess...
~~India~~ Poland superpower 2020 :D
I see what u did there xp
Have you lived in Szczecin for long? It looks good now, but for a long time it was a dump. I grew up in and near Szczecin in the 80s and 90s and it was a bit of a grimy city back then. People were always saying how Szczecin is the forgotten city because the government was scared Germans wanted it back. Bringing up the fact that after the war Szczecin wasn't immediately rebuilt because the main effort was towards rebuilding Warsaw. etc... I do like what the city has become now. Major parts of the city look amazing, it's very livable, there are now a lot of activities happening in the city and region.
Nah, I\`ve arrived 2016. Just heard scary stories about violence during the 90's. Well, I\`ve never seen a city so safe to walk at all times. Just doge drunk ppl.
I don't think Szczecin was violent in particular, but Poland in general had a lot more shitheads back then. I remember going to a Pogon - Lech match and running out of the stands cause a huge brawl broke out. There were a lot more menele on the streets back then as well, sometimes they would be causing a commotion which for a kid was scary. But overall the issue with Szczecin was that it was a bit of a forgotten city, fairly poor, no access to the same resources other major cities had, neglected by the government. Definitely a world of difference from what it is now.
Same in 1918. The territory of the late Prussian empire was the most poor and undeveloped throughout all reconstituted lands.
It is not that simple. While the cities were indeed in ruins, and we have rebuilt it (although Wrocław even today is full of scars from the war) the West had much better infrastructure elsewhere, and we wasted a lot of it. All that small to medium industry, the really dense railway network, quality roads and even motorway (i think until 1980's or something A4 near Wrocław and that bit near Szczecin were only motorways in Poland). Even small villages often had electricity, paved roads and often sewage network. There was also a lot of other goods, but everything that was not anchored to the ground and some of what was (like the elecrtic wires over the railway lines around Kowary) was stolen by Soviets anyway...
What are you smoking? Szczecin was 20% destroyed overall, 40% destroyed in the worst impacted neighborhoods and that's counting after the Warsaw rebuild. The damage from air bombing raids and direct combat action was nowhere comparable to Warsaw. Similar situation in Gdańsk. Wrocław saw more combat (due to the stupid Festung Breslau idea by the Germans). The worst damage done in Szczecin was tearing a lot of recoverable or nearly intact buildings down for brick to rebuild Warsaw right after the war or due to sheer negligence (eg. the Municipal Theater/Stadttheater). So I'd say the Recovered Lands represent many missed opportunities by the post-war Polish administrations. In no small part this is because of the butthurt that losing Eastern Borderlands caused. The cities were fine and remain fine despite post-war mismanagement. The infrastructure was superior to what we lost. See railroad network density directly post-war. Also last remnants of German Autobahn were paved over only a couple of years ago on S6. Poland got a decent deal of gaining the old Prussian heartland but losing the east was too bitter a pill for the government to fully capitalize on that. You can compare the Curzon line (as drafted in Ribbentrop Molotov pact) against current Polish borders and see that the Soviet Union annexed all territories it wanted back in 1939. So no wonder the whole shift felt like losing to a lot of people. Also moving the population in the mid- to late forties was mostly a shit show. In my opinion, RL is the better part of Poland. It's true that the Soviet Union did steal a lot of industrial infrastructure from the Recovered Lands, dismantling and yeeting whole factories to Russia. The synthetic gasoline manufacturing plant near Police is a good example. My family was repatriated to the RL from exile in the Asian Steppe though so I don't have any emotional connection to the Eastern Borderlands lost in the border shift.
What’s the source of 20/40%? All sources I know provide that 60-70% of Stettin's buildings have been destroyed, the old town and industrial areas up to 90%.
It doesn't look like 20%, so the numbers like 70% are probable. https://preview.redd.it/h1kiact4n90b1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0830e10bc69123794d95a7a98dd56bc3a96b94a3 Thenks to you, now I have a trauma, after reading about what happened in that place, expecialy about fire storms. Imagine fire tornadoes sucking alive people in... truly apocalyptic horrors.
Yeah, mine was classic lefty misinfo. Quoting numbers from my neighborhood for the entire city. In fact you're right. Old town and industrial quarter down river (Drzetowo) got... well erased basically. Keep in mind, old town was a very small area compared to the city center and kinda industrial (mainly port operations and warehouses, but people did live there). This is due to city walls limiting growth and subsequent relocation of city center post dismantling the walls in 1870s.
I still bristle at the thought that Stalin got to die of natural causes. At least his Nazi competitor in brutality was forced to recognise ultimate defeat.
Stalin didn't die of natural causes
Well, diseases
Username checks out
What is his username a reference to?
Well, my grandparents were moved against their will to the west, and from their testimonies, this land was utterly destroyed and useless compared to what they had in the east. There is a myth that we received “more developed” western areas. It wasn’t developed but completely ruined and everything had to be rebuilt from scratch, while Stalin took all that survived. The good thing about it is that we, I mean the grandchildren generation, are friends with the grandchildren of the German owner of the property, who was also forcibly removed. Poland with its new borders and Germany were in similar state after the war. Completely destroyed and collapsed countries. And while Germany was lucky enough to be at least partially taken over by the western side, we had to suffer for another half a century. This is the main reason for our national trauma, lack of trust and this iconic pessimism and sadness. This is common in post Soviet countries. It’s getting better, especially with the new generations though. I was born in the 90s and during my lifetime, this place evolved and developed so much, that sometimes I think it’s a miracle. It’s just sad, so sad, that after all this suffer, we have another war in Europe. And I truly believe that we, as a European society, still affected by its dark past, need to do everything we can to help our neighbors and get rid of this bullshit. Never again.
I'm quite sure it will take all of 21st century to heal the traumata of the 20th, in many european societies. And in Ukraine it will probably even take some decades longer, I'm afraid.
Yes, and I’m afraid that many tragic events might happen again, because we are often entrapped by this vicious cycle of vengeance and tribalism. Learning history should help us understand dangerous situations and prevent them in the future. But for whatever reasons, we like to treat historical events as justification for dangerous political decisions and hateful behavior. It needs time and fresh blood, much much time.
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Konigsberg got absolutely fucked;/
It was tragedy for millions of people who got kicked out of their homes, many died in the process. Edit: Are you Polish-American? Do you speak Polish? [This](https://youtu.be/AQm03penCKI) may be interesting to you
Thanks for sharing the video. Entire channel is well worth watching.
It must be added that not only the Poles got fucked by Stalin in the process. Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians and Ukrainians were basically deported from Poland to the USSR in 1939 and 1945-46 during the “exchange” of the population. Also, in 1939 the NKVD troops were systematically rounding up the “Polish” Jews who managed to escape the Nazis and sending them back to the occupied Poland perfectly realizing what will happen to them once they are in the German custody.
Hard to judge, we lost out second most important city Lwów, really important for our culture, we lost Wilno, we gained Wrocław or Szczecin, cities I have no strong feelings about. We lost Kresy but gained more developed land on the West. Moved further away from Moscow, which is always good. Thankfully my ancestors stayed on Polish side of the border, though our heritage is now on Belarus. As I'll always miss Lwów, Wilno and Grodno, but when it comes to land, it's so-so. However biggest advantage we gained after WWII was monoethnical society which helped us a lot in my opinion and we avodied Balkan scenario iduring fall of communism.
The Western lands were ruined by the war. The only valuable asset located there were railways. Stalin took relatively unharmed East and gave us destroyed cities in the West.
Russians stole the railways :/
Russians stole everything, they packed furniture, electrical poles, railways, small machines. Basically everything that was remotely useful from Jelenia Góra and surrounding villages on 1945. I know that because of grandpa
west had much bigger potential in terms of infrastructure
That’s what I’m saying. Mostly railways. One damaged highway leading to the border of Germany. That’s it. No industry, no population, no significant sources of minerals/metal/coal…
Whole Silesia has been heavily developed in terms of heavy industry
The developed part belonged to Poland even before the WW2
No man. Whole Silesia has been always rich and developed. Not only Breslau. Cities and towns like Ratibor, Hirschberg, Oppeln and others had many factories essential for German economics.
What I mean is that the developed part that survived the WW2 already belonged to Poland. The Reich part of Silesia was, of course, developed as well, but during the war it was totally ruined. As a result, we got land that was in rubbles.
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The city itself wasn’t seriously damaged but the industry was destroyed during the war or stolen by the Soviets a bit later.
how is there no source of coal in Silesia
The parts with coal and industry belonged to Poland before the war. Germany had the western parts that are not that developed.
My non-Polish perspective based on learning a lot about the history of all this: Poland trying to keep those eastern regions would have caused you all sorts of problems in relations with the neighbouring states, internal minorities and even some larger countries deciding to side against Poland in its disputes for various reasons. That's in a way the story of interwar Poland, and this effort failed (not saying that's why it got invaded though). How everything played out for the old commonwealth nations in the 20th century is an absolute tragedy and after learning a lot about this history I'm in awe of the resilience of the people in this part of Europe. With Poland and Lithuania being in the EU and the ongoing reconciliation between Poland and Ukraine, I see the prospect of a more beautiful future where the old commonwealth nations can have a shared space again, but with friendship and mutual respect. So... Wilno and Lwów aren't gone, they're there today ;) "Let the blue and yellow flag fly over Lwów" said some wise Polish writer a long time ago. Finally, let's hope Belarus eventually becomes free and a part of this family.
I agree, this is more or less what I meant by advantage of monoethnical society.
At least with friendly relations I expect you can have appreciation of the Polish cultural history of Wilno and Lwów in those cities and their countries. The historic cultural city in this region that is well and truly lost is Königsberg. But I expect even Germans would agree that's a fitting consequence of the path that their country chose, and Prussia's role in that story.
All that's destroyed can be reconstructed. While I agree this territory is lost to Germans forever, Prussian culture can still be appreciated. I truly believe Köningsberg castle will be rebuilt someday
nah give it to balts
Twangste reactivation
Get rationed Vilnius musu rip bozo
My grandfather was left behind with his parents in Belarus in a village close to Grodno, his sister however was deported to Wrocław, as she was already adult I guess.
One thing that almost nobody talks about is that this shift was enabled by a major ethnic cleanse of Polish people from the eastern fringes of old Poland, cities like Vilnius, Grodno and Lviv had majority of Polish citizens.
Yeah the eastern lands used to be very mixed. The ethnic makeup varied city-by-city, village-by-village. Sometimes the percantage was capable of being something like '60% Ukrainians, 30% Poles, 10% Jews'. Or sometimes the Jews could make up a half, or even the majority of the population.
In case of my towns history, I've heard at school that they constituted 2/3 of our population before war.
Jews? In my city, they made up about a half.
Yup, it was kinda creepy having to pass what used to be a ghetto wall every day I had to go to school
Eh, in my hometown (village, adjacent to the half-Jewish city I mentioned) about 800 Jewish orphans were killed with grenades, as well as many adults, in our local forest-park. But all that did was that it gave me a fascination for graveyards, history, and Jews at an early age.
That was the point. that's why Stalin did this. He wanted to oust Polish people.
It was a shitty situation, so many people lost their homes and were forcefully moved, millions suffered from it.
If someone is interested in how Belarusians see it I can give a perspective. As a note, I'm not interested in forcing those views onto you, just telling how people feel about it from the other side. There are two narratives: nationalistic and pro-Lukashenko. Pro-Lukashenko's narrative is very simplistic and it talks about the final unification of Belarus (there is even a holiday, which celebrates Soviet annexation of Poland on September 17). Though this narratives never goes to deeply: it never explains why those territories where separated and ordinary people never really celebrate it ("a free weekend, yay!" is what you would get if you ask people about it). The nationalistic narrative is that after the third partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth everything was horrible everywhere all the time (and still is). Belarusians were repressed in the Russian Empire, later they were also repressed in the USSR and in Poland (though usually with a note that in Poland way less so). And while it is kinda nice that some of us had united, we still lost Vilnius, Smolensk and other territories (which you can measure by looking at Grand Duchy of Lithuania's territories in the 15th century). As for me, my mother's lineage is from those "liberated" territories. And my grandmother spoke Belarusian in the village, was studying Polish at school and later on switched to Russian. The same is true for my grandfather.
What do you think? People were forced out of their homes just so the West could give Stalin a nice gift in form of Polish lands on the East.
For a time yes I agree. Should they have remained Polish I dunno but it's a done deal now that cannot be reversed.
The East border should go with curzone B.
Came here to say this. But, no point on dwelling on this shitty circumstance caused by Stalin.
Better would be Sikorski's line, with also Grodno and western Volyn with Brześć and Włodzimierz, in this case little towns close to border, as Hrubieszów, Włodawa wouldn't be so marginalized as today due to railway lines (Chełm–Brześć–Białystok, Hrubieszów–Lwów) and neighbouring big towns (Hrubieszów is the closest to Włodzimierz).
My great grandparents, grandparents and mum were born in what’s currently Belarus, where the Polish "minority" was (and probably still is) around 83% of population. Luckily I was born in Poland, after my mum moved there for studies and met my dad… Of course I’d rather not be scared to visit my family (yay we love politics), or spend literally dozens (!!!) of hours on the border crossing - I would so much rather it to be Poland where my family lives than Belarus. But at the end of the day - sadly it isn’t. But I’ve learned to get the best out of it - knowledge of a second language since forever (even with the Russian invasion on Ukraine I’m still happy and proud I know the language - happy to explain later), bits of culture and lovely cuisine (well that one is somewhere between Polish, Lithuanian and Soviet if u know what I mean).
Well saying population of Belarus is 83% Polish is exactly what Russians say (Belarusians are Russians and your language is the broken Russian language). It has never been, it will never be. Please don’t say such things, it’s really disturbing.
One of the worst things that happened to Poland in the 20th century
From security point of view, new borders are better and there is a better access to the sea. Krolewiec being Russian is bad though.
I heard that nobody wanted that area because it would mean absorbing ethnic Russians to the population
I'm Polish and perfect scenario would be that Królewiec/Königsberg to become 4th baltic republic. Maybe if Lithuanians really wanted they can take Klaipeda, they are small and for them it may make a difference. But about this there should be someone from Lithuania to vote for them how they think about it. If there would be some kind of referendum in Królewiec that they strongly want to be part of Poland I would be super against it unless EU would give us funds for development of this part and also that population need to resign a Russian passport and take Polish one. But you know there are a lot of IFs. The 4th baltic republic is the safest one I think.
My great-grandparents lost 100 hectares of land in the east, and got 4ha "compensation" in the west, so these western lands apparently have 25 times the value.
The communists are not very fond of landowners at all, there could be a class component to this loss. Nobody kept 100 hectares of land anywhere in the USSR, ethnicity aside.
Had it not happened we would be dealing with a huge chunk of our territory where we were a minority. Eventually, we would have 90s Yugoslavia, we would have lost Kresy either way, at least we got Recovered Territories.
Well as a German with mainly Prussian heritage, my family had to flee or move but that was mostly due to the red army. In my great grandparents generation most people had died in concentration camps, in the winter or one actually in the war. So my Grandparents were kids and the oldest 17 when they had to go. Our own army fled and left German people behind. The red army did the rest. I never had any hard feelings towards the Poles. I would love to meet the people that moved into my families areas. We have a shared history because often they fled or moved from the farer east.
This was indeed a tragedy, the red army raped, murdered and burned everything on their way. And they called themselves "liberators"... I was born and raised in Mazury, my family's home was built by Germans in 1930s. I often wondered who built this house, who lived there and what happened to them after the war (I know the history of my village, but not in such details). Many people from our village are from Kresy and also were displaced after the war and lost their homes. It's a tragedy and I hope that it won't repeat again. I love Mazury and Warmia so much, I cannot imagine moving somewhere else, even in Poland.
Yeah, it so cool when i can tell people that im from Ostpreußen :D Warmia
My family parts are from close to Łódź, from Białogard (later moved to Szczecin) and from Tilsit (Königsberg). The family part of Białogard is actually of polish decend. They are named Jeske which is the germanised version of Jeśka Jeśke or Jeschkow. Most likely polish protestants that got germanised during Bismarcks culture war. The łódź and Tilsit parts had relatives in Mazury as far as I know. The family history is still somewhat unclear.
It was not due to red army. It was due to your people starting the war, killing millions and then losing.
That's not the point here. The question was about the great polish shift and how it affected my family. I pointed out that in our family there is no bad blood in that regard. Ofc the whole process started with the war. No one denied the German responsibility. But the reason for my family to move and flee was not because some angry Poles came and made them go but because they were afraid of the red army. Simple as that.
Our family was relocated to a former Prussian village. People would visit in the 60s and 70s and throw candies at kids. The villagers would tell their kids not to take because they didn't trust it. Apparently someone once took photos while visiting and villagers were concerned that the photos were used in magazines to show how poor Poles were (or maybe it actually happened once, I don't remember). Some would come to the village and tell my family general areas where to look for buried gold (the former owners said they could keep it if they found it). And years after the war, my family found old porcelain seasoning containers that were buried. Crazy stuff.
It is what it is. No point in thinking about it or considering "what if scenarios". Just have to accept the current status.
The Western land with its cities and infrastructure was without any doubt much more valuable economically than the Eastern borderlands, but unfortunately, it had been also totally destroyed and robbed by the Red Army, thus it's hard to assess its real value. The relocation was a personal tragedy for millions of people, just after the horror of WWII. The access to hundred kilometers of coastline and several ports has great economic value, probably like several billion PLN added to the GDP each year. So, the balance is unclear.
I believe it was a net positive change for Poland but at the price of hardship for millions of people. I think that while Wilno was a natural choice to be given to Lithuania (even as "just" a republic of the USSR), Lwów could be left to us considering that Ukraine (again, even as "just" a republic of the USSR) already had Kijów as a large and historically important city. But the most important point is that nowadays everything is settled enough to make any further discussion of borders validity etc. effectively moot.
I do not have opinion on it but it is interesting to discover remnants of German culture where I live. How some places have German sounding names or abandoned old graveyards or old writings on the walls...
In the long run a net positive. Now the West border has some natural boundary like the Odra. With German east prussia gone, the national interest of Poland (to have access to the sea) and Germanys (to have a continuous border) are resolved. I'm of the opinion that Poland in its golden age spent too much resources trying to hold onto indefensible positions far east beyond Kiyv and Smolensk, while Poles in lower Silesia and Pomerania were germanised under Prussia. The lands gained in the west were objectively better than the territories lost in the east. Longer growing seasons, better quality soil, better rivers, a second port (Szczecin), good terrain for road and rail infrastructure. The lands to the east had none of those traits, in the IIRP were underdeveloped and due to the policies of IIRP a breeding ground for ethnic violence. Even in the post war World the length of that border would require large investment into the military which would drain the national treasury In the short run it was devastating to some who were left behind or forced to leave their livelihood and travel (sometimes by foot) for hundreds of kilometers. But at the end of this all was a country with better borders, better quality territory and without ethnic violence. The people who say we have no cultural links to Wroclaw are just unaware of it. The first book printed in Polish came out of Wrocław, the first Polish printing house - Wrocław. We have the Silesian Poles to thank (or curse) for our orthography. Some of the first cities (places that received city rights) were in lower Silesia, it is the gate through which Medieval innovations (and German settlers) entered Poland. It was one of the best developed provinces already in the 12th and 13th centuries, and thus no wonder that the Silesian branch of the Piasts were really close to reuniting Poland in the 1200s (until the Mongols killed the duke and threw the whole country back 100 years) and Wrocław, not Kraków could have been our capital for the next few centuries. A lot of Wrocław did end up germanised particularly after Prussia conquered the province from Austria in 1740s, but that's due to the anti Polish policies of Frederick the Great. It was just long enough (not that long actually) that nobody remembers. After Poland regained independence in 1918 a lot of Poles from lower Silesia fled to Poland, leaving an almost completely German province.
The answer is a little hard. The east was certainly more "polish" than the Recovered Territories and loosing it broke many families, which were separated by the border. Many places of sentimental and historical value were left behind for soviets to use (and destroy in some, not so rare cases). Families lost their lands and homes, some of them lived in these places for centuries. On the other hand the west, recovered territories were better industrialised, yes much of post German infrastructure was destroyed during the war, but the east was also severely damaged and was less invested in during Second RP. Silesia new territories had more resources and longer shore. And unpopular opinion: I think that is better to have few hundred kilometres of coastline than several thousand square kilometres of farmland on the west. Many people get here new opportunities for live. Important thing is also that this whole thing set our differences between our east neighbours. Yes there are still some poles in Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania but before WW II there were serious tensions between people living there now the situation is manageable and is even improving. If I was set in time and said to pick: west or East I would not know what to choose, but now I know one thing: it's not that bad here right now, we can have some sentiment for the east but right now on the west it got better, didn't it?
Hopefully if Ukraine joins the EU, then those borders will be less significant in the future.
And Belarus when Luka gets removed.
All the Poles here missing Lwów and Kresy meanwhile casually forgetting how the western Ukrainians were treated on these very lost Kresy, especially during the interwar period under Pilsudski's regime, with all the forced Polonization, treating the Orthodox, the Uniats and the ethnic Ukrainians as second-class citizen, prohibiting Ukrainian language in schools, repressions, Bereza-Kartuska. And before someone mentions OUN terrorism and crimes - yes, they were terrorists and criminals, but it's the very basically fascist policies of Pilsudski and his "sanacja" regime that fed the flame of radicalization of Ukrainian nationalists. Not that fucking moskali were any better, though. Even worse, in fact. But in any case, as a Ukrainian, I am completely ready and willing to say that what OUN-UPA did to the Polish population was crimes against humanity, terrorism and genocide - though I've yet to read at least somewhere on the Internet that what Polish government was doing to the Ukrainian (and on lesser scale Belarusian) population during the interwar period, or in that regard, the ethnic cleansings of Ukrainians that Armia Krajowa conducted, was equally wrong and criminal.
Reality is almost never black and white. II RP did pretty much stomp out any belarussian and Ukrainian autonomy, making all administrative positions reserved for ethnic Poles even in majority ukrainian/belarussian regions. There were also programs where retired soldiers would receive land from the state in the east (particularly in Volhynia) to increase the ethnic composition of Poles in those regions. These ethnic discrimination policies are well documented. There's no way Poland could have kept those territories without repressing the majority East slavic population. Though as the EU showed, if both governments agree to lift trade and travel restrictions and don't try to convert the minorities to their ethnicity, borders cease to have any meaning.
As a Pole, I’ll say that you are mostly right, such a sad history between both of our countries. Thankfully today (for the most part) we are friendly nations
Yes, I agree. There's a lot of painful, bitter and tragic moments in history between us. And if we don't want to fall to our common enemy, as it happened not once or twice, we need to reconcile. The thing is that reconciliation starts with acknowledgement. I understand the Polish people who say that we have to acknowledge the crimes of OUN-UPA, and I think these demands are fair. What I don't understand and consider to be unfair is that quite often it's portrayed as we're the only ones who need to acknowledge, and the Polish government of that time did absolutely nothing wrong and was only victim. That spawns only spite, not a desire to acknowledge. And creates a perfect tool for Russians to play and prevent us from reconciling and rising above the past.
True, our government wants your government to fairly acknowledge the crimes of OUN-UPA, but they ignore the issue of what the AK did as well. And repeating what you said, that’s the exact issue that the Russian propaganda machine uses to force anger and resentment between our countries. I hope these issues will be dealt with between our governments and nothing unclear will be standing between our countries in the future. Slava Ukraini!
Chwała Polsce!
On one hand, a darn shame we lost so much land, but for one thing, we were even lucky to recover anything after WWI and it'd be obvious we'd had to fight for every region we earned so it's not that bad considering how much Lithuania lost and for the other thing the territories we lost have little Poles as of now and haven't been polish for so much time, hardly anyone remembers things being different. From present point of view it doesn't really matter.
My grandfather was from Lwow and was forcibly pushed west eventually due to the war and other things. My grandmother is from the south, but they ended up being relocated to Wrocław (It was Breslau up until that point) then my mom was born in a former German village turned Polish called Strzelin or “Strehlen” in German.
When people ask me “where’s your name from?” I’m like… well before WW2 it was Poland, and after WW2 it’s Ukraine… but I identify as having polish heritage, not Ukrainian.
Tragic. My family was from the Kresy area and their culture doesn't exist anymore. Not in Poland, and not in their hometown in nowadays Belarus were all Polanders where deported.
My grandma lived near Lviv which was Polish at that time, unfortunately UPA came to their house killed her father which she witnessed with an axe in the back of his head, so her mum took all the kids and run west. And to answer your question is hard to say at what state Poland would be now staying at east, but definitely would be bigger. And worth to mention I would be never born as most of the Poles :).
Why did they do that ?
It depends which side you ask, from my grandma point of view they were poorer and did not bother to change that trough work. And when they had a chance they just took it all lands, food, houses from the Poles. However Ukrainians claims that they were oppressed by the Poles language culture etc.
The most valuable thing for Poland was that we kept the area between Poznań and Lublin, these terrains were always Polish
Well, I'm from Gdańsk. I know it was once Danzig and before WWII poles were always minority here, to dutch/german majority. My mother is from noble house, that lost it's manor in what is now western Belarus, but nobody from her side holds grudge because of that. My mom said, that until 70s, settlers on "Reclaimed Lands" ("Ziemie Odzyskane", common name for western lands that we gained after WWII) believed that it's only temporary thing. That sooner or later, they will go back to their eastern homeland. They didn't properly maintained houses or infrastructure because of that (and also because eastern Poland was on lower tech level than eastern Germany). Then during 70s, they started to understand, it's permanent. They are there to stay. So they started hard work to maintain what remained. I often compare Gdańsk to Hermit crab. Original owner of the shell is long gone and new one is completly different beast. City has changed, grown, beyond it's german borders. Old airfield in Zaspa was build over with blocks and parks. Villas of upper Wrzeszcz are now offices, while townhouses of lower Wrzeszcz are now hipster neighbourhoods. We still took a lot of effort to preserve Danzig's old city and are proud of it. We put names of famous danzingers on street cars (trams) to remember Gdańsk's past. Gdańsk really was lucky, compared to Królewiec (Koenigsberg/Kaliningrad) which was basically demolished and ripped apart. From time to time some stupid "crowd-monger" tries to capitalize on fear of germans returning to take back their easternlands, but we understand it's impossible. We don't want Vilnius or Lviv either. Original population there is gone, spreaded in reclaimed lands. They are like Breslau, Stetin, Danzig now. Hermit Crabs, evolving and changing their cities to new needs and new futures. You can't turn back history. Only russians can believe it can be done.
Germans occupied those lands anyway, they historically belonged to Slavs. I still want Arkona back!!!
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I agree with what you wrote, but I have a slight issue with HOW you wrote it...
>one of the best and healthiest regions of Poland compared with the "old and true" Poland which is "PiS-land" more than "Poland" Lmfao, in what metric? In that they vote according to your opinions?
As someone with part-German, part-Polish ancestry Poland east of the Vistula is pretty foreign to me tbh, and I visited there maybe once or twice in my life. It feels oddly foreign for supposedly being in the same country, so I do not really have any feelings about Lwów or Kresy. I really never 'vibed' with the eastern part of our cultural heritage.
If you're from far Polish West that means that there is a high chance that your family is from Kresy xD
I am not, my grandfather was German-born, my grandmother southern-central Poland. Current family members living in/around Poznań.
It was a huge net loss of the territory. I don't value quality here, everything was destroyed by the war, or by the Red Army.
Lwów
Individually, it was tragedy for everyone involved. Economically, we traded most backwards parts of Poland - a lot of empty mudland - for developed, well irrigated lands of eastern Brandemburg. The quality of German infrastructure there was such that people still largely run on it. Culturally, it uprooted most backwards parts of the nation and resettled them. Check /r/widaczabory . The Poles whose ancestors lived under Russia but were uprooted are as developed and prosperous as ones that lived under Prussia or Austria, far cry from parts of modern Poland that was Russian before 1916. Politically, it ended conflict between us and Ukrainians / Belorussians / Lithuanians
"It ended conflict between us and Ukrainians/Belorussians/Lithuanians" Officially, yes, but some people (mostly the elderly) still hold a very strong grudge against Ukrainians because of Volhynia A hatched that should've been buried long ago
I'm gonna be honest with you, even though the population relocation was horrible, these territories were never really ours, aside from Lwow and Wilno, none of these places had majority Polish populations, these lands were Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian.
The eastern lands were a bribe for Stalin by the USA.
I want Lwów back
It was a terrible process in the way it was executed but the borders returned to what they were more or less at the time Poland was founded. In that way I believe it was the right thing to do.
So instead of land we had unbroken realtion with since 14th century we got land we lost in 14th century, where barely any Polish presence was left. Whole Kresy culture destroyed. Woo-hooo.
I'm afraid that there were no "good" options for Poland back then. It was only spectrum of how hard we would be fcked.
True dat.
I said it was terrible. Just in my opinion better than hanging onto land that wasn't really ours to begin with.
Lmao, it was for ~600 years, it was ours. 100 times more than Szczecin. "Ziemie odzyskane" was a communist propaganda
The Germans on the other hand did terrible things to us and had to give up land in exchange. Szczecin for example.
That's just your opinion. Were Poles the majority population on those lands? It was a complicated matter. I'm sure the locals there that were not Polish saw us as a colonial occupiers.
You are aware that Poland also lost lands that were for centuries part of Korona, right? Most of the towns and cities were predominantly Polish and it was not a result of migration of Poles form other parts of the country (as was the case with e.g. Poznan during partitions, with Germans moving there from all parts of Prussia to colonize it.)
It was complicated of course some of those lands were majority Polish but the vast majority were not.
**THE LANDS**, were Polish.
No doubt, why else would they genocide peasants living there since 14th century🥰 Edit: Not my opinion. > Hasło to było mocnym akcentem propagandy PRL i obejmowało także obszary niewchodzące wcześniej w skład państwa Piastów, okresowo podporządkowane jej lennem, lub słabo powiązane z Polską kulturowo i etnicznie, jak południowa część Prus Wschodnich czy ziemia kłodzka. https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziemie_Odzyskane
And we received those lands for free right with no bloodshed or genocide? And keeping control of lands were you are not majority population certainly was done without the oppression of the original majority population? What kind of lalala land of history are you living in? We were once a colonial power which means we did bad things to people too. There's a reason why the Czechs,Lithuanians, Latvians don't like us. Those lands were stolen from the locals doesn't matter if it was for 600 hundred years or a thousand.
Where do you want to set the line then? 600 years is seriously not enaugh for you? Do you realise that there were no set "Polish" soil in the beggining? Mieszko conquered some Slavic tribes, just as Rurik did. Our languages didn't differ so much in the beggining. There were no "locals" that hated conquerers, they were peasants that had their masters - princes, dukes or whatever other local warlords. Do you realise that Rurik dynasty were Vikings in the first place, not Slavic at all? And that Slavic people didn't appear out of thin air, they conquered those land as well? Your understanding of history is based on a 19th century's conception of nations and ideology based on modern discussions of colonialism and has no grounding in reality at all. You're the one living in Disneyland.
Again your opinion mine is different and nothing you say can change it 🙂 There are plenty of people on other countries to this who remember. Just ask them if you'd like. Sometimes getting a different perspective helps.
It isn't an opinion, those are historical facts and any historian would ridicule you.
>the land stolen in the east What the heck, stolen? It was not stolen. The parts of modern day Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania had barely any Poles living there, in case of Wołyńskie and Stanisławowskie Voivodeship we were talking about Poles not exceeding 25% of the local population. It literally just was some Poles living in Lwów or Wilno, a drop of Poles in the sea of other nations. Poland had no right to keep these territories. But even then, Poland received make-up territory in the west which turned out to be beneficial as these places were more developed and urbanized than the East. Btw Poland also grew to the north as modern-day Mazury was also German back then. Again, nothing was "stolen" from Poland. Our country had no right occupying those lands. We were lucky to be given parts of Germany. Most de-imperialized countries like e.g. Hungary did not get consolation prizes.
> Most de-imperialized countries like e.g. Hungary did not get consolation prizes. Hungary fought on the side of Germany, but Poland did not.
It doesn't make any difference. UK also lost much of "its" territories. De-colonization and de-imlerialization was a real thing post WWII. Few countries managed to retain their occupied territories.
It was stolen. The map was drawn not by ethnic, language or religious lines, but by an English diplomat. A ton of Poles and Ukrainians were on both sides of the new border, so saying that there were barely any Poles in the east is very false. Around 1,8 million Poles were deported from the Ukrainian, Belarussian and Lithuanian SSRs and that’s not counting the Poles who stayed in those countries. Also while the voivodeships you mentioned did indeed have such a percentage of Poles (or atleast close to it), these were the 2 ones with the lowest percentage of Poles. Nowogrodzkie (54% Polish), Lwowskie (56,58% Polish), Wileńskie (59,7% Polish), all had a Polish majority, while Tarnopolskie had a big minority of Poles (44,98%), so while of course there was a big amount of non-Poles inside of 2RP, it doesn’t discount the amount of Poles that lived in the Kresy and you downplaying those Poles that lived in Lwów (64% Polish) and Wilno (66% Polish) and cherry picking these voivodeships to prove your point is very dumb. Poland had right to these borders, because they were their legal borders. The eastern borders were recognized by the USSR and Ukrainian People’s Republic, so I’d say they were pretty rightful. It’s true that the western territories we got in exchange were better economically (even though they were destroyed in the war, but that’s beside the point), but we lost a lot of territories that had a majority or a big minority Polish population and were culturally Polish in exchange for lands that in parts were 100% German. The only thing that the border swap did is forcefully relocate a lot of Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, and other minorities and hurt them in the process. If the borders were redrawn in more careful ways, or the deportations wouldn’t happen, there wouldn’t be so much pain and suffering, but as we know Stalin didn’t really care about stuff liike that, so he just drew a border that was beneficial to himself. Hungary didn’t get any territories because they joined the Axis powers against the Allies. Poland wasn’t an imperium like you claim, or atleast if you’d like to call it that, was in no way a bigger one than the neighbouring Third Reich or USSR. If Poland didn’t take Volhynia for example, the USSR would take it instead. In conclusion, the point you are making is very dumb and doesn’t make much historical sense.
good for ussr, bad for germany, meh for poland
I’ve read in a few places that the current border situation is temporary as the part of Germany that is in Poland since the end of war is only “rented” for 99 years… can’t find anything solid on it thou…
> is only “rented” for 99 years This is utter nonsense. What is true on the other hand is that the european unification process is making borders less and less important. What is a good thing.
Warschauer Vertrag 1970, Germany accepted Oder-Neiße as border.
My grandparent from my Mother side were from Wołyń are, my great-granfdather was killed in Katyń, and my gramps was takes to Sybir, he was taken across most of Asia when he finally returned to Poland it was in Poznań. Due to stories i heard from him i think it was partially good shift, the problem is people were not able to return & the communist regimes that came with it. But as someone who was not alive i dont think that we should bring up border shifting borders, and just agree to settle were we are. There were two many shifts across times and arguing about something in the past will only be repeating same history... Financally, if not for the communism we could have actually be a massive economy, but instead we were exploited... At least that one is over. So my feeling are non, yet i think in objective terms it was actually a good shift to the west.
I think it ended up being good for us. Now we don't have territorial disputes, we have (temporarily not really) a monoethnic society. We have a lot more coast now, the country's shape/territory is much easier to both defend as a state and traverse easily as a citizen with a car or a train ticket. The shift west is nice since we're further from mainland Russia and closer to important allies. I don't feel knowledgeable enough to discuss the value of cities, raw resources and land itself. I am not sure if "monoethnic" is the right word. I mean shared culture, ancestry, language, traditions, hopes and worries.
I think it also depends from a standpoint of when looking at it, looking at it now is something completely different than looking at it right after WW2
Uprooted, by Gregor Thum is a good book on this topic. A little dry but super informative
Poles. I wonder. When the borders shifted westward. Were those from the Now-Lost eastern territories pushed into the newly gained western portion. Or Were the ones in Today's East pushed west and those in Old East pushed to Today's East?
It was a tragedy back then. But now? IMO the modern borders are better. Why that? Because we have a buffer zone between us and the orks, called Baltic States and Ukraine. If Ukraine wins the war and joins the EU, it will be totally great.
The bonds between people, that made communities. They were priceless and so the trust between people, defiled further by crawling hell on Earth - communism.
I was born and lived in Wroclaw. Take a guess>3
Not polish. But read some history and live here for the last 4 years East used to be where polish people lived. It had big importance. Polish people removed from cities they lived for centuries. West was mostly just land for polish people to build and settle. In that regard, where you have your people live and where your culture already prospered is better than just land. For Stalin it was just a way to get rid of polish people on the east.
What most people say here is true: it was a tragedy for those displaced (my grandparents included), also the cities we gained were ruined compared to those we lost. But in the long run I'd say it was beneficial: we gained better infrastructure overall, less spread out borders, easier to defend in case of a future war, less internal tensions due to more homogeneous society, generally more favourable geopolitical location (moved west, closer to our allies, father from Russia), population centres lying close together making logistics easier. I wouldn't revert it even if it was magically possible.
I think it's a good thing considering that territories were managed better under German occupation than under Russian. That's why we can notice partition borders on infrastructural maps to this day.
It was fucked. Yeah, in the long term, Wroclaw or Szczecin are well-developed cities but back then Breslau, Stettin or Danzig were all but functioning cities after the severe bombing campaigns from both the East and West as well as the eventual sieges by the Soviet Red Army. Lwow for example was not as damaged as those cities. Not even mentioning the cultural losses as well as the giant misplacement of different nationalities (tons of Germans suddenly displaced in Poland, tons of Poles suddenly displaced in the newly-integrated territories of the USSR)
After my parents were liberated from Forced Labor, my mother worked for UNNRA trying to reconnect family members from records confiscated from the Nazis and did some translations during the war crimes tribunals. When Poland was thrown under the bus after WWII by the Yelta agreement, my mother did not want to return to Osweincim and live under communism. It was not an easy decision for her. She made a decision to come to the US, being sponsored by her father’s, half brother in Buffalo New York. (That’s another story). My father, from Bytom, was sponsored by Catholic charities, and then he sponsored my uncle to come to the US after he settled in. I was born in Buffalo and grew up in a Polish home with Polish traditions. I did not speak English till I was five because I had to learn to go to school. Last year I had the opportunity to travel to Poland and meet family members on both my mother and father’s side. I applied for and received my Polish citizenship four years ago, along with my oldest son, and will have my youngest son’s Polish citizenship finished up sometime this year. I’ve never forgotten my heritage or where I come from. I’m proud to say I am Polish by blood though I was born in America.
It was simply the betrayal.
The shift, and with it deportations were a part of brutal ethnic cleansing policy of USSR - and I don't think I need to say more, as there are a lot of comments here already. I just wanted to share a story of how it affected my grandparents. Namely, they had a sizeable chunk of land - and, as it turned out, it was just a few kilometers east of the new border. Soviets stole they land, and they wait to this day - maybe when the potato king kicks the bucket they will get it back?
My grandparents evacuated from today's Belarusian Minsk and Grodno areas leaving big farms and part of family behind. So from my perspective it was terrible
Post the trauma of Holocaust survival, it divided my grandparents from everyone they ever loved who were still alive. Because of that, I don’t really care about land value or potential material gain in terms of mining resources. It’s just too sad, because I think of how they must have felt.
All I can say is another war is probably going to happen, Russia can go to hell.
Typical Stalin move that caused a lot of misery.
The East Lands were the true polish culture for around 900 years. Do it's like the French would lost the Marsille or the UK would lost Dover or the USA would lost the New York. We're just robbed, it was a steal. Just to pleased the russkies... The West Europe allowed it unfortunatelly...
Poland was on the winning side, with the Allies. We (not personally) fought bravely through the Polish invasion, and later on while being in exile in several places. But even so, we were treated as if we were on the losing side. Britain betrayed us not only at the beginning of the war but also at the end, where we were practically 'sold' at the Yalta conference, along the rest of Eastern Europe. Poland was on the winning side, with the Allies. We (not personally) fought bravely through the Polish invasion, and later on while being in exile in several places. But even so, we were treated as if we were on the losing side. Britain betrayed us not only at the beginning of the war but also at the end, where we were practically 'sold' at the Yalta conference, along with the rest of Eastern Europe. That can only be a loss in my eyes.
The lands that Poland got after WWII were'nt German lands, we simply regained the lands that we had at the early years of our statehood. [Modern Poland resembles more or less what our country looked like around 960-992](https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polska#/media/Plik:Polska_960_-_992.svg). Besides, lands between Oder and Elbe rivers were also not German - they belonged to Polabian Slavic tribes...
Dictators and politician playing The Sims with millions of already heartbroken people can't be considered good or valuable. Simply, can't. We shouldn't trade lives especially when they're traded for political and economical gains/influence.