Serov — 10 February 06:00 at Lwów
After the annexation of eastern Poland, Moscow organised the administrative elimination of the surviving Polish elites by mass deportation to Siberia and Kazakhstan. , 35, commissar-general of the Ukrainian state security (NKVD), was charged with executing the first wave. The target: 220,000 people — former Polish officials, military settlers (osadnicy, veterans installed in Volhynia by Piłsudski in 1921-1923), forest wardens, the families of officers already in custody, prosperous Jewish merchants.
The operation was planned for a single day: 10 February 1940, at 06:00 local time. 16,000 NKVD men, supported by 14,000 local militiamen. The method: simultaneous irruption into homes, 30 minutes to pack a bundle (limit 60 kilograms per family), transfer by cart to the railway stations, embarkation in 110 trains bound for western Siberia, Kazakhstan and Arkhangelsk.
The temperature at Lwów: minus 45 degrees Celsius. Cattle wagons unheated, no food provided for a 3-week journey. The first convoy left Lwów at 11:00. The last batch went out at 23:30.
Serov had to decide how to justify the operation in public.
Eastern Poland, February 1940, head of NKVD operations: how to justify the mass deportations to the local population?
Serov imposes total administrative silence — no communication, official denial. No public announcement was made. On the morning of 10 February the neighbours found the apartments emptied, the furniture untouched. The first wave's tally: 140,000 deported (NKVD figures released in 1991) — 60 percent of the initial target, but already enormous. 3 further waves followed: 13 April 1940 (65,000), June 1940 (80,000), June 1941 (35,000). The total Soviet deportations of Poles in 1939-1941 came to between 320,000 and 1,100,000 people depending on the source. Mortality in transit and in exile: 30 to 40 percent in the first year. The Sikorski-Maisky agreement of 30 July 1941 (after the German invasion of the USSR) theoretically ordered the release of the Poles — some 110,000 would find their way to Anders' army. Many never came back. Serov continued his career: he commanded the Ukrainian NKVD, organised the deportation of the Crimean Tatars (1944), of the Chechens (1944), of the Volga Germans. First head of the KGB 1954-1958. Dismissed by Khrushchev in 1963. Died in 1990.
Learn more about this event
Related polls
10
AB Aktion — planning at the Wawel
Forster — Kashubians and Kociewiacy
Greiser — the Priority of the Wartheland
Łódź — the Order to Seal Off the Jewish Quarter
Piotrkow — Tenenberg Facing the Judenrat
A Danzig Customs Officer on the Day of Annexation
The Lubyanka — the Fate of 22,000 Polish Prisoners
Beria — the NKVD ordinance of 19 September
Biebow at Litzmannstadt — 8 February
The Obersalzberg Speech
AB Aktion — planning at the Wawel
Forster — Kashubians and Kociewiacy
Greiser — the Priority of the Wartheland
Łódź — the Order to Seal Off the Jewish Quarter
Piotrkow — Tenenberg Facing the Judenrat
A Danzig Customs Officer on the Day of Annexation
The Lubyanka — the Fate of 22,000 Polish Prisoners
Beria — the NKVD ordinance of 19 September
Biebow at Litzmannstadt — 8 February
The Obersalzberg Speech
T02-028