The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact - ELTE BTK Történelem Szakos Portál
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anks of society was considered an insult by the Soviets. 28 Jews were now<br />
associated with the Soviet regime.<br />
Terror against society<br />
It was the Soviet leadership‘s intention to implement the same political and<br />
economic rules in their newly acclaimed territories that had been existing in the<br />
Soviet Union for some 20 years. 29 Following Dieter Pohl, the conditions of life<br />
in the Soviet-occupied areas worsened constantly. 30 <strong>The</strong> occupying forces, even<br />
if they liked to not see themselves as such, persecuted anyone whom they<br />
expected to act against the new regime. Who had been registered as a political<br />
enemy was put into prison or was deported. 31 Jan T. Gross and Wanda Krystina<br />
Roman show, how the Soviet leadership used existing tensions within the<br />
nationalities of Eastern Poland and how the people themselves got rid of<br />
possible enemies. 32<br />
<strong>The</strong> regime soon terrorised its new subjects as it had been doing so with the<br />
people in the Soviet Union for over 25 years. While on the one hand, local<br />
animosities were used, on the other hand systematic terror was unleashed: It<br />
was the NKVD (the Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del, Народный<br />
комиссариат внутренних дел), the Soviet secret police, that exercised this<br />
terror. Thousands of people were arrested and put into special prisons where<br />
they were tortured and killed. <strong>The</strong> NKVD soon symbolised violence and<br />
injustice - and the horrors of occupation - and was one of the main reasons why<br />
28 GROSS, Jan T.: Revolution from Abroad - <strong>The</strong> Soviet conquest of Poland‘s Western<br />
Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Princeton, 2002. 56.<br />
29 OVERY, Richard: Russlands Krieg - 1941-1945, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2003. 93-95.<br />
ROMAN, Wanda Krystina: Die sowjetische Okkupation der polnischen Ostgebiete 1939 bis<br />
1941. In: CHIARI, Bernhard: Die polnische Heimatarmee- Geschichte und Mythos der Armia<br />
Krajowa seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. München, 2003. 96-99.<br />
30 POHL, Dieter: Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941-1944 -<br />
Organisation und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechens. München, 1996. 29.<br />
31 SANFORD, George: Katyn and the Soviet massacre of 1940 - Truth, justice and memory.<br />
London, 2007. 28. GROSS, Jan T.: Revolution from Abroad - <strong>The</strong> Soviet conquest of Poland‘s<br />
Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Princeton, 2002. 149: „Poles were typically sentenced<br />
as counterrevolutionaries in the service of the bourgeoisie, Ukrainians were sent to labor camps<br />
as nationalists, and Jews were imprisoned as speculators.” And further: „Under the new regime<br />
anyone, at any time, in any place and for any reason was vulnerable to arrest.” 151. Numbers<br />
related to the deportations vary, to give an impression see ROMAN who states that according to<br />
new calculations some 316.000 to 325.000 former Polish citizens were deported into the Soviet<br />
Union, including 200.000 Poles, more than 70.000 Jews, 25.000 Ukrainians, 20.000 White<br />
Russians and a few thousand Germans, Lithuanians, Czechs and Russians. 105.<br />
32 GROSS, Jan T.: Revolution from Abroad - <strong>The</strong> Soviet conquest of Poland‘s Western<br />
Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Princeton, 2002. 39. ROMAN, Wanda Krystina: Die<br />
sowjetische Okkupation der polnischen Ostgebiete 1939 bis 1941. In: CHIARI, Bernhard: Die<br />
polnische Heimatarmee- Geschichte und Mythos der Armia Krajowa seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg.<br />
München, 2003. 93 and 99.<br />
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