SUMMARY:

Oleg Budnitskii details the historical background relevant to the personal stories of the three Holocaust survivors from Poland, whose interviews are published in the “Archive” section of this issue of Ab Imperio. He provides quantitative estimates of the dynamics of the Jews who found themselves in the USSR following the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland, from 1939 to their return to Poland after the war. Budnitskii outlines the chronology and composition of four waves of Soviet deportation from Polish territories, discusses the problem of official Soviet antisemitism and the antisemitism of Polish patriots during and after the war. He also contextualizes the interviews within the broader field of published firsthand testimonies of other Polish Jews who had similar experiences.