Liberation of Poland

The Red Army approached the Polish border in mid-July 1944. A further fate of the Polish state became a pressing issue. The issue of the border between the two countries was a serious obstacle for the cooperation between Moscow and the Polish government-in-exile. The Polish government would not recognize the border as it existed on June 22, 1941.

The development of relations between the USSR and the London Polish government was very contradictory throughout the entire war. The agreement about the formation of the Polish Army on Soviet territory and its further participation in combat operations on the Soviet-German front, signed in 1941, had not been observed by the Polish side.

Some of the Polish officers and soldiers who disobeyed the orders of General Władysław Anders formed a new Polish division. Later it developed into the First and Second Polish Armies. They took part in the liberation of their country from the German invaders together with the Red Army.

The 1st Ukrainian Front (Ivan Konev) crossed the Bug River and entered Polish territory on July 17, 1944. It was only in early 1945 that the country regained full freedom from German occupation.

Warsaw, the capital of Poland, was liberated by the Red Army and the First Polish Army on January 17, 1945. Then the Red Army took control of the western Poland and reached the Oder River in some sections of the front. The territories of Silesia, Eastern Pomerania and Southern part of East Prussia were liberated in February-April 1945. They were part of Germany before the war and were handed over to Poland as agreed by Allies. The Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp was captured by the Red Army on January 27, 1945. That date was chosen by the UN as an international memorial day of the tragedy of the Holocaust.

Over 600,000 Soviet soldiers sacrificed their lives fighting for the freedom of Poland.