Population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine

The population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine at the end of World War II was based on a treaty signed on 9 September 1944 by the Ukrainian SSR with the newly-formed Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN).

The so-called repatriation pertained to rural populations as much as the inhabitants of provincial capitals and stripped them of their prewar economic catchment areas (Grodno, Brest, Lviv, Przemyśl).

[7][citation needed] During the resettlement campaign, all eligible individuals were required to register with local Polish district commissions set up in the key cities of Jarosław, Gorlice, Krasnystaw, Chełm, Lublin, Biłgoraj, Jasło, Zamość and Nowy Sącz.

The function of the commissions, which were staffed with both Polish communists and Soviet personnel, was not only to register, coordinate and facilitate the transportation of individuals, but also to conduct propaganda work among the target population.

To achieve the political objective of relocating the Ukrainian ethnic population from Poland, the Polish government abandoned the relatively-benign character of the policy toward a more aggressive approach.

Difficulties in suppressing the UPA insurgency, however, prompted the Polish and Soviet communist governments to pursue Operation Vistula in 1947, which entailed the resettlement of the Ukrainians remaining in southeastern Poland into the Recovered Territories.