[2] In the aftermath of the death of Joseph Stalin and the start of destalinization, about 250,000 people were repatriated, including about 25,000 political prisoners from the Gulags.
Notable Poles repatriated during that time include Czesław Niemen, Władysław Kozakiewicz, Lew Rywin, and Anna Seniuk.
On 15 November 1956, a Polish delegation consisting of Władysław Gomułka and Józef Cyrankiewicz left for Moscow to initiate talks about the so-called repatriation.
Due to their efforts, by end of that year some 30,000 Poles were allowed to leave the Soviet Union and settle in the People's Republic of Poland.
Reaching them was often difficult, and to make matters worse, the process was overseen by the former Stalinist prosecutor, Stefan Kalinowski [pl], who had himself sent Poles to Siberia in the 1940s.