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After the German invasion that marked the start of World War II in 1939, the Soviet Union annexed eastern regions ("Kresy") of the Second Polish Republic, totaling 201,015 km² and a population of 13.299 million. Most of those territories remained a part of the Soviet Union in 1945 as part of the Europe-wide territorial rearrangement caused by the World War II. Poland was partially compensated for this significant territorial loss by the Soviet Union by being granted German territories, known as the "Recovered Territories". Under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, adjusted by agreement on 28 September 1939, the Soviet Union annexed all Polish territory east of the line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Western Bug, and San, except for western part of the Wilno Voivodship with its capital Wilno (Vilnius), which was given to Lithuania, and the Suwalki region, which was annexed by Nazi Germany. Initially annexed by Poland in a series of wars between 1918 and 1921 (primarily the Polish-Soviet War), these territories had mixed national populations with Poles and Ukrainians being the most numerous ethnic groups, and significant minorities of Belarusians and Jews.[1] The different national groups were located in a patchwork of mixed settlement patterns, and much of this territory had its own significant local non-Polish majority (Ukrainians in the south and Belarusians in the North), especially in the rural areas.[2] The "need to protect" the Ukrainian and Belarusian population was used as a pretext for Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland (including Western Ukraine and Belarus) carried out in the wake of Poland's dismemberment under the Nazi invasion with Warsaw being besieged and Poland's government being in the process of evacuation.[3] The total area, including the area given to Lithuania, was 201,015 square kilometres, with a population of 13.299 million, of which 5.274 million were ethnic Poles and 1.109 million were Jews.[4]An additional 138,000 ethnic Poles and 198,000 Jews fled the German occupied zone and became refugees in the Soviet occupied region[5] During 1939–1941 1.450 million.of the people inhabiting the region were deported by the Soviet regime, of whom 63.1% were Poles, and 7.4% were Jews.[5] Previously it was believed that about 1.0 million Polish citizens died at the hands of the Soviets,[6] however recently Polish historians, based mostly on queries in Soviet archives, estimate the number of deaths at about 350,000 people deported in 1939–1945.[7]
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