The "Polish Operation" of the NKVD

Solovetsky Islands, Bolshoy Solovetsky. The site of the first Soviet forced labour camp. The inscription on the stone reads: “To the memory of Poles imprisoned in Solovki. Fellow Poles”. Photo: Maciej Wyrwa/Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding.

Bykivnia near Kiev A monument commemorating people murdered by the NKVD in 1937. Photo: Piotr Życieński/IPN.

Sandarmokh. Memorial cross in the Sandarmokh forest. Inscription on the monument: “To the Prisoners of Solovki – the Poles and the priest who found their eternal rest on this land – on the 60th anniversary. 27/10/1997. Fellow Poles”. Photograph from the collection of the Memorial Research and Information Centre, Saint Petersburg.

Krasny Bor Forest near Petrozavodsk. The location of the mass graves of the Poles executed by shooting in the forest in 1937–1938. The photo shows a symbolic cross. Photo: Maciej Wyrwa/Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding.

Kurapaty near Minsk, where lie thousands of victims of Stalinist repression, including some Poles. Photo: Maciej Foks/IPN.

Saint Petersburg. Memorial to the Poles at the Levashovskaya Pustosh cemetery. Inscription on the monument: “We forgive and ask for forgiveness. To the memory of the Poles – victims of mass repression executed by shooting in 1937-1938. Fellow Poles”. Photograph from the collection of the Memorial Research and Information Centre, Saint Petersburg.

Irkutsk. Pivovarikha. Burial site of approximately 20,000 victims of the Great Terror, executed by shooting in 1937–1938. Photo: Electronic Archive of the Iofe Foundation Research and Information Centre, Saint Petersburg.

Chelyabinsk, Zolotaya Gora. Gold has been mined on the site since the 19th century, In 1936–1939, the adits were used to hide the bodies of the victims of NKVD operations. Photo: Electronic Archive of the Iofe Foundation Research and Information Centre, Saint Petersburg.

Tomsk, Kashtachnaya Gora. Site of mass executions carried out in 1937-1938. The local authorities allowed debris to be disposed of in the Kashtachnaya Gora gully, so the remains of several thousand Great Terror victims lie beneath tonnes of waste and debris. Photo: Electronic Archive of the Iofe Foundation Research and Information Centre, Saint Petersburg.

Butovo near Moscow. Former NKVD firing range. The site of mass executions carried out in 1937-1938. Photo: Maciej Wyrwa/Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding.

Kolpashevo, Kolpashevski Ravine. In the 1930s, there was an NKVD prison and headquarters where mass executions took place. Photo: Virtual Museum of the Gulag.

Vinnytsia. A monument commemorating people murdered by the NKVD in 1937–1938. Photo: Photo: Håkan Henriksson/Wikimedia Commons.