Abstract
This article presents research on crimes committed by Soviet soldiers against Polish settlers in the period from May 1945 to September 1946. For the purposes of this article, records from the Polish administration (County Office and Municipal Administration in Gorzów) were examined, as well as reports from the County Office of Public Security. All examples of crimes committed by Soviet soldiers that were found in these documents are listed above. From this documentation, it can be concluded that between May 1945 and September 1946, 18 people were murdered (16 Poles and two Czechs), and two others died in traffic accidents. In addition, Soviet soldiers committed a number of other crimes, including 3 shootings, 24 robberies, 3 rapes, 110 thefts, 7 beatings, 10 arsons, and 4 arrests and disarming of Polish policemen. It is typical that despite the presence of information about these crimes in the documents, there is no evidence of the perpetrators being punished. Undoubtedly, at least some of the perpetrators of these crimes were pursued and, in some cases, apprehended. However, the examined documentation lacks any traces of their punishment. These numerous crimes committed against Polish citizens in the case of Gorzów overlap with the crimes committed against German citizens. After the city’s occupation on January 30, 1945, the city witnessed numerous murders, rapes, and looting that are difficult to quantify. Moreover, the city center of Gorzów was deliberately burned down by the Soviets. Together, this paints a grim picture of the early days of the city and county. Most importantly, the deaths of 14 Polish settlers murdered by Soviet soldiers have been largely forgotten. The exception is the policeman Franciszek Walczak, who has had a street named after him in Gorzów since June 1945. Undoubtedly, the other 13 also deserve to be commemorated because they are silent heroes of the process of reclaiming Gorzów for Poland. The problem of murders committed against Polish settlers by Soviet soldiers is worth investigating on a broader scale across Western and Northern Territories.
