ABSTRACT
In 1939–1941, following the German-Soviet occupation of Poland, many thousands of Polish Jews became refugees in Soviet Ukraine. Using files from the former Soviet intelligence archives, this chapter reconstructs the main schemes for their escape eastward and shows that very often those who sought refuge from the impending Holocaust were treated by the Soviets as regular border violators. Their detailed reference to raging anti-Jewish persecution in the German-held part of Poland as the reason for their coming to the USSR made no impression on their capturers. Instead of empathy and support, these Jews were subjected to lengthy imprisonment and interrogations, and ended up as slaves in the vast Soviet system of forced labor camps known as the Gulag. Many of them lost their lives even before their relatives back home were killed by the Nazis.
