Anders' Army: The Eagles in Exile

The story of Anders' Army began several weeks after Germany invaded Poland initiating World War II; the Soviet Union invaded and occupied the eastern half of Poland.  The Soviet plan was to strip these lands of their identity and incorporate them into the Communist domain.   The Soviet secret police systematically entered each Polish town and village and arrested anyone they thought would object to the new system.  This included valuable members of society such as mayors, lawyers, policemen, bankers, priests, doctors, etc.  The arrested were either killed or more frequently, exiled to Siberia.

Over one and a half million people of various faiths and ethnicities including Poles, Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Jews were deported to Siberia and placed in labor camps where they were expected to perform slave labor until they died.  This all changed when Germany invaded the Soviet Union; the Polish citizens were released to form an army that would fight the Nazis.  In a tragic exodus, only several hundred thousand made it out of Siberia alive. 

Men left labor camps half-starved, and trained with rags on their feet and wooden guns on their shoulders to win back their homeland.  They traversed Asia, Africa, and Western Europe.  Under the leadership of General Wladydlaw Anders, they developed into what British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan referred to as one of the greatest fighting units in World War II, winning battle after battle against Germany’s finest soldiers and opening up the road to Rome for the Allies.  An undefeated army in exile within reach of their homeland, they were betrayed by the Allies at Yalta. 

It is incredible how few people know this history but this is no accident.  A conscious decision was made by the Western powers to assign this history to oblivion.  This history is also completely ignored by most Western historians, Norman Davies being a notable exception.  Why would a story that involved the suffering of over one million individuals be first suppressed by the Western governments and then ignored by Western historians?  Let them answer for themselves.  But clearly the main reason was the fallacy that the Soviet Union was an ally of the West.  How could an ally of Britain and the United States  have committed atrocities such as the deportations to Siberia or the Katyn murders?  How could the public be told this after the Western Allies had been calling the soviets "our great Russian Allies?"  It is incredible how few people, even historians,  know of the existence of Anders' Army.  The notable exceptions are their relatives and the American, Canadian, Indian, Australian, New Zealand, and British World War II veterans who fought in Italy.