East Prussia - History - Southern Part To Poland

Southern Part To Poland

Representatives of the Polish government officially took over the civilian administration of the southern part of East Prussia on 23 May 1945. Subsequently Polish expatriates from Polish lands annexed by the Soviet Union as well as Ukrainians and Lemkos from southern Poland, expelled throughout Operation Vistula in 1947, were settled in the southern part of East Prussia, now the Polish Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. In 1950 the Olsztyn Voivodeship counted 689,000 inhabitants, 22.6% of them coming from areas annexed by the Soviet Union, 10% Ukrainians, and 18.5% of them pre-war inhabitants. The remaining pre-war population was treated as Germanized Poles and a policy of re-Polonization was pursued throughout the country Most of these "Autochthones" chose to emigrate to West Germany from the 1950s through 1970s (between 1970 and 1988 55,227 persons from Warmia and Masuria moved to Western Germany). Local toponyms were Polonised by the Polish Commission for the Determination of Place Names.

Read more about this topic:  East Prussia, History

Famous quotes containing the words southern, part and/or poland:

    My course is a firm assertion and maintenance of the rights of the colored people of the South according to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, coupled with a readiness to recognize all Southern people, without regard to past political conduct, who will now go with me heartily and in good faith in support of these principles.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?
    Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)

    It is often said that Poland is a country where there is anti-semitism and no Jews, which is pathology in its purest state.
    Bronislaw Geremek (b. 1932)