Military
Anders' Army
The Polish Armed Forces in the USSR, formed from August 1941 under General Władysław Anders from Poles released from prisons and labour camps. In 1942 they were evacuated to Iran together with civilians.
After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the Sikorski–Maisky agreement of 30 July 1941 restored Polish–Soviet relations and allowed a Polish army to be formed in the USSR. Its commander was General Władysław Anders, released from the Lubyanka prison. Thousands of emaciated deportees and prisoners made their way to the recruiting centres at Buzuluk, Totskoye and Tatishchevo. Missing were only the officers from the camps at Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov, whose fate the Poles asked about in vain.
Because of hunger and the lack of weapons the army was evacuated across the Caspian Sea to Iran in two waves, in spring and summer 1942. More than 110,000 people left with it, about 77,000 of them soldiers and tens of thousands civilians, many of them children. In the Middle East it became the basis of the Polish II Corps, which fought in Italy.
Sources
In the chronicle
(02)2 articles use this term.