Scattered: The Forced Relocation of Poland’s Ukrainians after World War II

by Diana Howansky Reilly

Following World War II, the communist government of Poland forcibly relocated the country's Ukrainian minority by means of a Soviet-Polish population exchange and then a secretly planned action code-named Operation Vistula. In Scattered, Diana Howansky Reilly recounts these events through the experiences of three siblings caught up in the conflict, during a turbulent period when compulsory resettlement was a common political tactic used against national minorities to create homogenous states.
Born in the Lemko region of southeastern Poland, Petro, Melania, and Hania Pyrtej survived World War II only to be separated by political decisions over which they had no control. Petro relocated with his wife to Soviet Ukraine during the population exchange of 1944-46, while his sisters Melania and Hania were resettled to western Poland through Operation Vistula in 1947. As the Ukrainian Insurgent Army fought resettlement, the Polish government meanwhile imprisoned suspected sympathizers within the Jaworzno concentration camp. Melania, Reilly's maternal grandmother, eventually found her way to the United States during Poland's period of liberalization in the 1960s.
Drawing on oral interviews and archival research, Reilly tells a fascinating, true story that provides a bottom-up perspective and illustrates the impact of extraordinary historical events on the lives of ordinary people. Tracing the story to the present, she describes survivors' efforts to receive compensation for the destruction of their homes and communities.

Silver Medal for World History, Independent Publisher Book Awards

Finalist, Housatonic Book Awards

Finalist in History, Foreword Books of the Year

Genres: History

177 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2013

Reviews

[Richard Zaslavsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone interested in the topic of Second World War, Lemko people, Operation Vistula, I highly recommend reading this fascinating book. It is a real story of a Lemko family who lived through those events. It's very well written.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find this book very relevant to understand how Polish authorities will treat the refugees from Ukraine, especially ethnic people.

[Bohdan Pechenyak · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poignant story of the author's family's history after the World War II. Both parents were born and raised as Lemkos, a subethnos of the Ukrainians that lived (and continues to live, to some extent) in the mountainous regions, which are today located in Poland and Slovakia. In late 1940s, both Poland and the Soviet Union cooperated to forcefully resettle these and other populations of Ukrainians from their native lands to "resolve the Ukrainian question" within the postwar Poland and "the Polish question" within the postwar Soviet Union. Once the Soviet Union stopped the population exchange in 1946, the Polish government embarked on another resettlement effort, this time internally, removing Ukrainians from the border regions and exiling them to the Western and the Northern lands, gained as a result of the Yalta conference after the War.

Both sides of the family suffered from this latter "Operation Vistula". Diana tells their story from their personal point of view, communicating their experiences with as much precision as possible, while taking care to set up the historical and sociopolitical background for the events and to draw some general conclusions at the end of the account. It is an invaluable effort to fill the gap within English-language literature describing this side of the World War II and its consequences.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This historical novel kept my attention through the whole book. Learning about an event not taught in classrooms and the tugging true story of those that lived the event scored high points for me. The book is not written in familiar dialogue but more summarized chapters that reflect the words of survivors from interviews by the author.

[Scott Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-written story of what happened to the Lemkos in Poland after World War II.