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On the night of February 10, 1940, there started the first of four mass deportations of the Poles who inhabited the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic, which was then under the Soviet Union occupation. The total number of those who were deported is estimated to be over 300,000 people.

The first deportation affected about 140,000 Polish citizens, and was the most tragic in terms of the number of victims. It was accompanied by brutal actions of the NKVD officials who, 83 years ago, were given just a few minutes - mainly to the families of military personnel, public officials, workers of forestry and railway - to pack their belongings before they were deported deep into the USRR.

A special group of deportees were the relatives of the Polish Army officers who had been already held in the NKVD special camps. In April 1940, during the second deportation, the families of the Polish prisoners-of-war, were forced to leave their homes, and to head for the unknown, at the same time as their fathers, sons, husbands and brothers were being shot at Katyn, Smolensk, Kharkov, Kalinin (now Tver) and other places of execution.

It is about their dramatic fate that one of our permanent exhibitions - "Polish prisoners-of-war in the USRR" at Łambinowice seat of the museum - talks about. Pre-war photographs of the Polish Army and the State Police officers, as well servicemen of other military branches of the Second Polish Republic - future prisoners-of-war - are the introduction to it. The faces of their loved ones: women and children, are placed alongside them. Some of them were about to become victims to the mass deportations.