The activity of the Plenipotentiary Board of the Council of People’s Commissioners/Council of Ministers of USSR for Repatriation, 1944–1953

The Plenipotentiary Board of the Council of People’s Commissioners for Repatriation was established by the Council of Peoples’ Commissioners on 23 October 1944 to oversee the repatriation of Soviet and Allied citizens freed from German captivity. It was also dealt with citizens of the Axis countries who found themselves in Soviet captivity, but were not sent to special prison camps in the interior either due to poor health or low military rank. In 1947, the Board was also entrusted with the task of repatriating POWs and internees freed from labour camps and the special labour battalions of the Soviet Interior Ministry. The Board cooperated closely with the Military Councils on all fronts as well as the Ministries of Domestic Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Security of USSR. It was also obliged to cooperate with the state organs of each country to which freed prisoners were repatriated. The Board had an extensive network of camps and reception points that were based in various European states and in USSR itself. During its existence, the Board repatriated 5,352,963 Soviet citizens, 3,413,290 citizens of Allied and Axis countries, and about 1,200,000 POWs and internees released from Soviet prison institutions. The board was liquidated by the Soviet Council of Ministers on 29 December 1952, having carried out the aforementioned repatriations. Its activities ceased on 1 March 195

Impedimetric Detection of Femtomolar Levels of Interleukin 6, Interleukin 8, and Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha Based on Thermally Modified Nanotubular Titanium Dioxide Arrays

An inexpensive, easy to prepare, and label-free electrochemical impedance spectroscopy-based biosensor has been developed for the selective detection of human interleukin 6 (IL-6), interleukin 8 (CXCL8, IL-8), and tumor necrosis factor (TNFα)—potential inflammatory cancer biomarkers. We describe a, so far, newly developed and unexplored method to immobilize antibodies onto a titanium dioxide nanotube (TNT) array by physical adsorption. Immobilization of anti-IL-6, anti-IL-8, and anti-TNFα on TNT and the detection of human IL-6, IL-8, and TNFα were examined using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The impedimetric immunosensor demonstrates good selectivity and high sensitivity against human biomarker analytes and can detect IL-6, IL-8, and TNFα at concentrations as low as 5 pg/mL, equivalent to the standard concentration of these proteins in human blood. The calibration curves evidenced that elaborated biosensors are sensitive to three cytokines within 5 ÷ 2500 pg/mL in the 0.01 M phosphate-buffered saline solution (pH 7.4)

The role of Jozef Czapski in search of "missing" officers and soldiers in the USRR

Józef Czapski zapisał się w polskiej historii nie tylko jako malarz i pisarz, ale także żołnierz, były jeniec obozu starobielskiego, jeden z nielicznych ocalonych od "zbrodni katyńskiej” oraz jako jeden z pierwszych, który konsekwentnie i z uporem próbował odpowiedzieć na pytanie, co stało się z kilkunastoma tysiącami polskich jeńców, po których ślad zaginął w ZSRR w 1940 roku. Już podczas pobytu w obozie w Griazowcu, do którego został przeniesiony w czerwcu 1940 roku, zaczął tworzyć listę polskich jeńców przetrzymywanych do wiosny tego roku w obozach w Kozielsku, Starobielsku i Ostaszkowie. Po zwolnieniu z obozu na początku września 1941 roku i wstąpieniu do Armii Andersa, oficjalnie z ramienia sztabu armii, zajmował się on poszukiwaniami zaginionych jeńców z wyżej wymienionych jednostek obozowych. W tym celu razem ze swoimi współpracownikami, tworzył i na bieżąco uaktualniał listę "zaginionych" wraz z poszlakami o miejscu ich rzekomego przetrzymywania, a także odbył serię spotkań z wysokimi rangą dygnitarzami NKWD ZSRR, między innymi szefem Głównego Zarządu Poprawczych Obozów i Kolonii Pracy (GUŁag) generałem Wiktorem Nasiedkinem, szefem NKWD w Czkałowie – Bzyrowem, oraz generałem Reichmanem w siedzibie NKWD na Łubiance. Mimo iż z przyczyn obiektywnych nie udało mu się ustalić losów poszukiwanych jeńców (zamordowanych wiosną 1940 roku), cała jego praca wniosła olbrzymi wkład w długi proces ujawniania prawdy o „zaginionych”. Kartoteka nazwisk poszukiwanych oficerów i żołnierzy sporządzona przez Czapskiego i jego współpracowników była przez długi okres najważniejszą listą, na której znajdowały się nazwiska ofiar zbrodni katyńskiej. Ponadto jego działania w ZSRR ukazały manipulacje strony radzieckiej w tuszowaniu zbrodni, a także stanowiły odzwierciedlenie rzeczywistego stosunku Józefa Stalina wobec legalnych władz polskich.Józef Czapski went down in Polish history not only as a painter and writer, but also as a soldier, former prisoner of the Starobilsk camp, one of the few survivors of the “Katyn massacre” and one of first people who consistently and stubbornly tried to answer the question of what happened with several thousands of Polish prisoners of war, after which the trace was lost in the USSR in 1940. Already during his stay in the camp in Griazoviec, to which he had been moved in June 1940, he began to create a list of Polish prisoners held in spring that year in the camps in Kozelsk, Starobilsk and Ostashkov. After being released from the camp in early September 1941 and joining the Anders Army, officially on behalf of the military staff, he was looking for missing prisoners from the aforementioned camp units. To achieve that, together with his collaborators, he created and kept up-to-date list of "missing persons” with indications of the place of their alleged detention. He also held series of meetings with high-ranking NKVD dignitaries of the USSR, including the head of Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Settlements (Gulag) general Victor Nasedkin, the head of the NKVD in Chkalov - Bzyrov, and General Reichman at the headquarters of the NKVD in Lubianka. Due to objective reasons, he failed to determine fate of wanted prisoners who had been murdered in the spring of 1940. However, all his work made a huge contribution to the long process of revealing the truth about the “missing ones”. For a long time the list of surnames of sought-after officers and soldiers, prepared by Czapski and his collaborators, was the most important catalogue in which were the names of the Katyń massacre victims. In addition, his actions in the USSR showed the manipulation of the Soviet side in covering up the crime, and also reflected the real attitude of Joseph Stalin towards the legal Polish authorities

Repatriation of American prisoners of war and interned civilians liberated from German captivity by the Red Army

The article discusses the organization and process of repatriation of American prisoners of war and interned civilians liberated from German captivity by the Red Army. It presents legal grounds of repatriation, the adopted principles of arranging the repatriation process, the territorial network of komendanturas and camps where the liberated citizens were kept, the living, medical and sanitary conditions in the mentioned units, the evacuation routes, the means of transport, the number of the repatriated, the rules of the work of teams of contact officers. A detailed analysis of the above-mentioned issues reveals the complicated and tense relations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the final years of World War II. It also perfectly illustrates the attitude of the USSR towards the American ally, which was characterized by failure to follow agreements, disregarding the requests and petitions from US representatives, and delaying a lot of shared actions

The repatriation of American prisoners of war and civilians from Soviet repatriation units on Polish territory in years 1944-1945

World War II drastically changed the previous international balance of power. It also resulted in far-reaching changes in the bilateral relations between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Their alliance, forced by wartime circumstances, involved collaboration in the diplomatic, military, political and economic scope. One of the areas of the American-Soviet collaboration was also the mutual repatriation of prisoners of war and civilian internees liberated from German captivity. The problem emerged already in 1944 along with the Allied offensive and forced the Allies to take specific measures. It became a priority to develop mechanisms for concentrating the prisoners and internees, keeping their records, protecting them, providing them with appropriate living, medical and sanitary conditions (until they were transferred to the representatives of their states) as well as preparing specific repatriation procedures both in terms of transferring contingents and organizing means of transport and evacuation routes. Months of negotiations led to the agreement signed at the conference in Yalta on 11 February 1945