Polish Operation of the NKVD
The Polish Operation of the NKVD in 1937–1938 was an anti-Polish mass-ethnic cleansing operation of the NKVD carried out in the Soviet Union against Poles during the period of the Great Purge. It was ordered by the Politburo of the Communist Party against so-called "Polish spies" and customarily interpreted by NKVD officials as relating to 'absolutely all Poles'. It resulted in the sentencing of 139,835 people, and summary executions of 111,091 Poles living in or near the Soviet Union. The operation was implemented according to NKVD Order No. 00485 signed by Nikolai Yezhov.
Memorial in Kraków
First page of one of the copies of the Order No. 00485, archived by the Kharkov branch of the NKVD
Memorial to 30 Poles of Vershina, executed on 19 February 1938
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, abbreviated NKVD, was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
Early NKVD leaders, Genrikh Yagoda, then (1924) 1st deputy head of SOU OGPU Vyacheslav Menzhinsky then head of SOU OGPU and deputy head OGPU, and Felix Dzerzhinsky chief of OGPU, 1924
NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda (middle) inspecting construction of what was then called the Moskva-Volga Canal, 1935. Behind him is Nikita Khrushchev
Lavrentiy Beria with Stalin (in background) and Stalin's daughter Svetlana
