authorities made the decision to deport all Ukrainians and Lemkos. It is known that preparations for Operation Vistula had started in January 1947, if not earlier. On 10 September 1947 the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union issued an Order No. 3214-1050, for the deportation of all Ukrainian families of alleged UPA members to Siberia. Between 1945 and 1947 over 126,000 Ukrainians were apprehended by the NKVD and almost 32,000 of the Ukrainian underground were killed, attesting to the continuity of the same Soviet policy from before 1947. In the aftermath of the death of Karol Swierczewski, Lieutenant Colonel Waclaw Kossowski, though concluding that the identity of the assailants responsible for Swierczewski's death was 'impossible to determine', nonetheless advised the Polish general staff on 11 April "As soon as possible, an Operational Group should be organized, which would elaborate a plan to include among other matters the complete extermination of the remnants of the Ukrainian population in the southeastern border region of Poland". On April 16 1947 the Civil Security Minister Brigadier General Radkevych and Marshal Zhymerski, Minister of National Defence, issued the operative and organization plan for an operation named Akcja Wschód articulating the goal of the operation "To solve the Ukrainian problem in Poland once and for all" and instructing the participants to "Conduct evacuation from the southern and eastern border region of all the people of Ukrainian descent...and settle them in the north-western territories of Poland in the highest possible degree of scattering...". Action participants The operation was carried out by the Operational Group Vistula consisting of about 20,000 personnel commanded by General Stefan Mossor. The group included soldiers of the Polish People's Army and the Internal Security Corps, as well as functionaries of the police Milicja Obywatelska and the Security Service Urząd Bezpieczeństwa. At 4am on 1947, six divisions of the Polish army surrounded the villages of southeastern Poland that were inhabited by Ukrainians. In a commensurate action, Soviet internal security forces and Czechslovak border guards blocked the eastern and southern borders of Poland, preventing the deportees from fleeing. Initially, the expellees comprised about 20,000 Ukrainians. With time, the total number grew to 80,000 and eventually to 150,000 inhabitants of Polesie, Roztocze, Pogórze Przemyskie, Bieszczady, Low Beskid, Beskid Sądecki, and Ruś Szlachtowska. The expellees were resettled over a wide area in the Northern and Western Territories assigned to Poland by the Potsdam Agreement including Warmia and