Anders' Army was the informal yet common name of the Polish Armed Forces in the East in the 1941–42 period, in recognition of its commander Władysław Anders. The army was created in the Soviet Union but, in March 1942, based on an understanding between the British, Polish, and Soviets, it was evacuated from the Soviet Union and made its way through Iran to Palestine. There it passed under British command and provided the bulk of the units and troops of the Polish II Corps (member of the Polish Armed Forces in the West), which fought in the Italian Campaign. Anders' Army is notable for having been primarily composed of liberated POWs and for Wojtek, a bear who had honorary membership. Establishment in the Soviet Union At the start of the Soviet invasion of Poland (17 September 1939), the Soviets declared that the Polish state, previously invaded by Axis forces on 1 September 1939, no longer existed, effectively breaking off Soviet-Polish relations. Soviet authorities deported about 325,000 Polish citizens from Soviet-occupied Poland to the Soviet Union in 1940–41. Due to British mediation and pressure, the Soviet Union and the Polish government-in-exile (then based in London) re-established Polish-Soviet diplomatic relations in July 1941 after the German invasion of the Soviet Union started on 22 June 1941. The Sikorski–Mayski agreement of 30 July 1941 resulted in the Soviet Union agreeing to invalidate the territorial aspects of the pacts it had had with Nazi Germany and to release tens of thousands of Polish prisoners-of-war held in Soviet camps. Pursuant to the agreement between the Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet Union, the Soviets granted "amnesty" to many Polish citizens, from whom a military force was formed. A Polish-Soviet military agreement was signed on 14 August 1941; it attempted to specify the political and operational conditions for the functioning of the Polish army on Soviet soil. Stalin agreed that this force would be subordinate to the Polish government-in-exile, while operationally being a part of the Soviet-German Eastern Front. On 4 August 1941 the Polish prime minister and commander-in-chief, General Władysław Sikorski, nominated General Władysław Anders, just released from the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, as commander of the army. General Michał Tokarzewski began the task of forming the army in the Soviet town of Totskoye in Orenburg Oblast on 17 August. Anders announced his appointment and issued his first orders on 22 August. The formation began organizing