The Polish II Corps was instrumental in the Allied defeat of the Germans in North Africa and Italy , and its members hoped to return to Kresy in an independent and democratic Poland at the end of the War . But at Yalta , Churchill agreed Stalin should keep the Soviet gains that Adolf Hitler had endorsed in the Nazi-Soviet Pact , including Kresy , and carry out Polish population transfers . Consequently , Churchill had agreed that tens of thousands of veteran Polish troops under British command should lose their Kresy homes to the Soviet Union , with the implication that relatives including wives and children would be at the mercy of the NKVD . In reaction , thirty officers and men from the II Corps ( Poland ) committed suicide
Yalta
Yalta Conference
Polish Resettlement Act 1947