Tensions between the increasingly nationalistic Polish government and various increasingly separatist ethnic minority groups continued to grow , and the Belarusian minority was no exception . Likewise , according to Marek Jan Chodakiewicz , the USSR considered Poland to be " enemy number one " . During the Great Soviet Purge , the Polish Autonomous District at Dzyarzhynsk ( Polish : '' Kojdanów '' ) was disbanded and the Soviet NKVD undertook the so-called " Polish Operation " ( from approximately August 25 , 1937 to November 15 , 1938 ) – a program of deportation and shootings that targeted Poles in East Belorussia , i.e. the BSSR . The operation caused the deaths of to 250,000 people – out of an official ethnic Polish population of 636,000 – as a result of political murder , disease or starvation . Amongst these , at least 111,091 members of the Polish minority were shot by NKVD '' troykas '' . Many were murdered in prison executions , according to Bogdan Musial . In addition , several hundred thousand ethnic Poles from Belarus and Ukraine were deported to other parts of the Soviet Union
Great Soviet Purge
Great Purge
Western Belorussia