General Anders meets Stalin

... When he was released, General Anders immediately sought to collect as his staff officers those men whom he personally knew had been captured by the Soviets. Shortly after the arrangement between the Soviets and the Poles and the appointment of General Anders as Polish commander in chief, small groups of Polish soldiers from Griazovec and other prison camps joined the Anders command.

Only 400 of the officers reporting had been numbered among the 15,400 men who had been at Kozielsk, and Ostashkov prior to May 1940.

Very few of these men were the staff officers whom Anders knew personally and whom he needed. Where were the other 15,000 Polish leaders? From then until the summer of 1942 when General Anders commenced to move his Polish troops out of Russia into the Middle East he continued his search for these officers. Repeated requests, personal and official, were made to the Russian general staff, to the Russian foreign office, and even to the NKVD, for information about these missing officers.

General Anders in addition to making official representations to the Russian Government authorized one of his officers, Maj. Josef Czapski, to make a search for these officers throughout Soviet prisons. General Anders also secured an interview with Premier Stalin in December 1941. At this meeting, General Anders accompanied the head of the Polish Government in Exile, General Sikorski, and the Polish Ambassador in Moscow, Mr. Kot. Stalin personally was asked about these missing Polish officers.

The Soviet Premier insisted he was not detaining them nor did he have them.

General Anders testified in London before this committee:

"We inquired, `Well, where could they have gone?' To this Stalin replied, 'They escaped,' We asked, `Where could they have escaped?' And Stalin replied, 'To Manchuria.' I said that this was impossible."

Anders had a second meeting with Stalin at the Kremlin in Moscow of the 18th of March 1942. At this meeting with Stalin, Anders presented him with a list of missing Polish officers and told Stalin that none of the officers had as yet reported to the Polish Army.

Stalin replied: "Well, what good would they be to us? Why would we want to be keeping them or retaining them?"

At this same meeting Stalin hinted that maybe the Polish officers had fled and become separated when the Germans invaded Russia...

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