760C.61/4–643

Memorandum by the Polish Ambassador (Ciechanowski)89

Count Raczyński informed the Polish Ambassador by cable from London on April 5th, that on March 29th, 1943, the Polish Foreign Minister addressed a note to Ambassador Bogomolov,90 strongly protesting against the enforced imposition of Soviet citizenship on Polish citizens in the USSR. Count Raczyński further stressed in the note the Polish Government’s refusal to recognize acts by means of which the sovereign rights of the Polish State are being violated, and that it reserves the right to question in the future all factual conditions—both in regard to the general aspect of matters, as in matters pertaining to individual cases of citizens, resulting from the above mentioned attitude of the USSR Government.

Count Raczyński emphasized the contradiction of the Soviet attitude with the Polish-Soviet agreement of July 30, 1941, as well as the fact that the Soviet regulation on citizenship issues from the Soviet-German treaties of 1939. Considering that this regulation is based on one of the said Soviet-German treaties, it must have lost its validity from the moment of the German aggression on Russia.

In view of the liquidation and taking over by the Soviet administration, contrary to formal assurances previously given by the Soviet Government, of the relief and welfare institutions of the Polish Embassy,—the [Page 368] Polish Government formally and energetically protests against the enforced sovietization of these Polish institutions and reserves its right to claim the return of all the property of the Polish State now being confiscated and to demand full payment of damages for the losses sustained.

  1. Left with the Under Secretary of State on April 6, 1943.
  2. For text of the Polish note of March 29, 1943, see Polish-Soviet Relations, 1918–1943, Official Documents, p. 175.