Warmia - Poland

Poland

Through the Yalta Conference and Potsdam Conference of 1945 the victorious Allies divided East Prussia into the two parts now known as Oblast Kaliningrad (in Russia) and the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (in Poland). The populace was evacuated or fled the advancing Red Army in 1945. Prior to the Potsdam Conference, during the Soviet winter 1945 offensive (Vistula–Oder Offensive) Red Army overrun Warmia, killing and raping local population, without any regards towards age nor ethnic origin. Following the Potsdam Conference agreements the Soviets and then Polish administration expelled most of those Warmia Germans remaining to Western part of Germany under the Allied rule, unless in the Polish voivodeship they declared themselves Polish speakers. Only a small minority of Germans of Poland remained in Warmia as a result of World War II. The majority of present inhabitants of Warmia are descendants of Poles who either were the Warmiaks or migrated from other parts of Poland, including the pre-1939 Polish Borderlands, after 1945. The Catholic character of Warmia has been preserved in the architecture of its villages and towns, as well in folk customs. Olsztyn is the largest city in Warmia and the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivedeship. During the 1945-46 Warmia was part of the Okreg Mazurski (Masurian District). In 1946 a new voivodeship was created and named the Olsztyn Voivodeship, which encompassed entire Warmia and Masurian counties. In 1975 this voivodeship was redistricted and thus survived until the new redistricting and renaming in 1999 as Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship.