Poles in the Kaunas region – past and present

The authorities of the Lithuanian state, established a hundred years ago, took steps to assimilate the Polish minority, which retained its separateness. Despite the particularly drastic measures taken against representatives of the Polish minority in Kaunas Lithuania in the interwar period, Poles in Lithuania survived in a relatively good condition. It was only as a result of the repressions applied by the Lithuanian authorities during the World War II and in the first years of Soviet rule that the number of people declaring Polish nationality drastically decreased. Currently, only 0.5% of the entire population in the Kaunas region admits to being Polish. Therefore, the question arises how the Lithuanians managed to annihilate the over 200,000 autochthonous Polish community, which constituted over 10% of the entire population of Kaunas Lithuania. It is to be hoped that learning about the fate of Polish people in the Kaunas region - with the involvement of the Polish authorities - will help to save the Polish minority from the Vilnius region from denationalization.