Siberian deportees 10 zl

Obverse:

On the left there is the image of an eagle established as the emblem of the Republic of Poland. Furthest to the right there are images of human figures. On the right there is a diagonal inscription: … we were a nameless crowd. At the bottom, on the right there is an inscription: 10 ZŁ. On the left and at the top of the coin there is a round inscription: RZECZPOSPOLITA POLSKA and the year of issue: 2008. There is the mint mark under the eagle’s left leg.

Reverse:

An inscription in the center: SYBIRACY. In the background there is a forest image and its reflection. At the bottom there is a zircon crystal.

Coin designer: Ewa Tyc-Karpińska

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The Polish first ended up in Siberia as prisoners of war in the first half of the 17th century. But the real history of the Polish Sybiracy starts after the defeat of the Bar Confederation in 1768. Through a special ukase Catherine II sent to exile in the Ural mountains at least 5 thousand people, who were released only in the years 1773–1781. The successive waves of banishments of people involved in plots, uprisings and conspiracies (e.g. the plot of Józef Zaliwski and the patriotic conspiracy of Szymon Konarski) took place in 1830s and 40s. The greatest numbers of Polish people ended up in Siberia as an aftermath of the defeat of the January uprising (i.e. in the years 1863–1867). Is has been estimated that 16.8 thousand Polish people were banished there along with their 1.8 thousand companions.

In the last decade of the 19th century it was mostly the participants of the illegal revolutionary movement that were exiled. From the beginning of the 20th century the number of the banished was rising slightly but systematically. Among those exiled were people convicted by courts of justice as well as those banished from the country on the basis of an administrative decision. Some of them were also sentenced to labour camps and prison, which however was usually temporary. In 1910 from 48 to 52 thousand Polish people lived in Siberia.

The Stalinist repressions of the 1930s concerned people of various nationalities, including the Polish. Massive transportations of Polish people started after 17 September 1939 and included various social groups, especially those that due to their profession or participation in war carried arms. There were also deportations of whole families, although it is difficult to calculate the number of people who ended up in Siberia against those who were transported to other territories of the Gulag. Many of the arrested vanished without a trace and it is still difficult to estimate the number of the victims, both those that died in Siberia and those that managed to survive.