Yeah, I always wonder about that. USSR gets to keep the parts of Poland it got from the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Same thing holds for the Baltic Republics and bits of Romania as well.
I am all for Poland taking back that it lost to USSR after WWII. Also in order to be consistent it makes sense for Poland to give back to Germany that USSR took from Germany and gave to Poland.
It is only fair.
In 1945 the situation was mixed-up:
What is now western Poland was “Polish” from the 9th to the 12th century but after that was Czech, Prussian, Saxon, Austrian, German etc. etc. - it was mixed up with many nations. Also many people who were by blood one “nation” identified with another nation — this especially happened after Bismarck’s kulturkampf persecution of Catholics when Catholic Germans in “Poland” felt more akin to their Polish brethren and got polonized.
The part of Poland that was taken by the USSR was also mixed up - Poles, Ruthenians, Ukrainians, Germans, Jews, Armenians, Tatars and smaller groups like Boykos, Lemkos, etc
Stalin created a mono-ethnic, mono-lingual state of Poland by creating a defensible western border (the Oder-Neisse) and a defensable eastern border - the Bug and the Bialowieza forests.
Technically the land “belongs” to all 4 or 5 nationalities - that includes the Jews who were murdered by the Nazis.
nation, language, culture, religion, race etc. were all very very mized.
The USSR kept that land by force and today it is Belarussian, lithuanian and Ukrainian and Russian.
As a non-Pole by blood but a Polish citizen by marriage and by choice here’s my impartial take on each of these
1. the Ukrainian part - Poles mourn the loss of Lwow which was a very Polish city. Until 1945 it was nearly 70% Polish and it was a center of Polish culture, language and arts throughout the 17th to 19th centuries. But it was a Polish island in a “Ukrainian” sea - surrounded by communities who identified themselves as “Ukrainian”.
This was similar to Szekelyland in Romania (Magyar island surrounded by Romanians) or Wroclaw/Breslau in Poland.
It is a historical tragedy but since the Ukrainians now allow visits and maintain the city, it is, like Wroclaw
2. Belarussian - this part was always Belarussian even in the small towns and cities. Actually I’m wrong - the second largest ethnic group were Jews. Pinsk was nearly completely a Jewish city and Minsk was 60% Jewish. These were all murdered by the Germans.
Poland and Belarus have good relations and together manage the beautiful wildlife reserve of Bialowieza
3. Lithuania - again, Vilnius/Wilno was a flash-point - a Polish city but this time not quite an island in a Lithuanian sea. The Lithuanians still felt that Vilnius was THEIR city due to its long history of being Lithuania - what is interesting is that Poles and Lithuanians are heavily mixed; naturaly after being united in one country for 400 years. Pilsudski for instance was a Polonized Lithuanian and the greatest Polish poet Mickiewicz is acknowledged by both countries - Mickiewicz’s great POLISH epic starts with “Lithuania, my fatherland, you are like health to me” and he would have been puzzled by the split of nations.
4. Russia - here Kaliningrad was Koenigsburg. It was a German city for 800 years. Deep in German culture, the city of Kant. But it was destroyed during the war and is now a post-Soviet concrete non-descript town. Sad but that’s the way