Moscow. Stalin meets with Polish General Sikorski, head of the Polish government-in-exile. Sikorski convinces Stalin to free all Polish prisoners in the Gulags to contribute to the Allied war effort. They will form the Second Polish Army Corps. After thousands of kilometers of marching on foot and being transported by cargo ships across the Caspian Sea, they will receive training from the British in Iran, before moving first to Palestine and then Egypt, and finally fighting in Italy. Ultimately, they will not be able to return to Sovietized Poland, and almost all of them will end up in Great Britain, with some in the United States, Italy, and so on. During the meeting with Sikorski, when Stalin asks why he hasn’t heard from thousands of Polish officers, not even from the Gulags, Stalin (who had them all shot at Katyn and in the Gulags) replies that they may have escaped to Manchuria. Polish General Anders (who would later lead the Second Army Corps) had the courage to object: “It is impossible that everyone fled to Manchuria without ever trying to communicate with Poland.”
