Operation "Vistula" involved the forced resettlement of Polish citizens of Ukrainian and Lemko ethnicity from southeastern Poland in 1947, affecting approximately 140,000 people. The operation was orchestrated by the communist authorities in Poland. The prosecution of those responsible for the deportations had been demanded by various groups, including the president of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland and the chairman of the Lemko Union Presidium.
The justification given by the IPN for closing the investigation at the end of November 2023 was that there was no evidence to support the claim that "the resettlement under Operation 'Vistula' constituted a crime against humanity or a communist crime". The IPN argued that the decision to implement Operation "Vistula" was made to "ensure the safety of citizens" and that the deportation was intended to protect the population and to disrupt the Ukrainian Insurgent Army's access to supplies and intelligence from local residents. The IPN further claimed that no ethnic criteria were used in the resettlement and that the evacuation was conducted "in a humanitarian manner" (I do not know their documentation, but that the claim about the lack of ethnic discrimination seems dubious - possibly it is based on the fact that if there were any Poles living in Ukrainian villages in the region, they too were expelled before the villages were razed. The Union of Ukrainians in Poland and an association from Gorlice appealed the IPN's decision to the District Court in Warsaw. They argued that the case should not have been dismissed, as the IPN had failed to consider important research findings. The court agreed with their position. The investigation into Operation 'Vistula' will return to the IPN Prosecutor's Office," announced the Union of Ukrainians in Poland. Historians have welcomed the court's decision, considering it appropriate.
]Of course there is a parallel situation, the lands they were resettled to had been depopulated of the remaining German population,(many also had fled the advancing Red Army, never to return), forcibly resettled to Germany after the War. The villages they took over had been German for some 600 years before that and there are whole regions of western, south western Poland where the village structures, architecture and 'grain' of the landscape are "German" in feel. The same goes for large bits of Pomerania and former Ostpreussen, but to a lesser extent because the Belarussian Front of the Red Army was far more destructive (over-enthusiastically destructive) in these regions (not just the buildings, here were egregious episodes of gang rapes and arbitrary shootings, Bucha and Irpin have deep roots in the Russian mentality)].* The tragedy of the War did not end on May 9th(or whenever) 1945 with the capitulation of the Nazis.
*Actually the same thing happened when the Russian "Imperial Army" entered Ostpreussen in the First World War
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