The deported farmers received financial help from the Polish government and took over homes and farms left behind by the Germans, in some cases experiencing an improvement in their living conditions as a result of the increased size of the newly acquired properties, their brick construction, and the provision of running water. In the years 1956 to 1958 they received mostly non-repayable credits totalling 170 million
PLN which was a considerable amount of money in the Polish national budget.
[8] At exactly the same time the Soviet Union carried out a parallel operation, dubbed "Operation West", in the
Ukrainian SSR. Although both operations were coordinated from Moscow, there was a shocking difference between their outcomes.
[4] Operation West was conducted in
West Ukraine by the Soviet NKVD and targeted the families of suspected UPA members. Over 114,000 individuals, mostly women and children, were deported to the
Kazakh SSR and Siberia and forced into
extreme poverty.
[4] Of the 19,000 adult males deported by the NKVD deportees,
[4] most were sent to coal mines and stone quarries in the north. None of the people deported by the NKVD received any farms or empty homes to live in.
[4]