The IPN exhibition entitled “And They Never Returned Home. The Alphabet of the Augustów Round-up,” was prepared by the IPN Branch in Białystok and was curated by a historian Jarosław Wasilewski. Its aim is to remember the victims tragic fate and pay them due respect.

Following the event a conference titled “Truth and Memory of the Augustów Round-up” took place in the Seym’s Column Hall.

Historians describe the July 1945 sweep by the Soviet NKVD and SMERSH units in the Suwałki region as the largest post-war crime against Poles. Earlier research put the death toll at 592, but recent estimates reach about 2,000. None of the bodies has been located.

IPN investigators say roughly 600 detainees from Augustów, Suwałki and Sokółka counties were executed at an unknown site, with Polish communist security services assisting Soviet troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front.

Experts analyzing post-war aerial photographs have pinpointed over 60 potential mass-grave sites in neighboring Belarus near Kalety, yet Minsk has refused legal cooperation. Limited digs on the Polish side revealed scattered human remains, with no proven link to the Round-up.