
Pub in Kluki (1928)
Deportation of Slovincian
For residents of Kluki, the Second World War came to an end on 10th March 1945 with the Soviet army coming into the village. After taking their positions in the village, soldiers started to treat civilians with much violence – break-ins, rapes and attacks became an everyday routine similarly as in another towns that were “being freed”. After a few days, officers ordered a complete evacuation of inhabitants to nearby Grabice where they stayed until the beginning of May. A reason for the abandonment of Kluki stemmed from concern for attack of German forces from the sea as the war still last. When they returned, it turned out that the most precious things were completely stolen from all the houses and equipment inside was totally devastated. Inhabitants of Kluki were treated the same as another German population of Pomerania. For natives, new extremely hard and often dramatic times began.
Years of the war and the very moment where Soviet forces conquered the village did not bring significant number of civil victims, yet 25 soldiers were killed at the front and 7 civilians died during warfare. In the first census on 14th February 1946, it turned out that in Kluki there lived 654 people (4 persons less than in May 1939) in 125 households. Although during the census no Polish settler was reported, in 1947 there were thirty four Polish residents. 27 people in 6 families and another 7 lonely demobilized soldiers. All the settlers came from the east, most of them from the Wilno area. More evictions than settlements resulted in that a number of the village inhabitants fell by three times and was only 207 people. At that time, similarly as in another Pomeranian towns, the eviction process began.
Under the terms of the Potsdam Conference (between 17th July and 2nd August 1945), a whole German population from areas within new territories of Poland was to be evicted to Germany. On the other hand, Polish natives who wanted to stay in the motherland had to pass a verification procedure based on checking nationality and signing a statement of loyalty to the Polish state. At first, the Slovincian were not proposed to undergo the procedure. However with time going by, people having knowledge on the history of Pomerania and members of the Polish Western Territories Association began to believe that an attempt to re-slavicize inhabitants of the village from the Gardno and Lebsko areas as descendants of native Kashubian population should be made. Unfortunately, those plans were never realized because the local community has some bad experience with the Polish authorities and with neighbours – the Polish who settled in their towns.











