Page:CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3.pdf/26

 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3

exaggerated. This discrepancy reflects fundamental differences in the criteria used in the identification of Germans and Poles, particularly as this relates to persons of mixed nationality. At the time of the Polish occupation of the former German territories, Polish authorities reclassified some 1.3 million inhabitants as Autochthonous (literally "sprung-from-the-soil") Poles, who were thereby exempt from being transferred to Germany. This group of persons, considered German by German sources, consists mainly of bilingual people of Polish-German ancestry. About 80% of them live in Silesia, with the remainder in Gdansk province and in Olsztyn province (the major part of former East Prussia). Over 300,000 Germans and/or Autochthons are believed to have left Poland since about 1955 for both West and East Germany. Polish officials privately estimated that as many as 75,000 ethnic Germans were still residing in Poland in mid-1970. Nearly all of the 30,000 Germans repatriated by 1972 were probably from this category. The number of such Germans, together with persons of mixed ancestry in Poland in 1972 probably was under one million.

The 180,000 Ukrainians in Poland form the largest minority in the country and reside in 11 of the 17 territorial provinces of the country. Before the war, most Ukrainians within present Polish boundaries lived in Rzeszow province in the southeast, but because of forcible resettlement after 1947 into the former German territories, the Ukrainian minority still residing in Rzeszow province accounted for only an estimated 1% or 2% of the population in 1969. In Olsztyn and Koszalin provinces, however, they accounted for 5% to 7% of the population, with some isolated districts having a proportion as high as 25%. In contrast to the widely distributed Ukrainians, most of the 160,000 White Russian minority resides in Bialystok province in Eastern Poland.

The remaining smaller minority groups are located chiefly along the periphery of the country: Slovaks in southern Krakow province, Lithuanians in northeastern Bialystok province, and Great Russians in Bialystok and Olsztyn provinces. Poland's Gypsy minority, residing mainly in the southern provinces, increased from about 17,000 in 1964 to 18,000 in 1967. During the same period, however, the percentage of nomadic Gypsies decreased from 50% to 4%, according to official Polish claims. Most of the Greek minority, constituting in the main refugees from the Greek civil conflict in the late 1940's, are settled in the former German territories in western Poland, while the small Czech minority is concentrated in the southern portions of Katowice and Opole provinces.

4. Vital trends

Despite heavy wartime losses among both sexes of all age groups, in the early postwar period Poland had one of the most rapidly growing populations in all Europe and was first among the countries of Eastern Europe (Figure 11). The postwar "baby boom" as well as the unusually heavy wartime losses of persons of childbearing age are illustrated by the fact that in 1970 the number of 20- to 24-year olds was more than 30% above those in the 25- to 29-year old category (Figure 12). Between 1949 and 1955 the very high birth date was accompanied by a marriage rate unsurpassed since the early 1920's, stimulated to some extent by settlement of the former German territories. An important factor in the overall population growth has been an almost steady decline in Poland's death rate from a high of 14.1 per 1,000 population in the immediate prewar period to a low of 7.3 in 1966. The slow increase since then, to 8.1 per 1,000 population in 1970, reflects the gradual, relative rise in the numbers of persons age 65 and over. Especially large reductions have been achieved in the infant mortality rate which, standing at 139 per 1,000 live births in 1938, was second only to Romania in Europe. Although this rate was reduced to a figure of 33.4 per 1,000 live births in 1970, it nevertheless remained among the highest in Europe. In Eastern Europe, Poland's infant mortality rate is exceeded only by Albania, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Hungary, in that order. Comparable rates in Western countries range from 20.8 in the United States, 18.8 in the United Kingdom, and 16.4 in France, to the world's lowest, 12.9 in Sweden.

The relatively rapid decline in Poland's birth rate since 1955 has been the most significant aspect of the country's vital trends (Figure 13). It reached its lowest recorded level of 16.2 per 1,000 population in 1968. Over the same period, 1955-68, Poland's rate of natural increase has shown an even more marked decline. In 1969 a somewhat increased birth rate of 16.3 per 1,000 population was outweighed by a higher death rate to produce the lowest rate of natural increase in the postwar period—8.2 per 1,000 population, or the same as that of the United States in that year.

Although Poland no longer ranks among the fastest growing countries in Europe, its rate of natural increase still exceeds that of most other countries in Eastern Europe. Poland's relative standing in this respect compared to selected countries in 1969 is shown in Figure 14.

The primary causes of the decline in the birth rate have been the slow but tangible improvements in the

19

APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3