Poles
Polish people are the sixth largest national group in the European Union. Estimates vary depending on source, though available data suggest a total number of around 60 million people worldwide (with roughly 21 million living outside of Poland, many of whom are not of Polish ethnicity, but Polish nationals). There are almost 38 million Poles in Poland alone. There are also Polish minorities in the surrounding countries including (Germany), and indigenous minorities in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, northern and eastern Lithuania, western Ukraine, and western Belarus. There are some smaller indigenous minorities in nearby countries such as Moldova. There is also a Polish minority in Russia which includes indigenous Poles as well as those forcibly deported during and after World War II; the total number of Poles in what was the former Soviet Union is estimated at up to 3 million.
History of Poland (1945–1989)
"b1."Andrzej Leder gives the following figures, quoting Andrzej Paczkowski and Henryk Słabek. Of the 4.7 million people who populated the Recovered Territories in 1945–1950, 2.9 million came from central and south-eastern provinces of the new Polish territory and over 1.5 million from what had become the Soviet Union; smaller numbers of settlers arrived from France, Germany and other countries. From February 1946 to the end of 1948, 2.2 million Germans had to leave Poland (Paczkowski). 2.8 million Poles returned to Poland after the war from Germany and other parts of Western Europe (out of the total of 3.0–3.5 million war displaced who were present there) and many of them settled in the Recovered Territories.(Słabek).