The National Bank of Poland just issued an exceptional 2008 silver proof 10 zlotych coin commemorating the Siberian exiles, the lost generations of the Polish nation. The reverse of this historically significant coin features a zircon crystal at the center of a stylized representation of the trees in Syberia. The obverse shows silhouettes of human figures with the inscription: "… bylismy tlumem bezimiennym" (… we were a nameless crowd).
From the NBP's documentation:
The term "Sybiracy" (the Siberians) is a colloquialism and is primarily used in two meanings. In Russia, it refers to the inhabitants of Siberia who were not members of indigenous tribes and Asian peoples. (...) However, in Poland the term "Sybiracy" has come to denote all the Poles who were sent into exile and forced to settle in Siberia ("sent into exile to Siberia") from where some of them did not return. (...) Poles first came to Siberia as prisoners of war in the first half of the 17th century, but the actual history of the Polish Siberian exiles begins after the suppression of the Confederation of Bar in 1768. (...) It is estimated that 16,800 Poles and 1,800 members of their families were sent into exile between 1863 and 1867, as a result of the failure of the January 1863 Uprising. (...) Most of the "Siberian exiles" returned to the Second Polish Republic during or after World War I, but some Poles did not leave Siberia and became "Siberians" in the Russian sense of the word.
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