No deportation of Lithuanians from Suwałki Triangle in 1941

As result of pacts made with Soviets Third Reich exchanged Germans from Lithuanian SSR for Lithuanians living on Reich's territory. Initially only Lithuanians from Memel were planned to be deported but seeing that Soviets are fine with such population transfers Germans decided to include also Lithuanians from Suwałki Triangle they annexed in 1939. Decision was made in January 1941, deportations were finished in April 1941. As result 14 000 (at least organization "Suvalkija" claims that number, I haven't found other estimates) Lithuanians were deported to LSSR.
So what if German-Soviet talks only include deportations of Memel Lithuanians or deportations are delayed and not start before Barbarossa? How would these Lithuanians fare during and after war?
Some of them returned to their homes short after ww2 when borders were not tightly closed but in the meantime many abandoned farms were already settled by Poles expelled from the East. And because they were given Soviet citizenship in 1941 they were deported again because they "illegaly" left USSR. Now situation is different but there will still be attemps to exchange population between Poland and LSSR-but how successful? IOTL those who avoided deportation in 1941 and did not have Soviet citizenship were encouraged to leave to LSSR but with little effect-they didn't want to leave their homes and move to Soviet Union (as result only one woman with child registered for voluntary departure to LSSR in spring 1945, so action was abandoned). And if needed I think they could pretend that they are Poles-they lived in Second Polish Republic for generation so should be able to speak Polish.
 
If they aren't transferred back to Lithuania during the post-WW2 mass population transfers, then the main thing that changes is that Poland has a somewhat larger Lithuanian minority.

Which really doesn't change all that much in the end, anyway, even when regarding later Polish-Lithuanian relations.
 
20 000 people are insignificant for Poland but for post-ww2 Lithuania it would be 1% of population, leadership of LSSR didn't want Poles to left fearing depopulation of southeastern parts of the country. So could people-hungry LSSR demand transfer of these Lithuanians if their numbers are more significant or they wouldn't care?
 
20 000 people are insignificant for Poland but for post-ww2 Lithuania it would be 1% of population, leadership of LSSR didn't want Poles to left fearing depopulation of southeastern parts of the country. So could people-hungry LSSR demand transfer of these Lithuanians if their numbers are more significant or they wouldn't care?
I don't think they would really care. Why go the hassle of bringing in some Polish Lithuanians when you have thousands of potential Russian settlers who would be more loyal to the Soviet Union?

But hey, it could happen. If the Soviets wanted to "repay" Lithuania and the 150 000 Poles it lost by bringing in 20 000 Lithuanians, they could do it and nobody could stop them.
 
Stalin didn't do his deportations out of nationalistic reasons.

(I mean... most of the time)

Semantics. Some could say anti-nationalist reasons (which he definitely used) are often practically nationalist reasons. Policies marginalizing the other, smaller nationalities in the USSR led to outcomes that were de facto consistent with Russian nationalism, even if it was in the context of an ostensibly Communist system that officially eschewed all nationalism.
 
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I'm not sure about all this.

On the one hand, if the Soviet Union and Poland are trying to engage in population exchanges of Poles to the west and Ukrainians to the east, it oes not necessarily make sense that another Soviet nationality would be excluded.

On the other hand, the case could be made that Ukrainians were a special case because of their strength of their identity. The Lithuanians, perhaps like the remaining Belarusians, might well be assimilated into the population of Poles, lacking anything like the Ukrainians' militancy.
 
I'm not sure about all this.

On the one hand, if the Soviet Union and Poland are trying to engage in population exchanges of Poles to the west and Ukrainians to the east, it oes not necessarily make sense that another Soviet nationality would be excluded.

On the other hand, the case could be made that Ukrainians were a special case because of their strength of their identity. The Lithuanians, perhaps like the remaining Belarusians, might well be assimilated into the population of Poles, lacking anything like the Ukrainians' militancy.
Ukrainians were deported because of activity of Ukrainian guerilla in southeastern Poland and because there were hunderts thousands of them left west of Curzon Line. There was no Belarussian guerilla in Poland so Belarussians were not deported. There was also no Lithuanian guerilla (hardly possible either with 5 000 Lithuanians left in Suwałki region like IOTL or 20 000 like ITTL). And it was often not easy to tell who is Ukrainian and who is not, for obvious reason Ukrainians claimed Polish nationality to avoid deportation, so population transfer was made according to religious criteria-Eastern Rite Catholics and Orthodox Christians were counted as Ukrainians, as result many Orthodox Poles were also forcibly transferred to Soviet Ukraine. For Lithuanians it would be easier to pretend that they are Poles because of their Catholic faith.
 
Well, how do Lithuanians in Poland identify now? That is the key issue, since we are assuming all else is the same. How do the people of Punsk and thereabouts see their identity?
 
Well, how do Lithuanians in Poland identify now? That is the key issue, since we are assuming all else is the same. How do the people of Punsk and thereabouts see their identity?
They idendify themselves as Lithuanians and are generally bilingual. They have Lithuanian-language schools in Puńsk/Punskas where they are solid majority and Sejny, nowadays they often study in Lithuania.
Lithuanian wedding in Puńsk:
 
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