Belastok Region
Belastok Region, also known as Belastok Voblasts or Belostok Oblast (; ; ) was a short-lived region (voblasts) of the Byelorussian SSR during World War II, lasting from September 1939 until Operation Barbarossa in 1941, and again for a short period in 1944. The administrative center of the region was the city of Białystok (Belastok), which was annexed from Poland in 1939. History Integration into the Soviet Union From 23 September to October 1939, the secretary of the central committee of the Belarusian SSR lived in Bialystok due to the protracted procedures for the transfer of the territories west of Bialystok by German troops to Białystok. While the leaders of provincial boards and were immediately established at the level of the Central Committee and the Military Front Council, the lower structures (poviat, gmina) were established "in consultation with the military authorities", which most often boiled down to providing these authorities with the right to choose the right people from a proven, inflowing party stream into these lands. As explained on 4 October 1939 at a meeting of the chairmen of the Provisional Boards and the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, Panteleimon Ponomarenko, "Temporary local