A couple of thoughts:
One thing about the current state of Poland is finding a way to feed the populace that exists. I struck this first thinking about Krakow. If it has 80-100,000 people there, how much farmland is required to support it? Without going into details, I made a rough model for it all, and came up with Krakow needing 800-1,000 square kilometers of farmland to support it. Say 30km x 30km. Hence there must be farming villages around in the area. And so forth...
While I agree areas of Poland are wasteland, I think there needs to be large tracts of land that are farmed to support the people who are around. The Eastern European Sourcebook says there are about 9 million in Poland in 2000 (from pre-war 36 million). Doing a bit of digging, I came up with about 160,000 square kilometers of 'open' (farmable) land in Poland. To support 9 million, using the numbers in the paragraph above, I need to use 90,000 sq km of farmland - say half the open land in Poland. Hence my vision of Poland looks a bit different to some others, and also to canon in places (a notable instance being what I worked out for Czestchowa, which is still inhabited in places). When I looked at it, I couldn't make all the canon sources 'agree'; so I just adapted to fit my train of thought.
Finally, on population, while I agree with the idea of masses of young men being drafted, etc, there will also be mass depopulation events that effect the young and the old. Both of these groups at the ends of the age curve will be massively affected by the breakdown of civilization; lack of medical care, and lack of supporting 18-50 year-olds will spell the deaths of many. In the final wash, I actually feel there will be an age demographic that is similar (but not the same) as pre-war. I think the thing that will skew it most is the relative abundance of women versus men in the 18-50 group.
Happy to discuss more!
Andrew
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