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136-630: During the German occupation of Poland ( World War II ), in 1939, it was the site of the Białochowo massacre  [ pl ] , in which 200 Poles , including farmers, policemen, and also women and children, were murdered by the Selbstschutz and SS (see Nazi crimes against the Polish nation ). The Polish National road 55 runs nearby, west of the village. This Grudziądz County location article

272-512: A German-dominated Europe. According to the Nazi government the Polish state had effectively ceased to exist, in spite of the existence of a Polish government-in-exile . The General Government had the character of a type of colonial state . It was not a Polish puppet government , as there were no Polish representatives above the local administration. The government seat of the General Government

408-746: A collection valued at over 50 million Reichsmarks. Despite the military defeat of the Polish Army in September 1939, the Polish government itself never surrendered, instead evacuating West, where it formed the Polish government in Exile . The government in exile was represented in the occupied Poland by the Government Delegation for Poland, headed by the Government Delegate for Poland . The main role of

544-401: A concentrated effort to destroy Polish culture . To that end, numerous cultural and educational institutions were closed or destroyed, from schools and universities, through monuments and libraries, to laboratories and museums. Many employees of said institutions were arrested and executed as part of wider persecutions of the Polish intellectual elite. Schooling of Polish children was curtailed to

680-539: A day and with little compensation. The labourers, Jews, Poles and others, were employed in SS-owned enterprises (such as the German Armament Works, Deutsche Ausrustungswerke, DAW), but also in many private German firms – such as Messerschmitt , Junkers , Siemens , and IG Farben . Forced labourers were subject to harsh discriminatory measures. Announced on 8 March 1940 was the Polish decrees which were used as

816-504: A few years of elementary education, as outlined by Himmler's May 1940 memorandum: "The sole goal of this schooling is to teach them simple arithmetic, nothing above the number 500; writing one's name; and the doctrine that it is divine law to obey the Germans. ... I do not think that reading is desirable". The extermination of the Polish elites was the first stage of the Nazis' plan to destroy

952-694: A grave danger for the non-Jewish Poles who attempted to help ghettoised Jews in the cities, as in the Mińsk Mazowiecki Ghetto among numerous others, because Christian Poles were executed under the charge of aiding Jews. A Forest Protection Service also existed, responsible for policing wooded areas in the General Government. A Bahnpolizei policed railroads. The Germans used pre-war Polish prisons and organised new ones, like in Jan Chrystian Schuch Avenue police quarter in Warsaw and Under

1088-527: A legal basis for foreign labourers in Germany. The decrees required Poles to wear identifying purple P's on their clothing, made them subject to a curfew, and banned them from using public transportation as well as many German "cultural life" centres and "places of amusement" (this included churches and restaurants). Sexual relations between Germans and Poles were forbidden as Rassenschande (race defilement) under penalty of death. To keep them segregated from

1224-474: A period of 30 years, approximately 12.5 million Germans would be resettled in the Slavic areas, including Poland; with some versions of the plan requiring the resettlement of at least 100 million Germans over a century. The Slavic inhabitants of those lands would be eliminated as the result of genocidal policies; and the survivors would be resettled further east, in less hospitable areas of Eurasia , beyond

1360-613: A plurality of the population in all territories annexed by the Soviet Union. By the end of the invasion, the Soviet Union had taken over 51.6% of the territory of Poland (about 201,000 square kilometres (78,000 sq mi)), with over 13,200,000 people. The ethnic composition of these areas was as follows: 38% Poles (~5.1 million people), 37% Ukrainians, 14.5% Belarusians, 8.4% Jews, 0.9% Russians, and 0.6% Germans. There were also 336,000 refugees, mostly Jews (198,000), who fled from areas occupied by Germany. All territory invaded by

1496-415: A result, tens of thousands of people found "guilty" of being educated (members of the intelligentsia, from clergymen to government officials, doctors, teachers and journalists) or wealthy (landowners, business owners, and so on) were either executed on spot, sometimes in mass executions , or imprisoned, some destined for the concentration camps. Some of the mass executions were reprisal actions for actions of

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1632-444: A result, the two governments never officially declared war on each other. The Soviets therefore did not classify Polish military prisoners as prisoners of war but as rebels against the new legal government of Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia. The Soviets killed tens of thousands of Polish prisoners of war . Some, like General Józef Olszyna-Wilczyński , who was captured, interrogated and shot on 22 September, were executed during

1768-458: A small number would be "Germanized", and young Poles of desirable qualities would be kidnapped and raised in Germany . In the General Government, all secondary education was abolished and all Polish cultural institutions closed. In 1943, the government selected the Zamojskie area for further Germanization on account of its fertile black soil, and German colonial settlements were planned. Zamość

1904-781: A special Germanization program. Polish women deported to Germany as forced labourers and who bore children were a common victim of this policy, with their infants regularly taken. If the child passed the battery of racial, physical and psychological tests, they were sent on to Germany for "Germanization". At least 4,454 children were given new German names, forbidden to use the Polish language, and reeducated in Nazi institutions. Few were ever reunited with their original families. Those deemed as unsuitable for Germanization for being "not Aryan enough" were sent to orphanages or even to concentration camps like Auschwitz, where many were murdered, often by intracardiac injections of phenol . For Polish forced laborers, in some cases if an examination of

2040-599: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Occupation of Poland (1939%E2%80%931945) The occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II (1939–1945) began with the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, and it was formally concluded with the defeat of Germany by the Allies in May 1945. Throughout the entire course of the occupation,

2176-566: Is a Polish reservation, a great Polish labor camp. — Note of Martin Bormann from the meeting of Dr. Hans Frank with Adolf Hitler , Berlin, 2 October 1940. German bureaucrats drew up various plans regarding the future of the original population. One called for the deportation of about 20 million Poles to western Siberia , and the Germanisation of 4 to 5 million; although deportation in reality meant many Poles were to be put to death,

2312-509: Is administered centrally. In the French and Dutch original, the 'General' in the name is a reference to the Estates-General , the central assembly which was given an authority to directly rule the territory. The Nazi designation of Generalgouvernement also gave a nod to the once existing Generalgouvernement Warschau , a civil entity created in the invaded Russian Empire territory by

2448-705: Is anticipated for Poland, but a complete German administration. (...) Leadership layer of the population in Poland should be as far as possible, disposed of. The other lower layers of the population will receive no special schools, but are to be oppressed in some form. — Excerpt from the minutes of the first conference of Heads of the main police officers and commanders of operational groups led by Heydrich's deputy, SS- Brigadefuhrer Dr. Werner Best , Berlin 7 September 1939 The General Government had no international recognition . The territories it administered were never either in whole or part intended as any future Polish state within

2584-460: Is forbidden to Poles, Jews, and dogs.", or Nur für Deutsche ("Only for Germans"), commonly found on many public utilities and places such as trams, parks, cafes, cinemas, theaters, and others. The Nazis kept an eye out for Polish children who possessed Nordic racial characteristics. An estimated total of 50,000 children, majority taken from orphanages and foster homes in the annexed lands, but some separated from their parents, were taken into

2720-716: The Ordnungspolizei . The Polish educational system was similarly retained, but most higher institutions were closed. The Polish local administration was kept, subordinated to new German bosses. The Polish fiscal system, including the zloty currency, remained in use but with revenues going to the German state. A new bank was created; it issued new banknotes. The Germans sought to play Ukrainians and Poles off against each other. Within ethnic Ukrainian areas annexed by Germany, beginning in October 1939, Ukrainian Committees were established with

2856-474: The Auschwitz (Oświęcim) and Majdanek concentration camps . By 1942, the number of new German arrivals in pre-war Poland had already reached two million. The Nazi plans also called for Poland's 3.3 million Jews to be exterminated ; the non-Jewish majority's extermination was planned for the long term and initiated through the mass murder of its political, religious, and intellectual elites at first, which

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2992-709: The District of Galicia . Until 1945, the General Government comprised much of central, southern, and southeastern Poland within its prewar borders (and of modern-day Western Ukraine ), including the major Polish cities of Warsaw , Kraków , Lwów (now Lviv , renamed Lemberg ), Lublin (see Lublin Reservation ), Tarnopol (see history of Tarnopol Ghetto ), Stanisławów (now Ivano-Frankivsk , renamed Stanislau ; see Stanisławów Ghetto ), Drohobycz , and Sambor (see Drohobycz and Sambor Ghettos ) and others. Geographical locations were renamed in German. The administration of

3128-844: The Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland , Juliusz Bursche . In the territories annexed to Nazi Germany, in particular with regards to the westernmost incorporated territories—the so-called Wartheland — the Nazis aimed for a complete "Germanization", i.e. full cultural, political, economic and social assimilation. The Polish language was forbidden to be taught even in elementary schools; landmarks from streets to cities were renamed en masse ( Łódź became Litzmannstadt, and so on). All manner of Polish enterprises, up to small shops, were taken over, with prior owners rarely compensated. Signs posted in public places prohibited non-Germans from entering these places warning: "Entrance

3264-572: The German Empire during World War I. This district existed from 1914 to 1918 together with an Austro-Hungarian -controlled Military Government of Lublin alongside the short-lived Kingdom of Poland of 1916–1918 , a similar rump state formed out of the then- Russian-controlled parts of Poland . The General Government area was also known colloquially as the Restpolen ('Remainder of Poland'). After Germany's attack on Poland , all areas occupied by

3400-574: The German army including the Free City of Danzig initially came under military rule . This area extended from the 1939 eastern border of Germany proper and of East Prussia up to the Bug River where the German armies had halted their advance and linked up with the Soviet Red Army in accordance with their secret pact against Poland. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed on 23 August 1939 had promised

3536-452: The German forces out of the USSR and crossed into Poland from the rest of Central and Eastern Europe . Sociologist Tadeusz Piotrowski argues that both occupying powers were hostile to the existence of Poland's sovereignty , people , and the culture and aimed to destroy them. Before Operation Barbarossa, Germany and the Soviet Union coordinated their Poland-related policies, most visibly in

3672-598: The Polish Workers' Party (Polish Polska Partia Robotnicza or PPR), though significantly less numerous than the Home Army. In February 1942, when AK was formed, it numbered about 100,000 members. In the beginning of 1943, it had reached a strength of about 200,000. In the summer of 1944, when Operation Tempest begun AK reached its highest membership numbers. Estimates of AK membership in the first half of 1944 and summer that year vary, with about 400,000 being common. With

3808-466: The Polish language as their mother tongue, and most of the Polish native speakers were Roman Catholics . With regards to the remainder, 15% were Ukrainians, 8.5% Jews, 4.7% Belarusians, and 2.2% Germans. Germans intended to exploit the fact that the Second Polish Republic was an ethnically diverse territory, and their policy aimed to " divide and conquer " the ethnically diverse population of

3944-776: The Polish–Ukrainian War and the Ukrainian–Soviet War . There were large groups of prewar Polish citizens, notably Jewish youth and, to a lesser extent, the Ukrainian peasants, who saw the Soviet power as an opportunity to start political or social activity outside their traditional ethnic or cultural groups. Their enthusiasm however faded with time as it became clear that the Soviet repressions were aimed at all groups equally, regardless of their political stance. British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore states that Soviet terror in

4080-568: The Rhineland ." By 1942 Hitler and Frank had agreed that the Kraków ("with its purely German capital") and Lublin districts would be the first areas for German colonists to re-populate. Hitler stated: "When these two weak points have been strengthened, it should be possible to slowly drive back the Poles." Peculiar about these statements is the circumstance that there were not enough German settlers to even make

4216-629: The Sikorski-Mayski Agreement ; but the Soviets broke them off again in 1943 after the Polish government demanded an independent examination of the recently discovered Katyn burial pits. The Soviets then lobbied the Western Allies to recognize the pro-Soviet Polish puppet government of Wanda Wasilewska in Moscow. On 28 September 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany had changed the secret terms of

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4352-630: The Ural Mountains , such as Siberia . At the plan's fulfillment, no Slavs or Jews would remain in Central and Eastern Europe. Generalplan Ost , essentially a grand plan to commit ethnic cleansing, was divided into two parts, the Kleine Planung ("Small Plan"), covered actions which would be undertaken during the war, and the Grosse Planung ("Big Plan"), covered actions which would be undertaken after

4488-498: The Vandals ) in a speech he gave on 16 December 1941. When Frank unsuccessfully attempted to resign his position on 24 August 1942, Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann tried to advance a project to dissolve the General Government altogether and to partition its territory into a number of Reichsgaue , arguing that only this method could guarantee the territory's Germanization, while also claiming that Germany could economically exploit

4624-664: The Volyn massacre . In a top-secret memorandum, "The Treatment of Racial Aliens in the East", dated 25 May 1940, Heinrich Himmler , head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), wrote: "We need to divide the East's different ethnic groups up into as many parts and splinter groups as possible". Almost immediately after the invasion, Germans began forcibly conscripting laborers. Jews were drafted to repair war damage as early as October, with women and children 12 or older required to work; shifts could take half

4760-625: The Wartheland "as German as the Rhineland". According to notes from Martin Bormann German policy envisaged reducing lower-class Poles to the status of serfs , while deporting or otherwise eliminating the middle and upper classes and eventually replacing them with German colonists of the " master race ". The General Government is our work force reservoir for lowgrade work (brick plants, road building, etc.) ... Unconditionally, attention should be paid to

4896-607: The massacre of Lwów professors . The Nazis also persecuted the Catholic Church in Poland and other, smaller religions. Nazi policy towards the Catholic Church was at its most severe in the territories it annexed to Greater Germany, where they set about systematically dismantling the Church – arresting its leaders, exiling its clergymen, closing its churches, monasteries and convents. Many clergymen and nuns were murdered or sent to concentration and labor camps. Already in 1939, 80% of

5032-492: The willing Polish citizens into four groups of people with ethnic Germanic heritage. Group One included so-called ethnic Germans who had taken an active part in the struggle for the Germanization of Poland. Group Two included those ethnic Germans who had not taken such an active part, but had "preserved" their German characteristics. Group Three included individuals of alleged German stock who had become "Polonized", but whom it

5168-615: The "line Memel - Odessa ". In this context Zvanetti's study proposed a re-ordering of the "Eastern Gaue" into three geopolitical blocs: The General Government was administered by a General-Governor ( German : Generalgouverneur ) aided by the Office of the General-Governor ( German : Amt des Generalgouverneurs ; changed on December 9, 1940 to the Government of the General Government, German : Regierung des Generalgouvernements ). For

5304-560: The "securing" of German national interests. Nazi plunder included private and public art collections, artefacts, precious metals, books, and personal possessions. Hitler and Göring in particular were interested in acquiring looted art treasures from occupied Europe, the former planning to use the stolen art to fill the galleries of the planned Führermuseum (Leader's Museum), and the latter for his personal collection. Göring, having stripped almost all of occupied Poland of its artworks within six months of Germany's invasion, ultimately grew

5440-632: The Catholic clergy of the Warthegau region had been deported to concentration camps. Primate of Poland, Cardinal August Hlond , submitted an official account of the persecutions of the Polish Church to the Vatican. In his final observations for Pope Pius XII , Hlond wrote: "Hitlerism aims at the systematic and total destruction of the Catholic Church in the... territories of Poland which have been incorporated into

5576-496: The Clock torture centre in Lublin . German administration constructed a terror system to control Polish people enforcing reports of any illegal activities, e.g. hiding Roma, POWs, guerilla fighters, Jews. Germans designated hostages, terrorised local leaders, applied collective responsibility. German police used sting operations to find and kill rescuers of the Germans' quarries. Through

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5712-514: The General Government was composed entirely of German officials, with the intent that the area was to be colonized by Germanic settlers who would reduce the local Polish population to the level of serfs before their eventual genocide . The Nazi German rulers of the Generalgouvernement had no intention of sharing power with the locals throughout the war, regardless of their ethnicity and political orientation. The authorities rarely mentioned

5848-640: The General Government was the "Annexation Decree on the Administration of the Occupied Polish Territories". Announced by Hitler on October 8, 1939, it claimed that the Polish government had totally collapsed. This rationale was utilized by the German Supreme Court to reassign the identity of all Polish nationals as stateless subjects , with the exception of the ethnic Germans of interwar Poland—who, disregarding international law, were named

5984-466: The General-Government area. Hundreds of thousands of Poles were deported to Germany for forced labour in industry and agriculture, where many thousands died. Poles were also conscripted for labour in Poland, and were held in labour camps all over the country, again with a high death rate. There was a general shortage of food, fuel for heating and medical supplies, and there was a high death rate among

6120-631: The German invasion and occupation of Polish territory, at least 1.5 million Polish citizens, including teenagers, became labourers in Germany, few by choice. Historian Jan Gross estimates that "no more than 15 per cent" of Polish workers volunteered to go to work in Germany. A total of 2.3 million Polish citizens, including 300,000 POWs, were deported to Germany as forced laborers. They tended to have to work longer hours for lower wages than their German counterparts. A network of Nazi concentration camps were established on German-controlled territories, many of them in occupied Poland, including one of

6256-486: The German invasion of the Soviet Union, the expulsions slowed down, as more and more trains were diverted for military logistics, rather than being made available for population transfers. Nonetheless, in late 1942 and 1943, large-scale expulsions also took place in the General Government, affecting at least 110,000 Poles in the Zamość – Lublin region. Tens of thousands of the expelled, with no place to go, were simply imprisoned in

6392-417: The German population, they were often housed in segregated barracks behind barbed wire. Nonetheless, many Polish women were sexually enslaved in German camp and military brothels . Labor shortages in the German war economy became critical especially after German defeat in the battle of Stalingrad in 1942–1943. This led to the increased use of prisoners as forced labourers in German industries. Following

6528-496: The German zone, in order to increase the Reich's Lebensraum . Germany organized most of these areas as two new Reichsgaue : Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland . The remaining three regions, the so-called areas of Zichenau, Eastern Upper Silesia and the Suwałki triangle, became attached to adjacent Gaue of Germany. Draconian measures were introduced by both RKF and HTO, to facilitate

6664-530: The German-Polish conflict (although they were unable to help Soviet POWs of Ukrainian ethnicity). After the war, the Polish Supreme National Tribunal declared that the government of the General Government was a criminal institution. Other than summary German military tribunals, no courts operated in Poland between the German invasion and early 1940. At that time, the Polish court system

6800-671: The Germans and Soviets. Overall, during German occupation of pre-war Polish territory, 1939–1945, the Germans murdered 5,470,000–5,670,000 Poles, including 3,000,000 Jews in what was described during the Nuremberg trials as a deliberate and systematic genocide. In August 2009, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) researchers estimated Poland's dead (including Polish Jews) at between 5.47 and 5.67 million (due to German actions) and 150,000 (due to Soviet), or around 5.62 and 5.82 million total. In September 1939, Poland

6936-477: The Germans. They were aided by some regular German army units and "self-defense" forces composed of members of the German minority in Poland, the Volksdeutsche . The Nazi regime 's policy of murdering or suppressing the ethnic Polish elites was known as Operation Tannenberg . This included not only those resisting actively, but also those simply capable of doing so by the virtue of their social status . As

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7072-581: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. They moved Lithuania into the Soviet sphere of influence and shifted the border in Poland to the east, giving Germany more territory. By this arrangement, often described as a fourth partition of Poland , the Soviet Union secured almost all Polish territory east of the line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Western Bug and San. This amounted to about 200,000 square kilometres of land, inhabited by 13.5 million Polish citizens. The Red Army had originally sowed confusion among

7208-424: The Nazi regime attempted to destroy Polish culture. As part of that policy, the Nazis confiscated Polish national heritage assets and much private property. Acting on the legal decrees of 19 October and 16 December ( Verordnung über die Beschlagnahme Kunstgegeständen im Generalgouvernement ), several German agencies began the process of looting Polish museums and other collections, ostensibly considered necessary for

7344-489: The Occupied Polish Region (German: Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete ), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany , Slovakia and the Soviet Union in 1939 at the onset of World War II . The newly occupied Second Polish Republic was split into three zones: the General Government in its centre, Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany in

7480-480: The Polish government reopened. By March 1941, there were 808 Ukrainian educational societies with 46,000 members. A Ukrainian publishing house and periodical press was set up in Cracow, which – despite having to struggle with German censors and paper shortages – succeeded in publishing school textbooks, classics of Ukrainian literature , and the works of dissident Ukrainian writers from the Soviet Union. Krakivs'ki Visti

7616-595: The Polish nation and its culture. The disappearance of the Poles' leadership was seen as necessary to the establishment of the Germans as the Poles' sole leaders. Proscription lists ( Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen ), prepared before the war started, identified more than 61,000 members of the Polish elite and intelligentsia leaders who were deemed unfriendly to Germany. Already during the 1939 German invasion, dedicated units of SS and police (the Einsatzgruppen ) were tasked with arresting or outright killing of those resisting

7752-414: The Polish population as a result. Finally, thousands of Poles were killed as reprisals for resistance attacks on German forces or for other reasons. In all, about three million Poles died as a result of the German occupation, more than 10% of the pre-war population. When this is added to the three million Polish Jews who were killed as a matter of policy by the Germans, Poland lost about 22% of its population,

7888-455: The Polish population. The official name chosen for the new entity was the Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete (General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories), then changed to the Generalgouvernement (General Government) by Frank's decree of July 31, 1940. However, this name did not imply anything about the actual nature of the administration. The German authorities never regarded these Polish lands (apart from

8024-481: The Polish resistance, with German officials adhering to the collective guilt principle and holding entire communities responsible for the actions of unidentified perpetrators. One of the most infamous German operations was the Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion ( AB-Aktion in short, German for Special Pacification ), a German campaign during World War II aimed at Polish leaders and the intelligentsia, including many university professors, teachers and priests. In

8160-418: The Polish underground killed a German, 50–100 Poles were executed by German police as a punishment and as a warning to other Poles. Most of the Jews, perhaps as many as two million, had also been rounded up and murdered. Germans destroyed Warsaw after the Warsaw Uprising . As the Soviets advanced through Poland in late 1944 the General Government collapsed. American troops captured Hans Frank , who had governed

8296-402: The Red Army was annexed to the Soviet Union (after a rigged election ), and split between the Belarusian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR , with the exception of the Wilno area taken from Poland, which was transferred to sovereign Lithuania for several months and subsequently annexed by the Soviet Union in the form of the Lithuanian SSR on 3 August 1940. Following the German invasion of

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8432-399: The Reich...". The smaller Evangelical churches of Poland also suffered. The entirety of the Protestant clergy of the Cieszyn region of Silesia were arrested and deported to concentration camps at Mauthausen, Buchenwald , Dachau and Oranienburg. Protestant clergy leaders who perished in those purges included charity activist Karol Kulisz , theology professor Edmund Bursche , and Bishop of

8568-451: The Soviet Union in 1941, most of the Polish territories annexed by the Soviets were attached to the enlarged General Government. The end of the war saw the USSR occupy all of Poland and most of eastern Germany. The Soviets gained recognition of their pre-1941 annexations of Polish territory; as compensation, substantial portions of eastern Germany were ceded to Poland, whose borders were significantly shifted westwards . For months prior to

8704-491: The area more effectively, particularly as a source of food. He suggested separating the "more restful" population of the formerly Austrian territories (because this part of Poland had been under German-Austrian rule for a long period of time it was deemed more racially acceptable) from the rest of the Poles, and cordoning off the city of Warsaw as the center of "criminality" and underground resistance activity . Ludwig Fischer (governor of Warsaw from 1939 to 1945) opposed

8840-476: The area to the west of Kraków to the San river in the east. At this time Germany had not yet directly annexed the Łódź area, and Łódź (rather than Kraków) served as the capital of the General Government. In November 1940, Gauleiter Arthur Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland argued that the counties of Tomaschow Mazowiecki and Petrikau should be transferred from the General Government's Radom district to his Gau. Hitler agreed, but since Frank refused to surrender

8976-428: The attack and joined the invading force thereafter. However, after the 1941 Operation Barbarossa they included also the Soviet prisoners of war who volunteered for special training, such as the " Trawniki men " (German: Trawnikimänner ) deployed at all major killing sites of the " Final Solution ". A lot of those men did not know German and required translation by their native commanders. Ukrainian Auxiliary Police

9112-442: The beginning of World War II in 1939, German newspapers and leaders had carried out a national and international propaganda campaign accusing Polish authorities of organizing or tolerating violent ethnic cleansing of ethnic Germans living in Poland. British ambassador Sir H. Kennard sent four statements in August 1939 to Viscount Halifax regarding Hitler's claims about the treatment Germans were receiving in Poland; he came to

9248-437: The campaign itself. On 24 September, the Soviets killed 42 staff and patients of a Polish military hospital in the village of Grabowiec , near Zamość. The Soviets also executed all the Polish officers they captured after the Battle of Szack , on 28 September. Over 20,000 Polish military personnel and civilians perished in the Katyn massacre . The Poles and the Soviets re-established diplomatic relations in 1941, following

9384-650: The civilian branch of the Underground State was to preserve the continuity of the Polish state as a whole, including its institutions. These institutions included the police, the courts , and schools . By the final years of the war, the civilian structure of the Underground State included an underground parliament, administration, judiciary ( courts and police ), secondary and higher-level education, and supported various cultural activities such as publishing of newspapers and books, underground theatres, lectures, exhibitions, concerts and safeguarded various works of art. It also dealt with providing social services , including to

9520-406: The clergy, but also noblemen and intellectuals. The Soviets also executed about 65,000 Poles. Soldiers of the Red Army and their officers behaved like conquerors, looting and stealing Polish treasures. When Stalin was told about it, he answered: "If there is no ill will, they [the soldiers] can be pardoned". The Soviet Union had ceased to recognize the Polish state at the start of the invasion. As

9656-496: The conclusion all the claims by Hitler and the Nazis were exaggerations or false claims. From the beginning, the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany was intended as fulfilment of the future plan of the German Reich described by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf as Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germans in Central and Eastern Europe. The goal of the occupation was to turn the former territory of Poland into ethnically German "living space", by deporting and exterminating

9792-625: The counties, the resolution of the border question was postponed until after the final victory. Upon hearing of the German plans to create a " Gau of the Goths " ( Gotengau ) in the Crimea and the Southern Ukraine after the start (June 1941) of Operation Barbarossa , Frank himself expressed his intention to turn the district under his control into a German province called the Vandalengau (Gau of

9928-479: The course of the war, over two million of whom were ethnic Poles (the remainder being mostly Ukrainians and Belarusians ). The vast majority of those killed were civilians, mostly killed by the actions of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Aside from being sent to Nazi concentration camps, most ethnic Poles died through shelling and bombing campaigns, mass executions, forced starvation, revenge murder, ill health, and slave labour. Along with Auschwitz II-Birkenau ,

10064-606: The destitute Jewish population (through the council to Aid Jews, or Żegota ). Through the Directorate of Civil Resistance (1941–1943) the civil arm was also involved in lesser acts of resistance, such as minor sabotage , although in 1943 this department was merged with the Directorate of Covert Resistance , forming the Directorate of Underground Resistance , subordinate to the Armia Krajowa (AK) (Polish Home Army). In response to

10200-517: The entire period of the General Government's existence there was only one General-Governor: Dr. Hans Frank. The NSDAP structure in General Government was Arbeitsbereich Generalgouvernement led by Frank. The Office was headed by Chief of the Government ( German : Regierung , lit.   'government'), Josef Bühler , who was also the State Secretary ( German : Staatssekretär ). From October 1939 to May 1940, Arthur Seyss-Inquart

10336-450: The ethnic composition of these areas: 38% Poles (ca. 5.1 million people), 37% Ukrainians, 14.5% Belarusians, 8.4% Jews, 0.9% Russians and 0.6% Germans. There were also 336,000 refugees from areas occupied by Germany, most of them Jews (198,000). Areas occupied by the USSR were annexed to Soviet territory, with the exception of the Wilno area, which was transferred to Lithuania, although it

10472-421: The fact that there can be no "Polish masters"; where there are Polish masters, and I do not care how hard this sounds, they must be killed. (...) The Führer must emphasize once again that for Poles there is only one master and he is a German, there can be no two masters beside each other and there is no consent to such, hence all representatives of the Polish intelligentsia are to be killed ... The General Government

10608-640: The first gassing experiment in September 1941. According to Polish historian Franciszek Piper , approximately 140,000–150,000 Poles went through Auschwitz, with about half of them perishing there due to executions, medical experiments, or due to starvation and disease. About 100,000 Poles were imprisoned in Majdanek camp, with similar fatality rate. About 30,000 Poles died at Mauthausen , 20,000 at Sachsenhausen and Gross-Rosen each, 17,000 at Neuengamme and Ravensbrueck each, 10,000 at Dachau , and tens of thousands perished in other camps and prisons. Following

10744-582: The focus was on the better-known Einsatzgruppen ("Operational groups") who reported to RSHA led by Reinhard Heydrich . On 6 May 1940 Gauleiter Hans Frank, stationed in occupied Kraków , established the Sonderdienst , based on similar SS formations called Selbstschutz operating in the Warthegau district of German-annexed western part of Poland since 1939. Sonderdienst were made up of ethnic German Volksdeutsche who lived in Poland before

10880-424: The following year, at which time Lublin was to be declared a German city and given a German mayor. Nazi planners never definitively resolved the question of the exact territorial reorganization of the Polish provinces in the event of German victory in the east. Germany had already annexed large parts of western pre-war Poland (8 October 1939) before the establishment of the General Government (26 October 1939), and

11016-561: The former territory of Poland. Those plans began to be implemented almost immediately after German troops took control of Poland. As early as October 1939, many Poles were expelled from the annexed lands in order to make room for German colonizers. Only those Poles who had been selected for Germanization, approximately 1.7 million including thousands of children who had been taken from their parents, were permitted to remain, and if they resisted it, they were to be sent to concentration camps, because "German blood must not be utilized in

11152-485: The four Gestapo–NKVD conferences , where the occupiers discussed their plans to deal with the Polish resistance movement . Around six million Polish citizens—nearly 21.4% of Poland's population—died between 1939 and 1945 as a result of the occupation , half of whom were ethnic Poles and the other half of whom were Polish Jews . Over 90% of the deaths were non-military losses, because most civilians were deliberately targeted in various actions which were launched by

11288-749: The ghettos with Poles living on the "Aryan Side" and the Jews living on the "Jewish Side", despite the risk of death many Poles risked their lives by forging "Aryan Papers" for Jews to make them appear as non-Jewish Poles so they could live on the Aryan side and avoid Nazi persecution. Another law implemented by the Germans was that Poles were forbidden from buying from Jewish shops in which, if they did, they were subject to execution. Jewish children were also distributed among safe houses and church networks. Jewish children were often placed in church orphanages and convents. Some three million gentile Polish citizens perished during

11424-542: The highest proportion of any European country in World War II. Poland had a large Jewish population, and according to Davies, more Jews were both killed and rescued in Poland, than in any other nation, the rescue figure usually being put at between 100,000 and 150,000. Thousands of Poles have been honoured as Righteous Among the Nations – constituting the largest national contingent. When AK Home Army Intelligence discovered

11560-414: The immediate Germanization of the annexed territory, typically resulting in mass expulsions , especially in the Warthegau. The remaining parts of the former Poland were to become a German Nebenland ( March , borderland) as a frontier post of German rule in the east. A Führer's decree of October 12, 1939 established the General Government; the decree came into force on October 26, 1939. Hans Frank

11696-683: The imminent arrival of the Soviet army, the AK launched the Warsaw Uprising against the German army on 1 August 1944. The uprising, receiving little assistance from the nearby Soviet forces, eventually failed, significantly reducing the Home Army's power and position. About 200,000 Poles, most of them civilians, lost their lives in the Uprising. The Polish civilian population suffered under German occupation in many ways. Large numbers were expelled from land intended for German colonisation, and forced to resettle in

11832-512: The interest of a foreign nation". By the end of 1940, at least 325,000 Poles from annexed lands were forced to abandon most of their property and forcibly resettled in the General Government district. There were numerous fatalities among the very young and very old, many of whom either perished en route or perished in makeshift transit camps such as those in the towns of Potulice , Smukal , and Toruń . The expulsions continued in 1941, with another 45,000 Poles forced to move eastwards, but following

11968-523: The interest of a foreign nation," and such people were sent to concentration camps. Persons ineligible for the List were classified as stateless, and all Poles from the occupied territory, that is from the Government General of Poland, as distinct from the incorporated territory, were classified as non-protected. According to the 1931 Polish census , out of a prewar population of 35 million, 66% spoke

12104-456: The invasion of Poland in 1939, most of the approximately 3.5 million Polish Jews were rounded up and put into newly established ghettos by Nazi Germany. The ghetto system was unsustainable, as by the end of 1941 the Jews had no savings left to pay the SS for food deliveries and no chance to earn their own keep. At 20 January 1942 Wannsee Conference , held near Berlin, new plans were outlined for

12240-458: The largest and most infamous, Auschwitz (Oświęcim). Those camps were officially designed as labor camps, and many displayed the motto Arbeit macht frei ("Work brings freedom"). Only high-ranking officials knew that one of the purposes of some of the camps, known as extermination camps (or death camps), was mass murder of the undesirable minorities; officially the prisoners were used in enterprises such as production of synthetic rubber , as

12376-524: The locals by claiming that they were arriving to save Poland from the Nazis. Their advance surprised Polish communities and their leaders, who had not been advised how to respond to a Bolshevik invasion. Polish and Jewish citizens may at first have preferred a Soviet regime to a German one, but the Soviets soon proved as hostile and destructive towards the Polish people and their culture as the Nazis. They began confiscating, nationalising and redistributing all private and state-owned Polish property. During

12512-435: The main six extermination camps in occupied Poland were used predominantly to exterminate Jews. Stutthof concentration camp was used for mass extermination of Poles. A number of civilian labour camps ( Gemeinschaftslager ) for Poles ( Polenlager ) were established inside Polish territory. Many Poles died in German camps. The first non-German prisoners at Auschwitz were Poles who were the majority of inmates there until 1942 when

12648-531: The name Poland in legal correspondence. The only exception to this was the General Government's Bank of Issue in Poland ( Polish : Bank Emisyjny w Polsce , German : Emissionbank in Polen ). The full title of the regime in Germany until July 1940 was the Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete , a name that is usually translated as "General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories". Governor Hans Frank , on Hitler's authority, shortened

12784-470: The name on 31 July 1940 to just Generalgouvernement . An accurate English translation of Generalgouvernement , which is a borrowing from French , is 'General Governorate', cognate with the Dutch Generaliteitslanden . A more accurate English translation of the French term gouvernement in this context is not 'government', but " governorate ", which is a type of a territory that

12920-494: The non-German population, or relegating it to the status of slave laborers. The goal of the German state under Nazi leadership during the war was the complete destruction of the Polish people and nation. The fate of the Polish people, as well as the fate of many other Slavs , was outlined in the genocidal Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East) and the closely related Generalsiedlungsplan (General Plan for Settlement). Over

13056-701: The occupation, Poles formed one of the largest underground movements in Europe. Resistance to the Nazi German occupation began almost at once. The Armia Krajowa, loyal to the Polish government in exile in London and a military arm of the Polish Underground State, was formed from a number of smaller groups in 1942. There was also the Armia Ludowa (AL) (Polish People's Army), backed by the Soviet Union and controlled by

13192-615: The occupied Polish territory, to prevent any unified resistance from forming. One of the attempts to divide the Polish nation was a creation of a new ethnicity called " Goralenvolk ". Some minorities, like Kashubians , were forcefully enrolled into the Deutsche Volksliste, as a measure to compensate for the losses in the Wehrmacht (unlike Poles, Deutsche Volksliste members were eligible for military conscription). In addition, Germans encouraged Ukrainians and Poles to kill each other during

13328-414: The occupied eastern Polish lands was as cruel and tragic as the Nazis' in the west. Soviet authorities brutally treated those who might oppose their rule, deporting by 10 November 1940 around 10% of total population of Kresy, with 30% of those deported dead by 1941. They arrested and imprisoned about 500,000 Poles during 1939–1941, including former officials, officers, and natural "enemies of the people" like

13464-520: The only rightful citizens of Nazi Germany . The General Government was run by Germany as a separate administrative unit for logistical purposes. When the Wehrmacht forces invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 ( Operation Barbarossa ), the area of the General Government was enlarged by the inclusion of the Polish regions previously annexed to the USSR. Within days East Galicia was overrun and incorporated into

13600-435: The parents suggested that the child might not be " racially valuable ", the mother was forced to have an abortion . Infants who did not pass muster would be removed to a state orphanage ( Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätte ), where many were murdered through calculated malnourishment, neglect, and unhygienic conditions. Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the occupation of Poland by German forces,

13736-408: The population of the territories that came under the control of Germany, in contrast the areas annexed by the Soviet Union contained a diverse array of peoples, the population being split into bilingual provinces, some of which had large ethnic Ukrainian and Belarusian minorities, many of whom welcomed the Soviets due in part to communist agitation by Soviet emissaries. Nonetheless Poles still comprised

13872-480: The population. Poles were deported in large numbers to work as forced labour in Germany: eventually about a million were deported, and many died in Germany. By the end of the initial invasion of Poland (the "Polish Defensive War"), the Soviet Union took over 52.1% of Poland's territory (~200,000 km ), with over 13,700,000 people. The estimates vary; Prof. Elżbieta Trela-Mazur gives the following numbers in regards to

14008-461: The proposed administrative streamlining resulting from these discussions. Fischer prepared his own project in his Main Office for Spatial Ordering ( Hauptamt für Raumordnung ) located in Warsaw. He suggested the establishment of the three provinces Beskiden , Weichselland (" Vistula Land"), and Galizien ( Galicia and Chełm ) by dividing the Radom and Lublin districts between them. Weichselland

14144-416: The purpose of representing the Ukrainian community to the German authorities and assisting the approximately 30,000 Ukrainian refugees who fled from Soviet-controlled territories. These committees also undertook cultural and economic activities that had been banned by the previous Polish government. Schools, choirs, reading societies and theaters were opened, and twenty Ukrainian churches that had been closed by

14280-551: The region, in May 1945; he became one of the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials . During his trial he resumed his childhood practice of Catholicism and expressed repentance. Frank surrendered forty volumes of his diaries to the Tribunal; much evidence against him and others was gathered from them. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity . On October 1, 1946, he was sentenced to death by hanging . The sentence

14416-487: The remaining region was also intended to be directly incorporated into the German Reich at some future date. The Nazi leadership discussed numerous initiatives with this aim. The earliest such proposal (October/November 1939) called for the establishment of a separate Reichsgau Beskidenland which would encompass several southern sections of the Polish territories conquered in 1939 (around 18,000 km ), stretching from

14552-543: The same size and inhabited by about 11.5 million, was placed under a German administration called the General Government (in German: Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete ), with its capital at Kraków . A German lawyer and prominent Nazi, Hans Frank , was appointed Governor-General of this occupied area on 12 October 1939. Most of the administration outside strictly local level

14688-481: The service of a foreign nation. After Germany lost the war, the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials and Poland's Supreme National Tribunal concluded that the aim of German policies in Poland – the extermination of Poles and Jews – had "all the characteristics of genocide in the biological meaning of this term." The German People's List ( Deutsche Volksliste ) classified

14824-402: The short period of military administration during the actual invasion of Poland ) as an occupied territory . The Nazis considered the Polish state to have effectively ceased to exist with its defeat in the September campaign. Overall, 4 million of the 1939 population of the General Government area had lost their lives by the time the Soviet armed forces entered the area in late 1944. If

14960-531: The spring and summer of 1940, more than 30,000 Poles were arrested by the German authorities of German-occupied Poland. Several thousands were executed outside Warsaw, in the Kampinos forest near Palmiry , and inside the city at the Pawiak prison. Most of the remainder were sent to various German concentration camps . Mass arrests and shootings of Polish intellectuals and academics included Sonderaktion Krakau and

15096-417: The systematic killing of the Jews began. The first killing by poison gas at Auschwitz involved 300 Poles and 700 Soviet prisoners of war . Many Poles and other Central and Eastern Europeans were also sent to concentration camps in Germany: over 35,000 to Dachau, 33,000 to the camp for women at Ravensbrück , 30,000 to Mauthausen and 20,000 to Sachsenhausen. The population in the General Government's territory

15232-463: The territory of Poland was divided between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (USSR), both of which intended to eradicate Poland's culture and subjugate its people. In the summer-autumn of 1941, the lands which were annexed by the Soviets were overrun by Germany in the course of the initially successful German attack on the USSR (" Operation Barbarossa "). After a few years of fighting, the Red Army drove

15368-694: The total genocide of the Jews, known as the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question ". The extermination program was codenamed Operation Reinhard . Three secret extermination camps set up specifically for Operation Reinhard; Treblinka , Belzec and Sobibor . In addition to the Reinhard camps, mass killing facilities such as gas chambers using Zyklon B were added to the Majdanek concentration camp in March 1942 and at Auschwitz and Chełmno . Nazi Germany engaged in

15504-457: The true fate of transports leaving the Jewish Ghetto, the council to Aid Jews ( Zegota ) was established in late 1942, in cooperation with church groups. The organisation saved thousands. Emphasis was placed on protecting children, as it was nearly impossible to intervene directly against the heavily guarded transports. The Germans implemented several different laws to separate Poles and Jews in

15640-470: The two years following the annexation, they arrested approximately 100,000 Polish citizens and deported between 350,000 and 1,500,000, of whom between 150,000 and 1,000,000 died, mostly civilians. General Government The General Government ( German : Generalgouvernement ; Polish : Generalne Gubernatorstwo ; Ukrainian : Генеральна губернія ), formally the General Governorate for

15776-453: The vast territory between the Vistula and Bug rivers to the Soviet "sphere of influence" in divided Poland, while the two powers would have jointly ruled Warsaw. To settle the deviation from the original agreement, the German and Soviet representatives met again on September 28 to delineate a permanent border between the two countries. Under this revised version of the pact the territory concerned

15912-526: The war was won. The plan envisaged that different percentages of the various conquered nations would undergo Germanization, be expelled and deported to the depths of Russia, and suffer other gruesome fates, including purposeful starvation and murder , the net effect of which would ensure that the conquered territories would take on an irrevocably German character. Over a longer period of time, only about 3–4 million Poles, all of whom were considered suitable for Germanization, would be allowed to reside in

16048-712: The west, and Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union in the east. The territory was expanded substantially in 1941, after the German Invasion of the Soviet Union , to include the new District of Galicia . The area of the Generalgouvernement roughly corresponded with the Austrian part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. The basis for the formation of

16184-483: Was soon attached to the USSR once Lithuania became a Soviet republic . Initially the Soviet occupation gained support among some members of the linguistic minorities who had chafed under the nationalist policies of the Second Polish Republic. Much of the Ukrainian population initially welcomed the unification with the Soviet Ukraine because twenty years earlier their attempt at self-determination failed during both

16320-453: Was appointed as the governor-general of the General Government. German authorities made a sharp contrast between the new Reich territory and a supposedly occupied rump state that could serve as a bargaining chip with the Western powers. The Germans established a closed border between the two German zones to heighten the difficulty of cross-frontier communication between the different segments of

16456-696: Was believed, could be won back to Germany. This group also included persons of non-German descent married to Germans or members of non-Polish groups who were considered desirable for their political attitude and racial characteristics. Group Four consisted of persons of German stock who had become politically merged with the Poles. After registration in the List, individuals from Groups One and Two automatically became German citizens. Those from Group Three acquired German citizenship subject to revocation. Those from Group Four received German citizenship through naturalization proceedings; resistance to Germanization constituted treason because "German blood must not be utilized in

16592-485: Was carried out on October 16. The conversion of Warsaw into a "model city" was planned in 1940 and later, in similar ways like the conversion of Berlin was planned. In March 1941 Hans Frank informed his subordinates that Hitler had made the decision to "turn this region into a purely German area within 15–20 years". He explained: "Where 12 million Poles now live, is to be populated by 4 to 5 million Germans . The Generalgouvernement must become as German as

16728-455: Was exchanged for the inclusion in the Soviet sphere of Lithuania , which had originally fallen within the ambit of Germany. With the new agreement the entire central part of Poland, including the core ethnic area of the Poles, came under exclusively German control. Hitler decreed the direct annexation to the German Reich of large parts of the occupied Polish territory in the western half of

16864-621: Was formed in Distrikt Galizien in 1941, many policemen deserted in 1943 joining UPA. The former Polish policemen, with no high-ranking Polish officers (who were arrested or demoted), were drafted to the Blue Police and became subordinated to the local Ordnungspolizei . Some 3,000 men served with the Sonderdienst in the General Government, formally assigned to the head of the civil administration. The existence of Sonderdienst constituted

17000-421: Was headed by Frank until the end of World War II and had as editor Michael Chomiak . It was "the leading legal newspaper" of the General Government and "attracted more (and better) contributors among whom were the most prominent Ukrainian cultural figures of the (early) 20th century." Ukrainian organizations within the General Government were able to negotiate the release of 85,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war from

17136-505: Was initially about 12 million in an area of 94,000 square kilometres (36,000 sq mi), but this increased as about 860,000 Poles and Jews were expelled from the German-annexed areas and "resettled" in the General Government. Offsetting this was the German campaign of extermination of the Polish intelligentsia and other elements thought likely to resist (e.g. Operation Tannenberg). From 1941, disease and hunger also began to reduce

17272-407: Was initially renamed by the government to Himmlerstadt ( Himmler City), which was later changed to Pflugstadt ( Plough City), both names were not implemented. Most of the Polish population was expelled by the Nazi occupation authorities with documented brutality. Himmler intended the city of Lublin to have a German population of 20% to 25% by the beginning of 1944, and of 30% to 40% by

17408-420: Was introduced for, among other things: The police in the General Government was divided into: The most numerous OrPo battalions focused on traditional security roles as an occupying force. Some of them were directly involved in the pacification operations . In the immediate aftermath of World War II, this latter role was obscured both by the lack of court evidence and by deliberate obfuscation, while most of

17544-606: Was invaded and occupied by two powers: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, acting in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . Germany acquired 48.4% of the former Polish territory. Under the terms of two decrees by Hitler , with Stalin 's agreement (8 and 12 October 1939), large areas of western Poland were annexed by Germany . The size of these annexed territories was approximately 92,500 square kilometres (35,700 sq mi) with approximately 10.5 million inhabitants. The remaining block of territory, of about

17680-491: Was located in Kraków (German: Krakau ; English: Cracow ) rather than in Warsaw for security reasons. The official state language was German, although Polish continued in use by local government. Useful institutions of the old Polish state were retained for ease of administration. The Polish police, with no high-ranking Polish officers (they were arrested or demoted), was reorganised as the Blue Police and became subordinated to

17816-435: Was meant to make the formation of any organized top-down resistance more difficult. Further, the populace of occupied territories was to be relegated to the role of an unskilled labour-force for German-controlled industry and agriculture. This was in spite of racial theory that falsely regarded most Polish leaders as actually being of "German blood", and partly because of it, on the grounds that German blood must not be used in

17952-434: Was reinstated and made decisions in cases not concerning German interests, for which a parallel German court-system was established. The German system was given priority in cases of overlapping jurisdiction. New laws were passed, discriminating against ethnic Poles and, in particular, the Jews. In 1941 a new criminal law was introduced, introducing many new crimes, and making the death penalty very common. The death penalty

18088-446: Was replaced by German officials. Non-German population on the occupied lands were subject to forced resettlement , Germanization , economic exploitation , and slow but progressive extermination. A small strip of land, about 700 square kilometres (270 sq mi) with 200,000 inhabitants that had been part of Czechoslovakia before 1938, was ceded by Germany to its ally, Slovakia . Poles comprised an overwhelming majority

18224-544: Was the Deputy General-Governor. After his departure, Bühler served as Frank's deputy through January 1945. Several other individuals had powers to issue legislative decrees in addition to the General-Governor, most notably the Higher SS and Police Leader of the General Government (SS- Obergruppenführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger ; from October 1943: SS- Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Koppe ). No government protectorate

18360-452: Was the case of a plant owned by IG Farben, whose laborers came from Auschwitz III camp, or Monowitz . Laborers from concentration camps were literally worked to death. in what was known as extermination through labor . Auschwitz received the first contingent of 728 Poles on 14 June 1940, transferred from an overcrowded prison at Tarnów . Within a year the Polish inmate population was in thousands, and begun to be exterminated, including in

18496-558: Was to have a "Polish character", Galizien a "Ukrainian" one, and the Beskiden -province to provide a German "admixture" (i.e. colonial settlement). Further territorial planning carried out by this Warsaw-based organization under Major Dr. Ernst Zvanetti in a May 1943 study to demarcate the eastern border of " Central Europe " (i.e. the Greater German Reich) with the " Eastern European landmass" proposed an eastern German border along

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