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INTRODUCTION
Hora Tenebrarum
"This hour is in many respects a veritable hora tenebrarum, in which the spirit of violence and of discord is
pouring a bloody cup of nameless sorrow over humanity... The peoples dragged into the tragic vortex of the war are perhaps
still only at the beginning of their sorrows; but already death and desolation, lamentation and misery reign in thousands
of families. The blood of innumerable human beings, even of non-combatants, evokes a poignant cry of sorrow, especially for
the well-beloved nation Poland, who, by her services in the defence of Christian civilization, which are inscribed indelibly
in the annals of history, has the right to the human and fraternal sympathy of the world..."
So spoke the Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical, issued at the beginning of the war, in October, 1939.
Since that time, many months have past. But from the reports which have come to hand it has steadily grown clearer that
the policy of the German authorities is striving to achieve something more than breaking the resistance of the Poles, among
whom the search for a Quisling has been in vain. It is growing clear that it is striving by resort to the most barbarous methods
to destroy an entire great nation.
At the end of 1940 the Polish Minister of Information gave in a statement the following picture of the situation in German
occupied Poland:
"After more than a year of German domination in the part of Poland occupied by the Reich it can be stated that never
yet in the history of Europe has there been so great an oppression of a whole nation coupled with so deep a penetration of
destructive methods into the very life springs of the nation. This is no exaggeration. On the contrary, I almost fear my statement
does not depict the whole terrible reality nor the enormity of the sufferings of the millions of Poles in my country.
"The following facts constitute a veritable pandemonium of oppression and destruction far more terrible than anything
that happened during the inroads into Europe of Huns or Vandals and far more devastating than any predatory enterprises undertaken
during European wars in the course of the centuries.
"1. The German Reich does not acknowledge, nor apply, any rules of international law. Even the occupation of enemy territory
in war time is governed by precepts of international law, which clearly define what the occupying Power may, or may not, do.
The Germans, however, have arbitrarily decreed that the Western part of Poland is not to be considered as occupied territory,
but to be incorporated into the Reich, and in this part of Poland they do not recognize the existence of the Poles as such,
and they either expel them or condemn them to a quick death by mass-executions or to a slow death in prisons or concentration
camps. The other part of Poland, the so-called Government General, is regarded by the Germans as a territory whose only right
of existence consists in serving German interests.
"2. In the incorporated part of Poland, that is to say in Pomerania, the province of Poznan and Upper Silesia, to which
has been added a broad strip of land farther to the East, there lived at the outbreak of the war about ten million Poles and
about six hundred thousand Germans. Hitler's Germany has declared that in a short space of time there would not be even one
single Pole to be found in this country. From the very beginning of their occupation they have been murdering prominent and
particularly active Poles not in their hundreds, not in their thousands, but in their tens of thousands. And hundreds of thousands
are being driven out of the country despoiled of all their possessions. They are now busy assessing exactly how many hundreds
of thousands of Germans are to be transferred to each district in order to replace the Polish population thrown out of their
homeland.
"3. In the other part of Poland, occupied by Germany, with Warsaw, Cracow and Lublin, the Germans adopted and proclaimed
the principle, that in this country only Germans may be masters and constitute the ruling class in a social sense, whilst
Poles may only be agricultural labourers and industrial workers. Thus, also, in this part of the country the Polish political
and social leaders are murdered by thousands without any legal proceedings whatsoever, and this happens usually secretly after
imprisonment, so that families hear about it only after many months. The educated class is being systematically suppressed,
deprived of employment, forced to take up manual labour, as, for instance, scientists who are sweeping streets. Only one of
the instances of this system of extirpation of the educated classes was the deportation into a concentration camp in Germany
of all Polish professors of the University of Cracow, founded six hundred years ago, who, hundred and sixty-seven in all,
were cruelly maltreated, so that seventeen of them died. As the Poles were not allowed to have their own educated class, all
Polish higher and secondary educational establishments have been closed down and, at the same time, Polish libraries are being
destroyed or transferred to Germany.
"4. Religious faith, as a mainstay of the spiritual life of the nation, is being persecuted throughout the territory
occupied by Germany. Bishops and priests are being sent to internment camps and ill-treated there worse than were the early
Christians, and scores of priests have already been done to death. This applies mainly to Catholics, as belonging to the principal
religious denomination in Poland, but Protestants are also being persecuted. Jews are not considered human beings by the Germans,
who trample on their dignity and self-respect on every occasion.
"5. The only economic doctrine observed by the Germans in Poland is, in conformity with their totalitarian ideas, a totalitarian
system of wholesale robbery directed against all Polish property and all the wealth the country possesses. In the incorporated
part of Poland only Germans are entitled to own property of any sort, rural or urban, and any who wants to remain a Pole is
driven away with empty hands. As regards the other part of Poland, the so-called Government General, Reichsmarshal Goering
has, ten months ago, issued the notorious, though secret, decree, forbidding any national economic activities, and enjoining
that the country be exploited to the utmost for the benefit of the Reich. The Germans are seizing and exporting, as if they
were mere cattle, men, women and young people for forced labour in Germany, and they are organising manhunts in towns and
villages for this purpose.
"6. At the same time Hitler's essential plan is being carried out of gradual extermination of Polish population through
hunger. This is not only a means of supplying the German population with food, but also, and this is in the first instance,
a deliberate attempt to destroy the Polish nation by malnutrition. For obvious reasons any help from abroad must encounter
difficulties: it is plain that the more foodstuffs or other goods come into Poland thanks to foreign assistance, the more
can the Germans take for themselves from the country.
"In conclusion we can say that the Germans by the abuses they are committing in Poland are piling up a mountain of crimes
such as the world has never seen. But the destinies of the world and of nations are not in the hands of Germans but of God.
The Germans' crimes will not kill Poland and will ultimately fall back upon the Reich with the full weight of the responsibility."
The months that have elapsed since have been marked by a continuance of the Polish nation's sufferings. There has been
no improvement in the situation of the country under German occupation. Indeed, in many respects it has even worsened.
In a broadcast on March 1st, 1941, eighteen months from the moment of the German invasion of Poland, Mr. Rackiewicz,
the President of the Polish Republic, declared:
"The Germans have murdered thousands of scholars, professors, artists, social workers, writers, and even priests. The
flower of the Polish intellectual class and the finest sons of the nation, as well as young women and girls, are being deported
to German concentration camps and prisons, and condemned to a lingering death of martyrdom.
"The Germans are systematically starving the population of Poland.
"With barbaric ruthlessness they are evicting hundreds of thousands of industrious people from their ancestral homes,
robbing them of their lands, their houses, their property, throwing them down anywhere, without shelter and without means
of sustenance, either to perish, or deporting them as slaves for forced labour in Germany.
"No one knows how many men, women and helpless children have perished of hunger, cold and torture in consequence of these
monstrous practices.
"Walled-up ghettoes are being established in Polish cities, as during the darkest periods of the Middle Ages, and people
are being persecuted for their nationality and creed.
"Simultaneously with the extermination of the nation Polish culture is being destroyed. Ancient monuments, temples of
learning, museums, national memorials and theatres which escaped destruction by bombs and bombardments are being closed down,
pillaged, broken up. The religion of the devout Polish people is being persecuted and their churches destroyed. All higher
and secondary schools have been closed, the printing and sale of books are prohibited, the newspapers suppressed."
A report received from Poland in April, 1941, tells the same tragic story. We quote some parts of this report:
"Mass executions are a regular feature; in Palmiry, near Warsaw, there are the graves of several thousand Poles, including
many prominent representatives of Polish political and cultural circles.
"Manhunts are organized in the streets of Warsaw and other towns, sometimes as many as 10,000 or more people being held
under arrest. These people are afterwards sent to concentration camps or compulsory labour.
"The monstrous principle of so-called collective responsibility still reigns; a German policeman has only to be killed
in a fight with a common bandit in some place or other for a Gestapo 'punitive expedition' to arrive and wreak vengeance by
murdering hundreds of completely innocent people. Entire villages are sent up in smoke; frequently the peasants are locked
up in sheds to which the Germans then set fire.
"Over 800,000 Polish workers from the 'Government General' alone are being transported to the interior of the Reich including
young girls aged sixteen, as to whose ultimate destination terrible reports are in circulation.
"All the Polish universities and secondary schools have been closed down; special commissioners have been appointed to
liquidate them. In the 'incorporated' areas all the Polish elementary schools have also been liquidated. Throughout the occupied
area Polish cultural property is being pillaged on a great scale: the most valuable articles in museums, art collections,
libraries, and scientific laboratories have been carried off to Germany, and stolen by German officials for their private
use.
"It is forbidden to publish any Polish books, or periodicals; in the 'Government General' there are only a few official
German publications in Polish; in the 'incorporated' areas the Polish language has been completely eliminated from public
life. The Poles are humiliated and shamed by the occupants at every turn.
"Simultaneously a mass expulsion of Poles is going on from Poznania, Pomerania, Silesia and those parts of central and
southern Poland which have also been 'incorporated' with the Reich. Polish towns such as Poznan, Gdynia, Bydgoszcz, Lodz,
Kalisz, Plock, Wloclawek, are given an appearance of being German towns by means of incredible violence. The Germans are talking
of deporting a further three to four million souls."
These reports confirm all the tragic truth of Mr. Churchill's words in his magnificent speech addressed to the Polish
people all over the world on May 3, 1941:
"All over Europe races and States whose culture and history made them a part of the general life of Christendom in the
centuries when the Prussians were no better than a barbarous tribe and the German Empire no more than an agglomeration of
pumpernickel principalities are now prostate under the dark, cruel yoke of Hitler and his Nazi gang. Every week his firing
parties are busy in a dozen lands. Monday he shoots Dutchmen, Tuesday Norwegians, Wednesday French or Belgians stand against
the wall; while on Thursday it is the Czechs who must suffer and now there are the Serbs and the Greeks to fill his repulsive
bill of execution. But always, all the days, there are the Poles. The atrocities committed by Hitler upon the Poles, the ravaging
of their country, the scattering of their homes, affronts to their religion, the enslavement of the man-power, exceed in severity
and scale the violence perpetrated by Hitler in any other conquered land."
The principle that Poland must be treated more oppressively, must be held down more brutally than other occupied countries,
is openly enunciated by the Germans in the leading article of the Krakauer Zeitung, for April 25, 1941:
"The principles applied in the Bohemian-Moravian Space could not be applied to the Polish Space owing to the unbridled
Polish character, which was sharply revealed during the Polish campaign as an element which requires a different method of
domination."
The heads of the German administration frankly declare that the Poles are to become serfs to the German Herrenvolk,
deprived of their own culture and their own intelletual spheres.
Dr. Hans Frank, Reich Minister, and Governer-General for the occupied Polish territories called the "Government General,"
in an article, published in the Warschauer Zeitung of December 5, 1939, has repeated the peculiarly Nazi definition
of the raison d'etre of law:
"Law is all that which serves the German people. Illegality is all that which is harmful to that people."
The present book reveals how the above principles, which for that matter are only a rehash of old Prussian theories of
hegemony and the cult of force, are being applied in the Polish occupied territories.
The average foreigner, who is acquainted with the Passion Play of Oberammergau, with Bayreuth, and the smiling banks
of the Rhine, who has possibly studied German scientific works, but who has failed to understand the character of the "Musicians
and Barbarians," as the famous German writer Emil Ludwig has called them, is frequently reluctant to believe the terrible
reports which come from the areas under German occupation in the years 1939, 1940 and 1941. So it is worth while citing the
Germans themselves, and giving reproductions of the sinister Bekanntmachungen (public notices) issued in occupied
Poland for the purpose of terrifying a famished and martyred population.
Throughout the pages of this book the reader will find extracts from reports, depositions and documents relating to the
organization of the German Lebensraum in the East which is becoming the "death-space" of a great nation. In
these pages the reader will find the clearest picture of what the German New Order in Europe is to look like in practice.
We repeat: the clearest picture, because the conduct of the German authorities in other occupied countries, in Norway, Denmark,
Belgium, Holland, France is, for tactical reasons, and despite all its severity, incomparably more considerate of the local
population, and never reaches the degree of bestiality which is raging in Poland for nearly two years. Even in Czechoslovakia
the Germans have put certain brakes on their behaviour, in consideration of its position as a Protectorate, although there
also the terror is growing more and more ruthless month by month. But in Poland the German regime has revealed in all its
fullness what the German Herrenvolk is capable of.
General Information on the German Occupation of Poland
In accordance with the German-Soviet Pact of September 28, 1939, the Republic of Poland was partitioned as follows:
Out of the entire territory of 152,226 square miles, with a population (all population figures given in this section
are valid as of the outbreak of war) of 35,340,000, some 73,676 square miles, with a population of some 22,250,000 were taken
over by the Germans,and some 78,550 square miles, with a population of some 13,090,000, came under Soviet occupation.
The territories occupied by the Germans are much more densely populated, which explains the fact that the total number
of inhabitants is considerably greater in this area than in that under Soviet occupation.
From the beginning, the German-occupied territories were divided into two parts almost equal in extent.
1. The territories of Western and a considerable part of Central and Southern Poland which, in accordance with the decree
of October 8, 1939, published in the German Law Journal (Reichsgesetzblatt) but contrary to all principles of international
law, were "incorporated" with the German Reich on October 26, 1939. These territories amount to some 36,117 square miles,
with a population of some 10,740,000 people.
2. The remainder of the German-occupied territory, including the cities of Warsaw, Cracow and Lublin, is called the "Government
General." This area is some 37,320 square miles in extent, and has a population of some 11,485,000 people. The area
was originally intended by the Germans to form a kind of protectorate. Originally it was called the "Government General of
the occupied Polish areas" (General Gouvernement der besetzten polnischen Gebiete) so that the emphasis was laid
on the "occupation" as distinct from the "incorporation" of the other area. On August 18, 1940, this terminology was changed;
thenceforth this area is called only "General Gouvernement" or "General Gouvernement des Deutschen Reichs"
in official acts, and the reference to "occupied Polish areas" is omitted.
The German press interprets this change to mean that the "Government General" has also become a part of the "Great German
Reich," as a Nebenland. In a word, here we have a further cynical violation of international law.
Despite this new "incorporation," a distinction continues to be made in the treatment of the two sections of the Polish
territory under German occupation. Therefore in this book, for the sake of simplification, we use the term "incorporated areas"
for that part of the German-occupied areas which was annexed to the Reich on October 26, 1939, and "Government General" for
the rest.
It has to be added that a scrap of territory in the south of Poland (in the neighbourhood of the Tatra mountains), some
239 square miles with a population of some 25,000, was given by the Germans to the "Slovak State," which is under the "protection"
of the Third Reich.
From the beginning the German terror was most intense in the areas "incorporated" with the Reich.
The regions involved are those which Prussia had forcibly seized at various times and which in the years 1918 to 1920
returned to the Polish Republic, namely Poznania, Pomerania and Silesia. The rest of the "incorporated" areas consists of
the provinces of central and southern Poland, which before the 1914-18 war were part of Russia and Austria-Hungary, with the
towns of Lodz (the second largest town in Poland), Suwalki, Ciechanow, Wloclawek, Plock, Kalisz, Sosnowiec, Dabrowa, Gornicza,
Cieszyn, Bielsko, Biala, Zywiec and Wadowice. The frontiers of the "incorporated" area run barely twenty miles from the capital
of Poland, Warsaw.
In extent the "incorporated" area comprises 23.7 per cent of the total territory of the Polish State, and in regard to
population 30.4 per cent. It is land which has been purely Polish for many centuries. At the outbreak of war the Germans comprised
barely six per cent of the total population.
Of these provinces those of Poznania, Pomerania and Silesia were socially and economically the most developed areas in
Poland. Historically, these provinces were the cradle of the Polish people and State. Estimates in 1939 gave the Polish section
of the population as amounting to 92 per cent in Poznania, 91 per cent in Pomerania, and 93 per cent in Silesia. In Poznan,
the capital of Western Poland, the Poles comprised 97 per cent of the inhabitants, and a similar percentage obtained in almost
all the other towns. In Gdynia the Poles were 99 per cent of the population, in Torun 96 per cent, and in Bydgoszcz 93 per
cent.
All official and unofficial German statistics dating from both before and after the 1914-18 war revealed the existence
of an overwhelming Polish majority in all the provinces in question.
The Polish people of Poznania, Pomerania and Silesia were always distinguished by their high sense of civic responsibility.
They were admirably organized in the economic sphere, and were fully aware of the danger threatening Poland from Germany.
Fate had charged this people with the duty of guarding two essential elements of the political and economic independence of
the Polish State, namely, access to the sea and the mineral wealth of Silesia.
And this was the people against whom the German occupants applied the most brutal system of extermination. The main feature
of this system was the mass expulsion of the Poles from their age-old homes, with complete confiscation of their real and
movable property. The leaders of the Third Reich foretell that in a few years the Polish character of these areas will be
completely destroyed.
For administration purposes two new provinces of the Reich (Reichsgaue) were created from the "incorporated"
areas.
The Reichsgau Wartheland (abbreviated to Warthegau) comprises Poznania and the adjacent territory of
central Poland as far as the Vistula on the north-east, with the towns of Poznan, Lodz, Inowroclaw, Leszno, Ostrow, Kalisz
and Wloclawek. The Gauleiter, Herr Greiser, the former President of the Senate of the Free City of Danzig, has his
residence at Poznan.
The Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen consists of Polish Pomerania, the Free City of Danzig and adjacent German
counties; in addition to Danzig it includes the towns of Gdynia, Bydgoszcz, Grudziadz, Torun, Lipno and Rypin. The Gauleiter
is the former Gauleiter of the Free City of Danzig, Forster.
The northern part of central Poland with the towns of Ciechanow, Plock and others was incorporated with Eastern Prussia
(Gau Ostpreussen) as a separate administrative area (Regierungsbezirk) with its administrative centre at
the town of Ciechanow (renamed Zichenau by the Germans).
The northern scrap of Polish territory with the towns of Suwalki and Augustow, which was cut off from the rest of the
German-occupied area by a strip of territory under Soviet occupation, was also incorporated with Eastern Prussia.
The Polish Upper Silesia, the district of Cieszyn (called Cieszyn Silesia) and the adjoining part of the province of
Cracow have been incorporated to the Gau Oberschlesien and form now the Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz. This
Bezirk covers the whole of the Polish coal-field.
In area the "Government General" comprises barely 23.7 per cent of the Polish State, and in population 32.5 per centv
It is divided into four districts: Cracow, Warsaw, Lublin and Radom, each possessing their own governors. The head of
the administration is the Governor-General, Dr. Frank, former Minister of Justice in the Third Reich, who now resides in the
ancient castle of the Polish Kings, the Wawel, at Cracow.
The territory of the "Government General," an area smaller than Bulgaria (which has six million inhabitants) has been
destined by Hitler to become the home (Heimstatte) of 15-16 million Poles and two million Jews; here all the great
masses of population deported from the "incorporated" territories are to find accomodation. To realise all the barbaric absurdity
of this conception it need be only stated that the area greatly overpopulated before 1939, was deliberately ravaged by the
Germans during war operations and the occupation, and is an economic monstrosity; it is not only cut off from access to the
sea on the west, but also from the coal fields of Silesia, Dabrowa, Gornicza and Cracow, as well as the Lodz district, with
its highly developed textile and metallurgical industry.
According to Hitler's plan the "Government General" is to become a reservoir of labour power for the needs of the Reich.
From the moment the terrible truth of the German terror in Poland began to spread through the world, arousing anger and
indignation, Goebbel's propaganda resorted to various villainous tricks to prevent the further spread of the truth.
To this end the German press, wireless and officials in their speeches attempt to convey the impression to the outside
world that the only Polish area under German rule is the "Government General."
Another cynical trick is publicising of the alleged "benefits" of the German occupation, such as compulsory anti-typhoid
inoculation and struggle against epidemics (which during the times of Polish rule never achieved any greater dimensions than
those in the German Reich). Naturally there is no mention of the fact that tens and hundreds of thousands of people are perishing
as the result of their being beaten and ill-treated by the German authorities, and that a greater part of the Polish population
is living in misery and hunger as a result of the German policy.
In regard to its statements about Poland, German propaganda has beaten all its previous records of infamy.
In conclusion it has to be stated that this book concerns only the conditions existing under the German occupation, and
covers the period from September 1, 1939, the day of the German invasion of Poland, till June 22, 1941, when the war with
Soviet Russia extended the German occupation of Polish territories further towards the East.
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END OF INTRODUCTION
CAUTION: NOT FOR THE YOUNG OR FOR THE SQUEAMISH!
PART ONE: Persecutions, Murders, Expulsions
Chapter One: The Deliberate Murder of the Civil Population During the Military Operations
Even during the military operations, the German troops had
organized systematic and frightful murders of the Polish population.
Airmen especially were employed in these massacres. In bombing military objectives the pilots executed only
a part of their orders. The principal task of the German bombing seemed to consist of destroying the open towns, the villages
and rural areas of Poland. Thus the German pilots proceeded deliberately to murder masses of the civilian population.
To this end, the German airmen were not content to drop high explosive and incendiary bombs upon the homes and centres of
the civilian population. Whenever possible, they flew very low and machine-gunned thousands of people, raking entire
villages, and attacking refugees fleeing along the roads.
The first volume of the Black Book: The German Invasion of Poland (excerpts have been reproduced
on this web site under the heading "The Invasion"), published by the Polish Government (in 1940),
which contains a great number of depositions and eye-witness accounts on the German invasion of Poland, in September of 1939,
describes the most outstanding facts of the German airmen's conduct.
These enemy pilots literally engaged in man hunts. During the siege of Warsaw they circled above the
fields in the vicinity of the city, where women were digging a few potatoes to take back to their starving families. The German
airmen flew low over the fields and systematically machine-gunned these women and their children. In the suburb of Czerniakow
the blackened bodies of people murdered in this way lay in heaps for several weeks.
Similarly, the bodies of men, women and children, whom the German airmen had shot as they were fleeing eastward
before the invasion of Western Poland, littered the Kutno-Warsaw road, as well as many other main arteries and intersecting
roads of communication. And even country roads, far from any road or objective of military significance. Hundreds of reports
confirm that people alone in the fields, for instance shepherds, were attacked and killed; hospitals and Red Cross first aid
statins, evacuation trains and single cars carrying refugees were bombed.
As for the bombing of cities, towns and villages, here is one of innumerable such cases;
On September 5, fourteen German aeroplanes heavily bombed Sulejow, a little town on the Pilica River, numbering
no more than 6,500 inhabitants - an unfortified place without military importance - with the result that the town literally
ceased to exist. The German pilots then circled above the ruins and machine-gunned the inhabitants as they fled. A book published
in Berlin in 1940, entitled "Unsere Flieger uber Polen (Our Airmen over Poland)", contains a cynically boastful passage
by a German airman on the bombing of Sulejow.
The fate of Sulejow was shared by hundreds of Polish towns and villages. The total number of civilians killed
and severly wounded by bombardment from the air cannot be precisely stated; but in any case, it certainly exceeds 100,000
persons. In Warsaw alone, as a result of air and artillery bombardment, the dead amounted to more than 60,000.
The German land forces were no less barbarous than the air force.
On September 3, the Germans entered the villages of Truskolasy and Trzepaczka, near Czestochowa. They
burned them to the ground, after which they proceeded to shoot a large number of the inhabitants. At Truskolasy, 55 people
were shot, including a small child of two.
On the same day the German troops occupied Czestochowa, a city of 100,000 inhabitants, famous for its ancient
monastery and church of Pauline Friars, where a miraculous picture of the Madonna had been worshipped for centuries by the
Polish people.
The following is a carefully verified report of what took place there:
"On September 4, the Germans drove between 700 and 800 men and women, Polish and Jewish, into the free area
surrounding the Cathedral of the Most Holy Family. All these people were ordered to stand with their arms raised for
two hours; and any who fainted or lowered their hands were beaten and kicked by the soldiers. Towards evening they were all
herded into the Cathedral, where they were locked in for two days and nights without food. Dozens of them fainted. The
cathedral was shockingly befouled. Appeals to the German authorities were fruitless.
"The same day, people were hunted down in the town, on the pretext that an attempt had been made to fire
at German soldiers from one of the houses. This was the same lie as was employed by the Germans in Belgium and at Kalisz,
in Poland, in 1914, to justify their barbarous massacres.
"About 60 people were seized and shot. One of the houses in the street of The Blessed Virgin Mary
was set on fire by the Germans, after they had thrown hand grenades into it. There were many persons inside. They were
not allowed to escape, and were burned alive. It was forbidden to bury or to remove the bodies of those who had been shot,
the object being to terrorize the inhabitants by the sight of these corpses. They were left unburied until two days later.
"In the evening some 600 persons, including 3 priests, were arrested in their houses, conducted before
the municipal buildings, and threatened with death.The Germans pretended that an order for their execution was expected from
higher authorities; and in the meantime they were compelled to stand with raised arms. When the orders arrived, the Germans
stood them against the wall of the building, facing a squad of soldiers armed with rifles and a machine-gun. The soldiers
hurled curses and insults at the Poles, after which the unfortunates were ordered to turn to the wall and lie down on the
ground. The machine-gun was then fired over their heads. About three hundred rounds were used in this way. Later the
terror-stricken people were taken to the prison at Zawodzie. Under this monstrous torture some of them lost their nerve; five
died of heart failure - three against the wall of the municipal building and two in prison, while eleven went mad.
"Those imprisoned were given no food or water for two days. They were not allowed to receive anything from
outside, or at least if any exception were made it was after great exertions on the part of friends and relatives. A German
soldier of Polish origin from the vicinity of Opole (Oppeln) in German Silesia, who permitted food to be taken in to
the prisoners, was shot on the spot.
"As the German authorities had issued an order the previous day, September 5, that all arms were to
be surrendered before 8 p.m., there was a general search for such arms. In the Institute of the Order of the School Brothers,
an old gun and several Scouts' caps were found in the theatre wardrobe. On the false pretext that they had been 'concealing
arms', two of the Friars and the father of another were taken out and shot in the barrack square of the 27th Infantry Regiment.
Their bodies were buried in the barrack garden.
"Many persons were shot simply because toy pistols had been found in their houses, or old sabres which had
been forgotten among the lumber in the attics."
In many of the villages in the County of Czestochowa (for example at Romanow), the Germans murdered the
Polish farmers, and burned down their property.
In other Polish districts the German troops behaved similarly.
Even at this early date cases were known of Polish farmers being locked into sheds which were subsequently
set on fire, so that they perished in the flames. In the following months this hideous crime was adopted on a much greater
scale by the German occupation regime, as will be described later.
In the Kracow Province, the Germans burned down a number of villages, allowing nothing and no one to be
saved. In a little place called Rokiciny, on the Krakow-Zakopane railway, German soldiers prevented the escape of some people
who had been trapped in the cellars of burning houses. The soldiers also prevented cattle being released from burning
enclosures. In the well-known health resort for children, Rabka-Zaryte, a farmer and his son were shot because they endeavoured
to break the window out of a burning building. In the village of Skomielna the Germans burned down the church and 74 farms
and shot the Parish priest in the head, severely wounding him.
In the village of Wisniewo, after a drinking bout, a group of German soldiers murdered six Polish farmers,
by laying them in the path of tanks which crushed them one after another. In the wood near this village the inhabitants
found 20 crushed and disfigured corpses, principally women and children. The traces of tanks were visible nearby.
The German soldiers and the Gestapo were particularly responsible for the torture of the civilian population
of Kalisz, a city which already once, in August 1914, had been sacrificed to German barbarism. At the time, by order of the
German commander, Major Preusker, the place was set on fire and utterly destroyed, a large number of its citizens being killed.
Re-built by the Poles in the course of 20 years, 1919-39, unfortunate Kalisz once more, at the very beginning of the
present war, became the victim of the invaders' savage terrorism.
After the occupation of Tomaszow Mazowiecki town, the Germans assembled the inhabitants in the market-place
and forced them to lie face downward. They remained in this position for 15 hours. If anyone attempted to move, the German
soldiers opened fire. Eighty persons perished in this way.
At the town of Lowicz the inhabitants were seized and driven in front of the advancing German troops, who
used them as a living screen against the Polish detachments.
On September 4, 1939, immediately after the German entry into Sosnowiec, one of the centres of the Polish
coalfield, the German soldiers went from house to house, turning out their occupants, whom they drove into the square before
the town hall. From the crowd, they chose some 30 persons to be shot. One of the German officers dispatched several of the
wounded with shots from his revolver. The Germans ordered the bodies to be left in the square for several hours.
The Massacre of Poles in Bydgoszcz
The most terrible massacre committed by the Germans took place in Bydgoszcz, the largest city in Pomerania
(140,000 inhabitants), in which 93 percent of the population was Polish.
The Germans began with mass arrests of the Polish population, which were followed by murders and executions.
"On entering the city," says one report, "the Germans arrested important members of the civil population
and the clergy. The prisoners were lined up in the town square and ordered to remain motionless, with their arms raised for
4 hours. When the narrator, a member of the group, felt that his strength was failing, he asked a priest to give him absolution.
At this moment the prisoners were granted a little respite. But when our informant crossed his hands on his breast, a German
exclaimed: 'You ass, you can pray; but that won't do you any good.' One of the victims, a woman, unable any longer to endure
this martyrdom, endeavoured to escape. She was immediately shot.
"There were already 7 bodies in the square, including those of Fathers Szarek and Wiorek. The former had
suffered cruelly. His nose was broken, his eyes evidently put out, and his jaw broken. To one corpulent priest the torturers
cried out: 'You ass, why aren't you married?'
"After such ill-treatment, some of the prisoners were placed in cellars of the Lazarists, others in the
barracks and in stables. Often they were forced to line up while their tormentors struck at them."
It is stated in another report that 5,000 men, women and children were shut up in one of the stables. They
were so closely crowded that none of the prisoners had room even to sit down on the ground. They were treated inhumanly. Priests
and Jews were ordered to use their bare hands to carry out excrement from a corner of the stable which had been set aside
as latrines. In general the worst treated were the clergy, of whom more will be said in the chapter dealing with religious
persecutions.
The Germans at once began to execute the Poles in a wholesale fashion, without trial, without even a shadow
of pretext. People were conducted to the centre of the town and mowed down with machine-guns, or were shot as they walked
along the streets. Cases were known of entire Polish families being murdered in their own homes.
In the barracks of the 15th Light Cavalry Regiment, the Germans machine-gunned nearly a thousand persons,
whose bodies were afterwards buried behind the stables. Hundreds of people were shot in the market-place, where their bodies
were left for several hours. Later, members of the Bydgoszcz clergy were forced to dig common graves and to bury the
victims.
Thousands of Poles, men and women and even young boys, were murdered in this way. For several days in September,
1939, the squares and the streets of the city flowed with the blood of the murdered. In order to terrorize the population
their bodies were left lying in the streets and the traces of blood were not removed.
A further spate of mass executions followed in the second half of October and in November, 1939.
It is difficult to fix exactly the total number of Polish people murdered in Bydgoszcz. In any case, down
to January 1st, 1940 it exceeded 10,000 persons. The majority consisted of representatives of the Polish intellectual and
middle classes: priest, officials, judges, professors, merchants, industrialists, although there were also many workmen, craftsmen,
etc. A large proportion of the victims consisted of women and young boys. This was admitted a year later even by the National-Socialist
newspaper Thorner Freiheit.
Among the more prominent people shot was Konrad Fiedler, vice-chairman of the Bydgoszcz City Council, one
of the National Democratic leaders of Pomorze, a well-known writer and publicist, chairman of the Pomeranian Association
of Journalists. Other victims included Mr. Typrowicz, a lawyer, an engineer and architect, Grodzki, and many members of the
Union for Defence of the Western Borders and the Societies of Insurgents and Ex-Service Men.
Mr. Barciszewski, Mayor of the City of Bydgoszcz, met a cruel death. Before the entry of the German troops,
he was ordered by the Ministry for Home Affairs at Warsaw to leave the city with the city funds and the most important municipal
documents. The German authorities perfidiously accused him on these grounds of stealing the city funds. When Mr. Barciszewski
decided to return to Bydgoszcz to defend himself against these infamous charges, the German authorities guaranteed him safe
conduct and provided him with authorization to travel. After a mockery of a trial, Mr. Barciszewski was shot. Before his death,
he was bestially tortured, being beaten, humiliated and ordered to clean the mud from a Gestapo car by licking it with his
tongue. For two days the Germans paraded him in a cart through the streets of Bydgoszcz for several hours each day; around
his neck was hung an insulting inscription ending with the announcement that the execution would take place on November 11,
1939.
One of the most moving incidents of the Bydgoszcz massacres was the shooting of more than one hundred High
School boys and scouts on the steps of the Jesuit Church in the old market-place. Some of them were boys of from 12 to 16
years of age; they were seized in the streets, and till the last moment they did not know what awaited them. They were mown
down with machine-guns. In the face of death, these boys behaved heroically, as even German witnesses declared, singing the
Polish national hymn: God Who Protects Poland.
At the last moment, a young priest ran up to the boys, making a sign of the Cross, and anxious to administer
the last sacrament. He was also seized and shot. He received 5 wounds.
A large number of disabled soldiers and veterans of the war of 1914-18 were also murdered.
Whole Polish families were wiped out. According to one report, the bodies were often laid out in the form
of the swastika: the father constituting one arm, the mother a second arm, whilst the others were formed by the bodies
of the children and relations.
The Polish Government possesses a number of authentic depositions made by Poles who succeeded in escaping
from Bydgoszcz. Some of them are particularly shocking. Among them is the deposition of a certain young Polish girl,
who was cashier at the Bydgoszcz railway station. When one day early in September she returned home from work, she found the
bodies of her aged parents, who had been murdered by Germans living in the same house.
The course of events in Bydgoszcz was also recorded by a number of witnesses of non-Polish nationality.
Particularly valuable and exhaustive is the account of this period given by an Englishwoman, Miss Baker-Beall, who lived in
Bydgoszcz before the war, was aquainted with local conditions, and remained in the city for some time after the entry of the
German troops.
On February 4, 1940, the great Copenhagen daily, Politiken, carried a lengthy report from its Berlin
correspondent, entitled: "What is happening behind the closed frontier of the Government of Poland." Part of this article
deals with the Bydgoszcz massacres. On this subject the writer said:
"It is a war of extermination against the Poles ... This war took on its true aspect with this Saint Bartholomew's
night in Bydgoszcz.
"One of the judges of the German courts martial told me: 'The great market-place of Bydgoszcz was chosen
as the place of execution. The bodies were left lying there for a day as a warning. Masses of Poles were dragged and put up
against the wall.' Among the examples of heroic deaths the judge recalled that of a young Pole, who gazed proudly at the firing
squad and cried as he fell: 'Poland has not yet perished!'
"This same judge often saw Polish children of from 4 to 6 years playing a new game in the streets, pretending
to be the execution squads. The heroes these little children acclaimed were always those who cried: 'Poland has not yet perished!'
These children will grow up; and they will never forget. ..."
In order to provide some justification for the monstrous slaughter in Bydgoszcz, the official German propaganda
put out a calumnious story that many Germans had been murdered by the Polish population in Bydgoszcz on September 3, 1939.
In reality, on that day the Germans of Bydgoszcz, belonging to illegal Nazi organizations, brought out their rifles, hand
grenades and machine-guns, and attacked their Polish fellow citizens and the last retreating Polish detachments. However,
the German troops were still too far away; and Polish detachments retiring from the front came to the aid of the unarmed Polish
population. A street skirmish ensued, in which the Poles finally got the upper hand. About 150 to 160 Germans were killed
on that Sunday. It transpired that the majority of them were not members of the local population, but were diversionists and
saboteurs, who had been sent across the frontier in the days immediately preceding.
The events of that day have been stated clearly and unchallengeably in the above-mentioned report of Miss
Baker-Beall, and also in many reports from other eye-witnesses, as published in the book The German Fifth Column in Poland.
The slaughter in Bydgoszcz, together with similar happenings in other localities, for example in Leszno,
was only the beginning of the mass murders of the Polish population, which began from the first days of the German Occupation,
both in territories later "incorporated" in the Reich and in those of the so-called "Government General."
END OF CHAPTER ONE
Chapter Two: Mass Slaughters and Executions Under the Occupation
In the "Incorporated Territories"
Immediately after their entry into Poland, the Germans set to work to exterminate the Polish intellectual
classes. They at once murdered large numbers of Polish priests, landowners, officials, lawyers, professors, teachers and doctors.
Then came mass executions, which reached their greatest intensity in the period following October 15, 1939. It appeared that
the Germans had determined to exterminate entirely the leading elements in the Western provinces of Poland. In addition to
the categories already mentioned, these murders also included merchants, artisans, labour leaders, Trade Union leaders, leaders
of peasants' agricultural organizations, etc.
Especially during the first period, these murders were committed without even a parody of court procedure,
without even the formalities of a charge. A Pole had only to be indicated as "inimically disposed towards the Germans' (deutschfeindlich
gesinnt). Poles were executed either publicly, usually in the market-places, or the Gestapo disposed of them secretly,
often at night; very many were murdered in the prisons. Hundreds of hostages were also murdered. The most glaring cases in
each of the Western provinces of Poland are given below.
Pomerania
At Gdynia, 350 of the leading men were arrested as hostages. First they were taken to Danzig, where
they were made to do hard labour, then to Wejherowo. Many of these hostages were shot in the local prison, on the Polish Independence
Day, November 11, 1939. Before the executions took place, these men dug their own graves. The shooting was carried out in
relays, each group being obliged to witness the deaths of those who preceded them. The Gestapo agents killed their
victims by a revolver shot in the head.
The attitude of these unfortunate men was heroic. They died crying "Long live Poland!" There was not a suggestion
of court procedure. No statement was made as to why these massacres took place.
Here are the names of some of the leading men, whose fate, after nearly two years, is unknown:
Messrs. Legowski, director of the port of Gdynia; W. Szaniawski, Governmental Vice-commissioner for
Gdynia, President of the Franco-Polish Association, former French officer, decorated with the Legion of Honour; Jagodzinski,
Counsellor of the Gdynia Governmental Commissioner's Office; Czarlinski, President of the District Court; Schwarz, Konwinski,
Kiedrowski, Judges; Kozlowski, Prosecuting Attorney; Linke, director of the Communal Savings Bank; Boryslawski, director of
the local branch of the Agricultural Bank; Jozewicz, lawyer; Stanislaw Borkowski, director of the Naval Department; Prelate
Turzynski and his brother; Pinecki, a Danzig Professor.
At Obluze, near Gdynia, an unknown person was said to have broken a pane of glass in the police station
on the night of November 11. The German authorities made this an excuse for arresting some 50 Polish school-boys, demanding
that they produce the culprit. Unable to learn who he was, they ordered the boys' parents to whip their sons publicly, in
front of the church. When they refused, the S.S. agents beat the boys brutally with clubs. Afterwards they shot 10 of the
students and forbade the burial of the bodies, which lay exposed before the church for 24 hours. Yet it was stated by Poles
of the highest integrity that no pane of glass had been broken in the police station.
At Danzig, the members of the staff of the High Commissioner of the Polish Republic were arrested. In prison
they were beaten and ill-treated outrageously. Mr. Lendzion, Polish Deputy to the Volkstag at Danzig, who had been
imprisoned with the rest, was first beaten with bestial cruelty, then his jailors tore out his tongue.
The employees of the Polish Post Office at Danzig, among whom were 5 women, as well as the Polish railway
employees, were all assassinated.
At Torun, capital of Pomerania Province several hundred such murders were committed at the beginning of
the occupation. On November 22, six women were shot, on the pretext that a German was said to have been assaulted by a Pole.
In the same city, civilians were compelled to repair the bridge over the Vistula. Among them were Mr. Hozakowski,
French Honorary Counsel, and an aged priest, respected and revered by the community. Exhausted by his efforts, the old priest
finally fell into the water. His fellow workmen endeavoured to save him, but were prevented by the S.S. agents, who drew revolvers
and shot him as he struggled in the river.
At Grudziadz, a factory town, numbering 60,000 inhabitants, 300 Poles were shot, 30 percent of the population
was deported to the "Government General" or to Germany; children between 7 and 14 years old were also deported to Germany.
Among others, Mr. Alfons Sergot, lawyer, a leader of the Trades Union Praca Polska (Polish Labour) was shot.
In the first half of December, 1939, in Inowroclaw, one of the largest cities in Pomerania, a group of drunken
German officers visited the local prison, where 70 Poles were interned as hostages, and shot them all with revolvers. With
the officers was the Landrat of the County of Inowroclaw, who himself shot some 20 of the prisoners. The Landrat
stood higher up the steps, and as the prisoners were brought up one by one from below, he shot them. The Mayor of the city
of Inowroclaw, Mr. Jankowski, and the deputy mayor, Mr. Jungst, were among the victims; others who shared their fate were
Messrs. Wlodzimierz Wichlinski, Stanislaw Wichlinski, Count Poninski, Katalowski, Hoppe, all landowners; Knast, proprietor
of a book shop; Fajgiel, a merchant, Laubitz, brother of the late Bishop of Gniezno; Reszka, a chemist, whose house had been
destroyed by the Germans; and a number of workmen whose names are unknown.
In this city also several hundred young girls of from 14 to 20 years of age were imprisoned. A few days
later, the prison guards and members of the German S.A. opened the doors and announced that those who desired could go. As
the girls started to file out they were shot down. Over 40 fell thus wantonly murdered.
Among others shot at Inowroclaw, was Father Mateusz Zablocki, of Gniezno, a man past 60, revered by all.
With him were shot 14 Polish workmen from Gniezno. The Polish prisoners in Inowroclaw were cruelly beaten and tortured. A
17 year-old Polish lad was buried alive.
In the market place at Tezew, Father Chudzinski, from Pelplin, publisher and editor of two well-known Polish
journals of Pomerania, the Pielgrzym (The Pilgrim) and the Goniec Pomorski (The Pomorze Messenger) was executed;
also Father Bronislaw Dembienski of Nowe Miasto Lubawskie, publisher of the journal Drweca, and director of a well-known
local publishing company.
The most prominent representatives of the Polish clergy in Pomerania were also murdered. They included the
80 year-old priest, Canon Bernard Losinski, of Sierakowice (County of Kartuzy) for many years a Deputy to the Polish Parliament
(Sejm) at Warsaw; Canon Jozef Wrycza from Wiele (County of Chojnice), Chaplain of Polish troops at the time of the
war with the Bolsheviks in 1919-20, and many other priests.
At Lubawa the chairman of the local gymnastics organization, Sokol, Mr. Wolski, was murdered; and
in December, 1939, the Mayor and 5 inhabitants of the town of Fordon, among them 2 priests, were shot in Bydgoszcz.
Numerous assassinations were reported from Wloclawek, of which details are wanting.
The following document illustrates German methods. It is an announcement which appeared in the German daily
Weichsel-Zeitung in October, 1939. Piastoszyn (in German Petztin) is the name of a village near the town of Tuchola:
"Ten Polish Saboteurs Against the Wall.
"Tuchola..... At Piastoszyn, in the district of Tuchola, a building on the property of the German
(Volksdeutsche) Superior (Amtsvorsteher) Fritz was burned by a Polish bandit. The property was situated
outside the village. The Amtsvorsteher died of a heart attack.
"By order of the Chief of the Civil Administration, a preventative action has been taken in this locality.
The object of this action is to give the bandit culprits to understand that underhanded deeds of this sort will be punished
in the most rigorous fashion. By way of reparation, and in order to inspire a legitimate fear, 10 Poles, known for their anti-German
sentiments, have been shot. Furthermore, the Polish population of the region has been ordered to rebuild the building that
was burned, and to repair the total damage done.
"Measures have been taken to prevent a repetition of such happenings."
It is not known in what circumstances the fire on this property occurred.
The total number of Poles shot and murdered in Pomerania down to January 1, 1940, is estimated at 20,000.
Of this number more than 10,000, as has been previously stated, were in the city of Bydgoszcz alone.
Poznania
The situation in Poznania was exactly like that in Pomerania. Here, too, the Germans determined to wipe
out the entire Polish intellectual classes, the middle class and the leaders of the peasants and workmen.
There is hardly a town in Poznania, nor even a larger village which has not been the scene of public mass
executions of Poles.
On the eve of execution, the condemned were often shut up in narrow cells, where they were forced to remain
standing. They were not permitted to take leave of their families, nor to receive the last rites. On the contrary, many of
them were insulted, beaten and tortured even at the last moment.
The mass executions, which, for the most part occurred between the 20th and 25th of October, 1939, were
carried out principally in the public squares of the cities and towns. The members of the S.S. drove the population into
the squares and forced them to witness these collective murders. Frequently they took place at night, by the light of
car headlamps. After the executions, the representatives of the Polish intellectual classes who were left alive - chiefly
priests, lawyers, etc. - were compelled to load their compatriots' bodies on to carts and to haul them to the cemetery or
to the environs of the cemetery. (Frequently the Germans did not permit burial in the cemeteries.) There they dug trenches
and buried the bodies.
Cases were reported in which the victims were forced to dig their own graves before execution.
An example of these methods is provided by the execution of five Poles in the market-place of Szamotuly,
a provincial town of 10,000 inhabitants.
There, members of the S.S. barred off the streets leading to the market square. Five young men, whom they
had driven into the square, were placed against a wall. They had just time before their execution to cry: "Long live Poland!"
after which they were shot with revolvers by the S.S. guard. The commanding officer then passed along the line, putting a
bullet through the head of each dying man. Shouts and screams of protest and indignation arose; women fainted. Later, several
representatives of the local intellectual circles were chosen, among them a priest, a doctor, a lawyer and ordered to load
the bodies of their fellow citizens on to a car, and to drive them to the vicinity of the cemetery and bury them. The murdered
men were peasants from Otorowo, a nearby village. Someone in the locality, whom the Germans failed to discover, had hoisted
a Polish flag, and so the population of the town had to pay this terrible price for the Polish cause.
In Otorowo, also, 19 men, from ages of 15 to 75 were shot on the same charges.
Particularly revolting were the executions in Koscian, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, south of Poznan.
In this town, 8 persons were executed together on October 2, 18 on October 23 and 42 on November 7. These
executions were held in the market-place, against the wall of the Town Hall. On October 23, the Germans shot Mr. Mieczyslaw
Chlapowski, Count Szoldrski, Mr. Koscielski, of Sepno, landowners, Mr. Helczynski of Bonikowo, who before his death was cruelly
beaten; Dr. Tomaszewski, dental surgeon; Mr. Irzabek, High School Principal; Mr. Sowinski, retired School Inspector; Mr. Wydra,
School Inspector; Mr. Hefner, Head of the Elementary School; Mr. Obaro, local Railway Director; Mr, Ido, an employee in a
sugar refinery; Messrs. Wenski and Janicki, merchants, the latter with his son.
Father Graszynski was forced to wash the blood from the stones where the victims of executions had fallen.
The execution of Mr. Mieczyslaw Chlapowski, of Kopaszewo, made a profound impression. This gentleman was
well known for his patriotic activities, and was chairman of various agricultural organizations in Poznania. He was a cousin
of the former Polish Ambassador to France, Mr. Alfred Chlapowski.
Carried out as usual, without the formal pretext of a trial, the execution took place in the market-place
of Koscian. The Gestapo agents had packed the square with spectators.
Mr. Chlapowski knelt down with his rosary, saying a prayer. Then he made the sign of the cross to the crowd;
and cried: "Poland has not yet perished! Long live France. Long live England!" At that moment he fell before the bullets of
his assassins.
No less moving was the death of the young landowner, Mr. Madalinski of Debicz, whose ancestors had fought
in all the Polish insurrections against Russia and Germany. Hearing the order given to the firing squad to shoot him in the
back, he turned toward the S.S. agents, tore open his shirt, and pointing to his breast, exclaimed: "Shoot here; for never
has a Madalinski been killed like a dog! ... May God bless Poland!" he added, as the volley sounded.
To cite still another incident, 2 Polish landowners with German names, Boening and Graeve, were arrested
by the Germans and given their choice between the two alternatives: either to sign a declaration stating that they were Volksdeutsche
(of German race), or to be shot. They both declared themselves proud to be Poles, and refused to
sign the infamous document. They paid the penalty of death.
Another prominent Pole, Mr. Taczanowski, had his eyes burnt out by the Germans before execution.
Count Szoldrski, a landowner at Golebin, had a smile on his lips as he came to the place of execution in
Koscian. The Germans thought he was sneering at them, so they first beat him until he was unable to stand.
On November 7, 42 Poles were shot in the face and left in a ditch filled with lime. In this group was a
number of High School students. On November 9 the Germans shot several dozen peasants from the neighbouring villages and buried
them in the forest of Racot, near Koscian.
In addition, a number of secret executions took place at Koscian at different times, often at night.
In the County of Koscian not only the local Gestapo detachment but also certain German officials distinguished
themselves by their brutality. They were the Landrat, Lize, and his adjutant, Lehman; the German Burgomaster, Schreiter;
a School Inspector named Heinze; Lorenz, a landowner; the official, Ischdonat, and Frau von Hofmannswaldau, of Koszanowo,
who again and again intervened with the German authorities to carry out more executions.
Immediately after the executions at Koscian, the same German guard moved on to Smigiel, a town in the same
county, where on October 2, 8 persons were murdered, including the Mayor, Piach, and the chemist, Mr. Ciesielski. On October
23, 16 more sentences were carried out. Besides these collective executions, there were numerous individual cases which were
always dealt with at night.
In the County town of Gostyn, at 11 o'clock on the morning of October 21, 1939, 30 persons were shot, among
them the local leader of the National Party, Mieczyslaw Hejnowicz and his brother, several prominent members of the intellectual
class, as well as many landowners from the surrounding country, including Mr. Edward Potworowski, of Gola, a Papal Chamberlain
and Director of the Catholic Action organization; the former Senator, Stanislaw Karlowski of Szelejewo; Count Grocholski and
the previously mentioned Baron Graeve of Borek. The son of one of the condemned suceeded only in obtaining permission to be
shot in his father's place.
In the neighbouring town of Krobia, the shooting of 15 Poles was later followed by more executions. Similarly
26 Polish people were to be shot at Poniec, another town in Gostyn County. Here, however, an unexpected thing happened. The
older men and women among the local Germans would not permit the executions to take place. They placed themselves in front
of the condemned, declaring that they did not wish such a thing to happen, as they lived on good terms with the Poles. As
a result only 3 of the 26 were shot. This, however, was a unique exception.
A group of Poles was publicly executed in the town of Wolsztyn at night, by the light of the Gestapo car
headlamps. The entire local population were awakened and obliged to come to the square to witness the executions.
Sixteen persons were assassinated at Kornik, including Mr. Wolniewicz, the Mayor, aged 70 years, infirm
and unable to walk. After the others had been shot, Mr. Wolniewicz was thrown on a cart, on top of their dead bodies, and
killed point blank with a revolver shot.
Similar public executions were recorded at Mosina, Rogozno, at Trzemeszno (30 persons), at Antoninek (20),
at Srem (118), at Rawicz, Grodzisk, Nowy Tomysl, Miedzychod, Znin, Sroda, Wrzesnia and many other localities.
In Poznan, executions by beheadings took place every week at the prison in Mlynska Street. Only some of
the verdicts were made public. Many young people were shot without any trial whatever in the woods near Poznan in the neighbourhood
of Paledzie, Dabrowka and Zakrzewo. This happened almost every week. Up to 30 persons lost their lives on each occasion. The
execution area was guarded and inaccessible to Poles. Only the cries of the victims testified that they were Polish.
"The Gestapo agent's lorries arrived in the market-place of the town of Pobiedziska on September 1," says
one report. Machine-guns were set up in the streets. At 7 o'clock in the morning the Germans issued the order through a municipal
clerk that males from 18 to 40 years were to go immediately to the market-place. The order was so unexpected that many of
the men approached in their night shirts. Foreseeing that they might be arrested the youth of the town attempted to hide in
the surrounding woods, but were caught by the Gestapo and driven into the market-place at the point of the bayonet. One
young man's hand was pierced. They were detained until 9:30 and then were beaten with rifle butts all the way to the station,
where they were packed into trucks. Other groups were treated similarly.
"They were carried by night to the locality of Wierzonka and placed in a paddock. The paddock was lit up
by the headlamps of 4 cars. Machine-guns were set up in the lamplight. Women who brought food for the prisoners were brutally
beaten.
"During the whole time, the Gestapo made the prisoners do 'gymnastic execises' to the commands 'get up'
and 'lie down' in the mud and rain. Two men brought to this camp had been tortured with especial bestiality. A certain
workman named Szwajcar was shot and thrown into a hole which he himself had been obliged to dig. One of the German officers
told the prisoners that at Wierzonka, 22 Poles had been shot that night. To drown the noise of the shots, the engines of the
police cars had been started. Next day, all those arrested in Pobiedziska were interrogated. A few were sent home, and the
rest were taken to prison in the Poznan citadel. Although normally this place accommodates only 2,000 soldiers at most, 5,000
persons were held there. The prisoners were thrashed, driven to 'exercise' and awakened every hour of the day and night."
In the frontier town of Leszno, capital of the County (20,000 inhabitants), at the beginning of September,
1939, the Germans of Polish nationality, armed with grenades, revolvers, rifles and machine-guns, made an attack upon their
fellow Polish citizens. As in Bydgoszcz, the Germans attacked too early, and were defeated; and several of them, captured
with arms in their hands, were shot by the Polish troops. After the occupation of Leszno by the German troops, massacres were
started, which continued until the month of November. A great number of prominent men were arrested and were brutally
beaten with rifle butts, truncheons and whips. Mr. Machnikowski, a professor, was martyred for refusing to denounce members
of the Polish association whom the Germans considered particularly anti-German.
On October 21, 20 representatives of the local population were shot at the foot of the Court-House wall.
Among these were B. Karpinski, retired Professor of the Leszno High School; Nowicki, secretary to the Town Council; Gunter,
clerk of the Finance Department; Podlarski, Samolewicz, Tredowicz, merchants; Nowak, a hotel proprietor; Horowski, a chemist;
Bartoszewicz and Hanca, the latter a high school student. The bodies were buried in trenches which had been prepared by the
Polish anti-aircraft defence. The task of the burial was performed by Mr. Kowalski, the Mayor, and the officials of the municipality.
Dozens of Poles, among them Mr. Donimirski, a landowner from Golanice, were assassinated in the Leszno prison
and secretly buried in the neighbouring forests. A ditch used as a common grave was discovered in the forests of Rydzyna.
Besides the Gestapo and their Chief of Police (Polizeirat) Grunt, several other Germans should
be mentioned in connection with the extermination of the Polish population in the town and district of Leszno, namely: Landrat
von Baumbach; the German Burgomaster, Dr. Schneider; the Pastor, Wolfgang Bickerich, who, before the war, behaved as a friend
of Professor Machnikowski, yet was present when he was tortured in prison, and at his execution; Baron Losen of Drzeczkow;
Leon Zabka, a butcher (he was responsible for the death of a school-boy, Hanca) and even a woman, the wife of the principal
of the German High School at Leszno.
Among other localities in Poznania, where Poles were especially tortured, mention should be made of the
border town of Ujscie. During the night of September 1, a civilian detachment (Freikorps) attacked the town and massacred
the Polish population, including women and children.
Many representatives of the intellectual class at Kalisz were murdered. In one instance 22 were executed,
including Madame Bzowska, wife of a judge. A Catholic priest also was publicly shot, afterwards buried in the Jewish cemetery.
Details of the numerous executions of priests will be found in the chapter dealing with the persecution
of the Church.
To the names already mentioned of well-known persons shot and otherwise murdered in the provinces of Poznania
and Pomerania the following should be added:
Roman Komierowski, of Komierowo, Papal Chamberlain (N.B. Dr. Roman Komierowski, Dr. of Law, former member
of the Reichstag, actually died in 1924. It was Tomasz Komierowski -1885-1939- who was arrested in the early hours of September
1, 1939 at the Komierowo Estate and brutally murdered on September 4 at the nearby Skarpa Estate, according to nephew Rafal
Komierowski, 04/09/2007); Marian Suminski, of Kuczyna; Count Henryk Grocholski, of Zimnowoda; Jozef Korytowski, of Chwalkowo;
Ignacy Mlicki, of Pokrzywnica; Stanislaw Mlicki, of Kownaty; Fenrych, of Pudliszki; Taczanowski, of Wilczyn; Edward Poninski,
of Koscielec; Speichert; Doerffer, of Brzostownia; Swiecicki, of Trabinek; Ponikiewski; Count Mielzynski; Dziembowski; Glabisz;
Antoni Pacynski, Director of the Kornik Foundation; Edward Mieczkowski, of Srebrna Gora; Grabczewski, of Gaj; Edward Trzcinski,
of Gocanowko; Brzeski, of Wolka; R. Poninski; Goetzendorff-Grabowski and his wife.
After his arrest Edward Mieczkowski was driven barefoot for several kilometres and finally shot in the back.
A number of families were entirely wiped out. The case of the Sierakowskis, well-known Polish landowners,
is an out-standing example. They possessed an estate in East Prussia, Waplewo, with a splendid library and art collection.
Count Sierakowski, his wife, daughter and son-in-law were all shot.
The Gniazdowski family were similarly murdered.
In the course of a few weeks three members of the Donimirski family, which has been known for centuries,
were murdered: Jan Donimirski, of Tarchalin; Jerzy Donimirski, of Golanice; and Witold Donimirski, of Marusza. A fourth member
of this family, Jan Donimirski, of Lysomice, died, according to a report, while working as a prisoner to repair the bridge
over the Vistula in Torun, standing in the water up to his chest.
Following is another report, describing the fate of the Taczanowski and Mlicki families.
Kazimierz Taczanowski, aged 70 years, proprietor of estates in Wilczyn and Kownaty, was arrested one day
by the Gestapo agents from Konin, the neighbouring County town.
He was freed on a bond of 10,000 zloty paid to the Gestapo, being assured that henceforth he and his son-in-law,
Mr. Mlicki, of Gnojo, had nothing to fear. Wilczyn had been for some time under the compulsory administration of German Treuhander,
so the Taczanowskis and Mlickis were living at Kownaty.
In the evening of November 13, 1939, they heard a violent pounding on the gate which at that late hour was
locked. The house stands before extensive woodlands, by way of which the proprietor and his family could easily have escaped
if they had anticipated danger. But in the face of the solemn guarantee they had been given of peace and freedom, it did not
even occur to them that the Germans had come. The gate was opened. The local Treuhander, a certain Geppert from Berlin,
the greatest sadist in all the district, drove in. He arrested the aged Taczanowski with his son Zygmunt and son-in-law Stanislaw
Mlicki on the spot and took them all to his car, where he had an adequate escort of Gestapo agents.
They drove to the wood, and there ordered the prisoners to get out. The place was lit up by car headlamps.
One of the Germans said: "Leave the old man to me. I'll take care of him." Taczanowski and his guard were accordingly left
behind. Almost at once, before the eyes of the father, Geppert himself shot the young Taczanowski and his brother-in-law,
Mlicki.
At that the elder Taczanowski instinctively struck his German guard with all his strength, and fled back
in the direction of the light railway. As it happened, just at that moment a goods train was coming along, loaded with sugar
beets. He succeeded in crossing to the farther side of the track before the train came up. The Germans opened fire at him
as he fled, but while the train was passing he had time to hide. A reward of 10,000 zlotys was offered for his capture.
The parents of the young Mlicki who had been shot in the road were arrested. His mother had been a devoted
social worker and a local leader of the Women Landowners' Association and the Catholic Action. She was kept for 5 weeks in
prison at Inowroclaw, where she was used to scrub the lavoratories and do other tasks of a similar nature. A sufferer from
liver touble and gall stones, she was seized with a severe attack, and was sent to hospital; but even then she was not set
free. Her husband, an aged man of 70, totally paralyzed, was also arrested and imprisoned. He also had to be removed to the
hospital, where he died.
The aforesaid Treuhander, Geppert, got drunk every day, shot at the mirrors and paintings and used
his whip on all who waited on him and on the servants.
The Chlapowski family, famous in Poznania and throughout Poland, whose ancestor, Dezyderiusz Chlapowski,
was an eminent general in the army of Napoleon I, lost 3 of its principal members: Mieczyslaw Chlapowski, of Kopaszewo, shot,
as we have said, by the Germans in the marketplace of Koscian; Alfred Chlapowski, for many years Polish Ambassador in Paris,
who died in the prison hospital at Koscian; and Roman Chlapowski, one of the founders and directors of the hospital of the
Knights of Malta in Warsaw, who was killed by a German bomb.
Besides the public executions, such as those described, masses of Poles were murdered at night. On the outskirts
of the towns and villages bodies of murdered men and women were frequently found, sometimes several at a time. Often these
bodies had been uncovered by dogs. For instance, in the town of Rogozno (Oborniki County) 8 bodies were found in a garden;
their discovery was due to the scratching of dogs. Among them were the landowner Goetzendorf-Grabowski and his wife, an official
of a distillery and a steward from Mechlin, the local parish priest, the organist and the sexton. After the disinternment,
the German authorities would not allow the bodies to be buried in a normal fashion, but ordered to be placed in one coffin
and buried in the Rogozno cemetery. Such things were almost daily occurrences during November, 1939, in the Poznania
area.
A merchant, aged 74, Franciszek Ksawery Witkowski, of Witkowo, suddenly disappeared one day. He had
been for many years secretary of the local branch of the Insurgents' Association of Poznania. His mutilated corpse was found
a few days later in a field near Strzalkowo, many miles from Witkowo.
At one spot in Wolsztyn County, 2 Poles were driven to a pond on which ice was still floating. The Germans
beat them with long poles, aiming at their heads, driving them out into water beyond their depth. They were both drowned.
Afterwards their bodies were fished out and hung on a roadside cross.
One local German named Schobert drove a knife into the shoulder of a Pole with the German name of Schneider,
who publicly maintained that he was a Pole. Then Schobert drove Schneider through the streets of the village, beating him
as he went.
In Kolniczki, a village in the County of Jarocin, Mr. Majewski, President of the Peasant Party for the county,
as well as 2 other farmers of the village, was dragged out unexpectedly from his home and shot in a wood. Their bodies were
thrown into a ditch. Many other political and economic leaders of the peasants were murdered similarly.
According to a report of June, 1941, it is estimated that in each county of Poznania, fro 400 to 600 Poles
have been murdered; the figures for the whole province amount to at least 20,000 persons, men, women and children. The executions
continue.
Most of the victims in Poznania and also in Pomerania consisted of Poles arrested in their homes or in the
streets with a view to immediate execution.
Apart from those in this category, a number of individuals were sentenced by German Special Tribunals for
possessing arms - sometimes only knives, forgotten revolver bullets, and in one case an ordinary razor - or for assault or
Kriegsverrat, a term which means all actions detrimental to the Army of Occupation.
The following communique, distributed by the official German News Agency (Deutsches Nachrichten-Buro),
relates to this kind of case:
"Poznan, April 18, 1940 - The local Special Tribunal (Sondergericht), to-day condemned 4 Poles
to death and to life-long deprivation of rights for the crime of violating the order protecting metals salvaged by the German
nation. These 4 Poles were employed to sort the metals collected in Poznan, and continually stole from the reserves of metal.
The stolen metal was seized by the German security authorities. The accused admitted that during their work they had been
informed every day in both German and Polish of the penalty involved in the violation of this German salvage order."
Silesia
In this area also, immediately after the German Army's invasion of Silesia, mass executions of Poles were
carried out. The Gestapo agents slaughtered the members of the Association of Silesian Insurgents, who had fought in 1919-1921
for the liberation of Silesia from the German yoke. The number of persons shot in the courtyard of the House of the Insurgents
in Matejko Street, at Katowice, alone was estimated in November, 1939, at 250. In addition many other Katowice Poles were
shot including the chemist, Mr. Olejniczak, of the Third of May Street, whose body was left for three days in front of his
shop in order to terrorise others.
The number of Poles who were murdered during the first days of September 1939 in the locality of Panewniki-Ligota,
is estimated at 80, of whom half were boys under 18, and women.
At Mikolow, Rybnik and laziska, victims were chosen from the ranks of the lower classes, most of them
factory hands. Here also 4 students from Lwow Polytechnic, working while on holiday in Silesia, were shot. A witness of Swiss
nationality declared that the attitude of these young men was nothing short of heroic.
At Laziska the local vicar was shot, also Dr. Tomala and the Mayor, Mr. Otawa; Mr. Galuszka, a factory cashier;
Mr. Zelislawski, an engineer from Rybnik; and Mr. Kulejewski, among others.
In the prison at Mikolow, an Austrian citizen, Hans Bergstein, director of the Ch. Dietrich paper factory
in that town, suffered a terrible death. The Gestapo agents strangled him. The Gestapists spread the story that Bergstein
had been killed for maintaining relations with the former Chancellor Schuschnigg, which is obviously nonsense, in view of
the conditions in which the former Austrian Chancellor is living, if he is still alive at all.
During the months of September and October, the Germans shot numerous inhabitants of the County of Czestochowa,
at Lubliniec, in Silesia; and at Katowice they condemned to death nearly 60 inhabitants of the province of Kielce and 43 from
the county of Zywiec (Province of Krakow).
The treatment reserved for the Polish intellectuals of Silesia was especially cruel and brutal. For instance,
on September 8, agents of the Gestapo and the S.S. arrested Dr. Olszak and his wife, aged respectively 65 and 60, at Karwina,
in Cieszyn Silesia. He was one of the most respected citizens of Karwina, a great philanthropist, and for 40 years had been
a leader of local Catholic and social activities.
Dr. Olszak and his wife were taken away in a car by night to Frysztat, the county town. At the Gestapo and
S.S. headquarters they were both tortured with incredible cruelty. They were beaten with iron rods and kicked while they lay
on the ground. This battering with heavy military boots fractured Dr. Olszak's skull. The bodies of both the husband and wife
were black with bruises. They were taken, unconscious, back to Karwina, where they were abandoned at the door of their house.
The executioners, who were 4 in number, feasted in their victims' house. During the evening they violated the maids, one after
another. The house was sacked and plundered. The doctor had several fractured ribs, and an internal haemorrhage caused
by the skull injury. He died on September 11.
Although the dead man had been president of the parochial committee, the Gestapo forbade the tolling of
bells, and the public was not permitted to be present at the funeral. Despite the ban a crowd collected, and lined the roadsides,
standing in the gutters, to pay a last silent tribute to their benefactor. They were dispersed with blows.
Mrs. Olszak, though wounded and ill, was deported to the Sudetenland, and made to do forced labour on the
land. She died a few days later.
Province of Lodz and Neighbouring Areas
Massacres of the Polish population took place on a large scale also in the "incorporated" areas of Central
and Southern Poland.
Executions were very numerous in Lodz. The condemned were shot or hanged. A gallows made of railway lines
set up on end was erected in the market-place of Baluty, a working-class district of Lodz. A gallows was also erected in Haller
Square.
On the day of the proclamation of the "annexation" of the city of Lodz to the Reich, seven Poles were hanged
there for reasons never stated then or since.
Among those murdered in Lodz were two prominent local industrialists, Robert Geyer, President of the
Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and a proprietor of a textile mill known throughout Europe, and Guido John, proprietor of
a great metallurgical establishment. Both were from families of German origin, but considered themselves Poles and repudiated
the freedom offered them if they signed a statement that they were Volksdeutsch. The Gestapo took its revenge
by murdering them. Mr. Geyer was killed by 4 shots in the back of his head, as he was returning home through the garden.
Mr. John was shot in the lobby of his own home. This was on the 17th or 18th of December, 1939. Their families were informed
a week later, on Christmas Eve.
An engineer of German origin, one E.K., employed in the Scheibler and Grohman mills at Lodz, attempted to
intercede for a Polish employee who had been arrested by the Gestapo. To punish him, a rope was fastened to his hands,
and then he was drawn up and suspended from a gallows, while his body was sprayed with cold water. This occurred on one of
the principal squares, the Liberty Square, of Lodz. An inscription denouncing this "German's" attitude to his Polish fellow-citizens was fastened to the man's chest. He died two hours later.
In the village of Piatek, near Lodz, German troops murdered nearly the whole of the male population; because,
while they were quartered in the place, children unscrewed
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