The Holocaust in Poland

In January 1934, Adolf Hitler signed a Nonaggression Pact with Poland. The only reason Hitler was eager to sign this Pact was to prevent too possibility of a Polish-French military alliance. Germany's people in general did not like the Polish, but supported the Pact anyway because they trusted Hitler.

The reason behind Germany's resentment for Poland was because after World War I Poland was granted Germany's former provinces. West Prussia, Poznan, and Upper Silesia all became part of Poland after the Treaty of Versaille.

Then on September 1st, 1939 Germany invaded Poland from three sides and no doubt liked the idea of getting revenge.

It's estimated that the Germans killed 1.9 million Non-Jewish Polish citizens, and 3 million Jewish Polish citizens. And at least 1.5 million Poles were deported to forced labor camps and concentration camps.

The Nazi occupation of Poland was especially cruel and brutal. When Hitler invaded Poland in September, he quickly defeated the Polish military resistance. The Germans had over 2,000 tanks and 1,000 planes with which they broke through the Polish border and advanced on Warsaw, Poland's capital. Warsaw was surrounded and then bombed excessively until eventually surrendering on September 27. Hitler squashed Poland's defenses like a bug, then watched as the city burned.

After conquering Poland, the Nazi's launched a campaign of terror. They shot down thousands of Polish civilians and took all the men to forced labor camps. Because the Nazi's felt so much contempt toward Poland they wanted to destroy Polish culture. They eliminated politicians, religious figures, intellectuals figures, and any other leadership. By doing this the Germans wanted to make sure there was no resistance to their occupation. To do this in May 1940 Germany deployed a AB-Aktion plan to kill all of the leadership class. The plan was called for these people to be killed very quickly and all of a sudden to put terror into the minds of Poland's citizens. They shot teachers, priests, and others in mass killings everywhere around Warsaw. There were particularly many killed in the city's Pawiak prison. Those that they didn't get a chance to kill, they sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. When the Polish tried to rebel against Germany, Germany responded with policies that expelled populations from their homes. In November 1942, Germany expelled over 100,000 people from their homes in the region of Zamosc and sent to Auschwitz.

Even worse 50,000 Polish children were taken from their homes and forced to participate in Germanization policies. The kids that were rejected from the Germanization program were sent to the Dzierzazno children's camp where the mortality rate was really high. Few children survived.

One witness of the kidnapping of children from their families in Zamosc later described the scene:

"I saw children being taken from their mothers; some were even torn from the breast. It was a terrible sight: the agony of the mothers and fathers, the beating by the Germans, and the crying of the children."

Germanization followed the annexation of Poland to Germany, and was the Nazi's goal for complete political, social, cultural, and economic assimilation of territory into the German Reich. Hitler expelled thousands of Poles from their homes, and then in their places came 500,000 ethnic Germans and settled into the area. In the picture on the left are children being inspected by SS doctors wealth they were "racially valuable" and good enough to be adopted by Germans. Germans not only took over Polish homes but also children. WARSAW UPRISING:In August 1944 the Polish organized a rebellion against Germany in Warsaw. The resistance was led by Wladyslaw Sikorski, who also coordinated the Polish Home Army. Before this uprising, Polish resistance appeared in small ways such as minor acts of sabotage. This rebellion lasted two months until the Nazi's crushed it, and more than 200,000 Poles were killed. Many of those who led the rebellion were hanged.When the Germans finally left Poland in 1945 they left a trail of destruction and displacement. Not only did they build and place the most horrific concentration camps and death camps in Poland, but they killed off thousands of Poles and 91% of the Jewish population living there.

Analysis

The German's treatment of Poland and the Jewish population in Poland, was harsher than the treatment in any other country. Germany had a personal grudge against Poland and a special hatred for it. Poland received German territory in the Treaty of Versaille and the German's viewed it as a huge insult. Germany felt Poland had stolen the land and they wanted to get back what was rightfully theirs. Germany wanted revenge. The Nazi's wanted to hurt the people of Poland for making Germany look bad. This personal hatred of Poland led the Nazi's to use unessusary brutal force to repress Polish uprisings and led them to use unnecessary degradation techniques. Germany created so many ghettos in Poland because on a certain level they felt satisfied they were able to control Poland and do what they wanted with Polish land, instead of it being the other way around. Another technique the Germans used to degrade the Polish population was to make them wear uniforms in concentration camps that labeled them as Polish and either Jewish or Non-Jewish. In the picture below, the label has a "P" on it to indicate that the prisoner was Polish, and an upside-down triangle to indicate the prisoner was non-Jewish. The name of the prisoner was Julien Noga, and by labeling his uniform this way he was subjected to minor cruelties. When Germany left Poland they left it's cities destroyed and its people with horrific memories and lifelong problems.I decided to interview a Polish citizen named Zofia Pruchnik. She lives here now, but was born in Poland and has lived there until she was 26 years old. Ms. Pruchnik has her entire family living in Poland, except for her sister, and visits them every year. When I asked her if there was any resentment still left behind in Poland for the Germans, she responded saying that yes there is some, but not as big as resentment for Russia, who has been attacking Poland for ages.