Holocaust
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| The Holocaust |
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Already in the first days of September 1939 the Jewish population living in Poland became a subject of German persecution. On 21 September the chief of the Reich's Main Security Office (RSHA), Reinhard Heydrich issued an instruction for the SS and SD instances subordinated to him, pertaining to the creation of Jewish ghettos on the terrains occupied by the German forces. The first ghettos (city districts inhabited only by Jews) were established before the end of 1939; in October in Piotrków Trybunalski, in December in Puławy and Radomsko.
Initially some of the ghettos had open character, however crossing the border was endangered with high penalties (in the General Gouvernement death penalty was foreseen also for providing shelter for the Jews). Such repression measures were applied by the Germans only on the Polish soil, later also in the USSR and in Yugoslavia. In no other occupied countries the help offered to Jews was endangered with death penalty. For example: in occupied France a symbolic fine was the penalty.
From 1940 the ghettos were closed. They were surrounded by walls or barbed wire. Among the largest ghettos on the Polish land were the ones in Warsaw (approx. 500.000 inhabitants) and Łódź (approx. 300.000). As a result of overcrowding and bad sanitary conditions following from it, as well as starvation, there was a high mortality rate in the ghettos, especially as infectious deseases were spreading in them.
The ghettos constituted a transitional stage in the action of complete annihilation of Jews living in the Third Reich, as well as in the countries occupied by it. At the same time they were a source of workforce, used for the needs of German war economy.
In the years 1942-1944 the Germans carried out liquidation of ghettos. Most of their inhabitants were deported to extermination camps, forced labour camps, or were murdered on the spot. It is worth to note that the fact that most of extermination camps and centres were established on the Polish territory was not a coincidence. It followed from the fact that until 1939 the Polish Republic had the biggest population (3.300.000) of Jews in Europe. There was also a well developed railway network. For this reason it was easy and cheap to transfer the Jews from other European countries (there were ghettos in Brussels, Antwerp and Amsterdam for example) to Poland and to carry out their extermination there, out of sight of the western world - even thought it knew about the Holocaust.
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In some liquidated ghettos Jews fought against German troops. Uprisings took place among others in Klecko (21 July 1942), Głębokie (July 1943), Wilno (Vilnius) (July 1943), Krzemieniec (9 August 1943), as well as in Będzin, Częstochowa and Hrubieszów (April - July 1943). They lasted usually several days - were essentially all doomed to fail; during one of the uprisings the leader of Jewish resistance, M. Tennenbaum-Tamarrof died.
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Warsaw was the scene of the largest uprising. It broke out on 19 April 1943. The call of the Jewish National Committee was responded to by the Jewish Combat Organization and the Jewish Military Union. The uprising lasted until the end of May. On the 8 of May, its commander, Mordechaj Anielewicz died.
According to Juergen von Stroop, who commanded the liquidation of the uprising, in the course of the fight around 7000 Jews were killed. Polish underground organizations attempted to support the fight of the Jews, by delivering them arms, ammunition, as well as by attacking the Germans on their combat positions (there was a widespread conviction that as soon as the Germans liquidate Jews, they will start with Poles).
After stifling the resistance, the remaining Jews were taken away to the extermination camp in Treblinka.The Poles didn't look in a heedless way at the tradegy of the Jewish nation. In spite of the danger of death penalty, they smuggled them out of the ghettos, provided shelter and false identity documents, food, clothes and medicines. Apart from spontaneous aid of the Polish population, aid conveyed by the underground organizations gained a large magnitude. Basing on the Delegature of the Government for the Country, a special secret relief organization whos established on 4 December 1942, under the name: The Council for Help to the Jews "Żegota". Established in Warsaw, it set up its branches in Kraków and Lwów as well. It encompassed around 30.000 Jews with its operations. It also conveyed the information about the extermination to the governments of the western countries. Its activity was financed mostly by the Delegature of the Government for the Country. "Żegota"; existed until January 1945, it constituted an unprecedented exception to the rule on the entire European continent.
It is estimated that during the Second World War the Poles saved over 200.000 Jews. The scale of the Polish aid is comfirmed by the fact that among almost 18.000 people distinguished by the Yad Vashem institute with the "Righteous among the world's nations" medal, Poles represent over 6000.
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(1894-1944) A journalist, local government activist in Silesia. During the war, as the delegate of the Polish government in Hungary, together with Jozef Antall, he saved lives of around 5000 Jews, by issuing forged identity documents for them. He was arrested by the Germans in July 1944 and on the 25 of August he was executed in Mauthausen concentration camp. |
