poniedziałek, 12 marca 2018

Bekanntmachung - jak Niemcy popełniali w Polsce najbardziej odrażające zbrodnie


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_repressions_against_Poles_who_helped_Jews

In the first years of the Second World War, German policy in relation to the "Jewish question" in occupied Poland was not coherent and consistent.[1] Nevertheless, its fundamental aim was to isolate Jews, loot their property, exploit them through forced labour[1][2] and, in the final stage, remove them completely from the land under the authority of the Third Reich[2]. An initial plan for dealing with the Jewish population in Poland was adopted already on September 21 1939, i. e. before the end of the September campaign[3]. On that day, a meeting was held in Berlin led by SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, attended by the chief heads of the main departments of the General Security Police Office and



 commander of Einsatzgruppen operating in Poland[4]. It was then established that all Jews living in the lands, which were to be incorporated into the Reich, would be resettled in central Poland. Mass deportations were to be preceded by removal of the Jewish population from rural areas and its concentration in larger urban centers[4]. In the remaining occupied areas, it was also intended to forcibly resettle Jews to larger towns, especially to those located near railway lines[4]. Moreover, during the meeting, a number of recommendations were adopted, including the creation of "Jewish Elder Councils", the establishment of a census of the Jewish population, as well as its marking and taking up forced labor[3].
Jewish men marked with bands and Stars of David. Łódź, 1940
Ordinance of the German President of Warsaw of December 18, 1939 ordering Jews to register their property.
Construction of walls around the Jewish quarter in Warsaw, 1940
The need to isolate Jews from the rest of the inhabitants of occupied Poland was emphasized by the Memorial on the treatment of people in former Polish territories from a racial and political point of view, drawn up in November 1939 by the NSDAP Office of Racial Policy. Among other things, its authors wrote that "the task of the German administration will be to differentiate and win Poles and Jews against each other"[3]. Recommendations concerning the fuelling of antagonisms between Poles and Jews and other national minorities are also included in the Memorial on the legal position of German policy towards Poles from a national and political point of view, prepared in January 1940 for the Academy of German Law[5][3].
From the first days of the occupation, the Germans treated the Jewish population in the spirit of the racist Nuremberg laws[3]. From September 1939, the occupying authorities at various levels issued orders ordering Jews to wear special bands or identification marks, as well as to mark their apartments and businesses[3]. On the territory of the General Government, this policy was sanctioned by the ordinance of Governor General Hans Frank of 23 November 1939, which required all Jews over ten years of age to wear Star of David armbands[3]. The marking of Jews was also introduced on the territories incorporated into the Reich, but this was usually done on the basis of secret instructions, since the relevant law was introduced in Germany only in the autumn of 1941[3]. Moreover, in the first months of the occupation almost all towns of the General Government and the Warta Country introduced far-reaching restrictions on the freedom of movement of Jews. To this end, measures such as curfew, a ban on leaving the place of residence and a ban on using different means of transport were used[3]. According to a decree by Hans Frank of 26 January 1940, Jews were prohibited from travelling by train[3][1]. Over time, this ban has been extended to other means of transport[1]. Strict criminal sanctions, up to and including capital punishment, were imposed on those who would violate these provisions[3].
Germans also took actions aimed at the pauperization of Jews and their exclusion from the economic life of the occupied country[3]. Industrial, trade and service enterprises owned by Jews were confiscated in large numbers. Extensive restrictions have also been introduced in the areas of handicraft production, small-scale trade, property management and money transfer[3][1]. The legally sanctioned "aryanization" of Jewish property was accompanied by individual ("wild") looting[3]Contributions and special taxes were also imposed on Jews[3]. Representatives of the Jewish intelligentsia were deprived of the right to pursue liberal professions and were dismissed from work in public institutions[6][3]. The decree issued by Hans Frank on October 26, 1939 included forced labor for the Jewish population in the General Government[3]. Two years later, forced labor for Jews was introduced in the territories incorporated into the Reich, however, only by sanctioning the state of matters that had existed there since the first months of the occupation[3].
The next stage of the anti-Semitic policy of the occupier was ghettoisation of the Jewish population, officially justified by economic, sanitary or political reasons[3]. As an excuse to isolate Jews in closed districts, among other things, Germans used the "Easter pogrom" of March 1940, arranged from German inspiration by Polish extreme nationalists[7]. The first Jewish ghetto was established in October 1939 in Piotrków Trybunalski[3]. Over the next few months several more ghettos were created in the General Government and Warta Country, including the ghetto in Łódź (February 1940)[3]. Beginning in September 1940, the ghettoisation process became more organized[3]. In October of this same year, it was decided to establish a "Jewish quarter in Warsaw"[3]. In March 1941 the ghettos in Kraków and Lublin were established[3]. The process of ghettoisation in the Radom district of the General Government was rather at the latest in December 1941[1]. After the outbreak of the German-Soviet War, the organizing of ghettos on Polish lands previously annexed by the USSR[3] took place. The creation of closed Jewish communities was accompanied by a progressive reduction in the number of smaller ghettos[3]. The concentration and isolation of the Jewish population was also to be served by an unrealized project of creating a great "reservation" for Jews in the Lublin region[3].
The persecution of the Jewish population was accompanied by a large-scale anti-Semitic propaganda campaign aimed at the "Aryan" population - first of all at Poles[8][6]. Using the "gadzinowa" press, cinema or poster, the occupying forces tried to deepen anti-Semitic attitudes and stereotypes, which were already widespread in some parts of Polish society before the war[6][9]. The German propaganda attempted, among other things, to blame Jews for the outbreak of the war and the occupational shortages, as well as to dehumanize them in the eyes of Polish society, e. g. through accusations of spreading infectious diseases (e. g. poster "Jews - lice - typhoid typhus")[2][8][9][3]. After the beginning of the war with the USSR and the discovery of the Katyn graves, the slogan of "Judeo-Communism" was also intensively used[9]. In many cases, anti-Semitic propaganda has found its way into fertile soil and influenced Poles' attitudes towards Jews[9][6], even after the "final solution" was initiated[8].
German anti-Semitic poster addressed to the Polish population
After the invasion of the USSR started (June 22, 1941), the anti-Jewish policy of the invader was violently radicalised. East of the Ribbentrop-Molotov line, German Einsatzgruppen started its operations, which by the end of 1941 killed from 500 thousand[6] to one million[10] Polish and Soviet Jews. In December 1941, extermination of Jews from the Warta Country began in the extermination camp in Chełmno nad Nerem [3]. By the summer of 1942, all the ghettos in that region had ceased to exist, except for Łódź ghetto [3]. On the other hand, during the night of 16th to 17th March 1942, deportations of the inhabitants of the ghetto in Lublin began to the death camp in Bełżec[2]. The closing of the Lublin Ghetto initiated the mass and systematic extermination of Polish Jews living in the areas of the General Government and Białystok district, which the Germans later baptized with the cryptonym "Aktion Reinhardt"[2]. Moreover, starting from mid-1942 the extermination camps created by the Germans on occupied Polish lands became a place of execution of Jews deported from other European countries[2][3]. By November 1943, "Action Reinhardt" had claimed nearly 2 million victims[2]. Although in the second half of the year the extermination camps organized for this operation were closed down, the mass extermination of Polish and European Jews was continued, mainly in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp[10][6]. In August 1944, the liquidation of the last ghetto in the occupied Polish lands – the Łódź Ghetto took place[3]. As a consequence of the German policy of extermination on occupied Polish lands, the majority of about 5.5 million Holocaust victims, including at least 2.8 million Polish Jews, were murdered[11].

Repressions against Poles helping Jews[edit]

Criminal penalties for helping Jews[edit]

The bones of those murdered at the death camp in Treblinka. Photograph taken in summer 1945
In 1941, the rapid spread of infectious diseases in overpopulated ghettos and the general radicalisation of German anti-Jewish policy resulted in tightening of the isolation restrictions imposed on Polish Jews[1][2]. While the Second Restriction of Residence in the General Government on April 29, 1941 provided for prison sentences and fines for non-compliance with the "residence restrictions" regulations, since the middle of that year Jews captured outside the ghetto were usually executed on the spot - usually based on an alleged "attempt to escape"[1]The third regulation on the restriction of residency in the General Government of October 15, 1941 provided for the death penalty for all Jews who "leave their designated district without authorisation", but its sentencing would be the responsibility of the German Special Courts[1][12]. Finally, in November 1941, the German police authorities issued the so-called Schießbefehl order, which authorised police officers to shoot all Jews who were outside the ghetto (including women and children)[1]. After the start of "Aktion Reinhardt" the German gendarmerie supported by collaborative police forces systematically tracked, captured and murdered refugees from ghettos, transports and camps. This stage of the Holocaust, called Judenjagd by the Germans (the "hunt for Jews"), lasted until the last days of the occupation[13].
SS-soldiers and policemen posing among the bodies of refugees hunted down in forests
Historians estimate that in occupied Poland from 100 thousand[2] to 300 thousand[13] Jews attempted to hide "on the Aryan side". The Germans undertook a number of actions aimed at discouraging Poles from providing any kind of assistance to the Jews. In order to achieve this goal, the occupation authorities skillfully managed to administer rewards and penalties[2][9]. On one hand, the "Aryan" population was encouraged to denounce and track Jews in return for money or other goods. In Warsaw denunciators were rewarded with 500 zlotys and officers of the "blue police" were promised to receive 1/3 of his cash for capturing a Jew hiding "on the Aryan side". In the rural areas of the Warsaw district, a prize in the form of 1 metre of grain was awarded. The award for the denunciation could also include several kilograms of sugar, a litre of spirit, a small quantity of wood or food or clothes belonging to the victim. It is known that in the vicinity of Ostrołęka rewards for denunciators amounted to 3 kilograms of sugar, in Western Małopolska - 500 PLN and 1 kilogram of sugar, in Kraśnik County - from 2 to 5 kg of sugar, in Konin County - property of the victims and 0.5 kg of sugar, in the vicinity of Sandomierz - litre of spirit and 0.5 kg of sugar, in Volhynia - three litres of vodka[1]. These techniques did not go without results. In the Polish society there were individuals who, motivated by profit or anti-Semitism, were actively pursuing and then handing over, robbing or blackmailing Jews who were hiding[1][6][14]. In Warsaw, the number of "szmalcownik people", blackmailers and denunciators, often associated in well-organized gangs, was calculated at 3-4 thousand[15]. In rural areas there were gangs - usually made up of criminals, members of the social margin and declared anti-Semites[74] - who tracked the fugitives and then gave them away to Germans or robbed them on their own, often committing murders and rape[1][14][2].
Announcement on the resettlement of Jews from Bochnia informing Poles about the death penalty for helping Jews.
The Germans used Polish "blue police" officers to participate in roundups and search operations. Some police officers were very zealous in this field, among others by participating directly in the murder of Jewish escapees[1]. Polish foresters, members of voluntary fire brigades and members of rural guards were also involved in the activities. Moreover, Polish village heads, mayors and civil servants were obliged to enforce German regulations concerning the capture of Jews and preventing them from receiving aid[2].
At the same time, the occupation authorities imposed draconian penalties for hiding Jews or providing them with any assistance[2][6]. According to Sebastian Piątkowski and Jacek A. Młynarczyk, "a milestone on the road to complete isolation of the Jewish community from the rest of the conquered population" was signing by Hans Frank of the aforementioned Third Ordinance on Restrictions on residence in the General Government (October 15, 1941). This was the first legal act providing for the death penalty for Poles who "knowingly give shelter" to Jews residing outside the ghetto without permission[1]. This document also announced that "instigators and helpers are subject to the same punishment as the offender, the attempted act will be punished as a committed act", but stated that in lighter cases a prison sentence may be imposed. The aim of the regulation was clear - discourage Jews from seeking rescue outside the ghetto and discourage Polish people from helping them[16].
Soon afterwards, orders with similar content were issued in all districts of the General Government, signed by local governors or SS and police officers. In many cases, similar orders and announcements were also published by the lower administrative authorities. The announcement issued on November 10, 1941 by the governor of the Warsaw district, Dr Ludwig Fischer, was even more restrictive than Frank's regulation, as it provided for the death penalty to every Pole who "consciously grants shelter or otherwise helps the hiding Jews by providing accommodation (e. g. overnight accommodation, subsistence, by taking them to vehicles of all kinds".[12][15]
Announcement of September 5, 1942 by the SS Commander and the Police in Warsaw District, threatening capital punishment for supporting Jewish escapees
After the launch of "Aktion Reinhardt" Jews escaped from the liquidated ghettos or from transports to death camps. This led the German authorities to issue another series of orders reminding the Polish population of the death penalty for trying to help Jewish refugees[17]. In this context, one can mention, among others, the announcement of SS Commander and Police Commander of the Warsaw district SS-Oberführer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg of 5 September, 1942 and the announcement of the district chief administrative officer of Przemyśl County Dr Heinischa of July 27, 1942, police decree of the Starosta of Sanok County, Dr Class of 14 September, 1942, announcement of the City Starosta in Częstochowa E. Franke of September 24, 1942[12], order of the Starosta of the Kraśnik County of October 23, 1942[14], and the announcement of the Starosta of the Dębica County Schlüter of November 19, 1942. On September 21, 1942, SS-Standartenführer Herbert Böttcher, Commander and Police Head of the Radom County, issued a circular to the local administrative and police authorities, which contained the following provisions:[1][12]
“The experience of recent weeks has shown that the Jews, in order to avoid evacuation, are fleeing from small Jewish housing districts in the communes. These Jews were certainly received by the Poles. I would ask all mayors to make it clear as soon as possible that every Pole who receives a Jew becomes guilty according to the Third Order on Restrictions on Residence in the General Government of 15 October 1941 ("Dz. Rozp. GG", p. 595)[18]. Their helpers are also considered to be those Poles who, although they do not give shelter to the fugitive Jews, still give them provender or sell them food. In all cases, these Poles are liable to the death penalty.”
Announcement of the occupation authorities of Częstochowa on September 24, 1942 reminding of the death penalty for those who help Jews.
On October 28, 1942, the Supreme Commander of SS and the Police in the General Government SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger (HSSPF "Ost") issued a regulation on the creation of so-called remnant ghettos in selected cities of Lublin and Warsaw districts[16]. On November 10, 1942, a similar decree was issued for the districts of Kraków, Radom and Galicia[19]. In § 3 of these regulations, the threat of the death penalty is repeated for people providing shelter or food to Jews who hide outside the designated housing districts. At the same time, unspecified police sanctions (sicherheitspolizeiliche Maßnahmen) were announced against people who do not inform the occupation authorities about the known fact of Jewish presence outside the ghetto (in practice, this meant deportation to a concentration camp). At the end of 1942, a similar decree for the Białystok district was announced by gauleiter of East Prussia Erich Koch. Strict penalties for helping Jews were also imposed in the Warta Country.

Enforcement of German ordinances[edit]

According to the provisions of the Third Ordinance on Restrictions on Residence in the General Government and lower-ranking acts, the death penalty was aimed at both Poles who provided shelter to Jews[20], as well as those who offered money, food, water, or clothing to escapees, provided medical assistance, provided transport or transferred correspondence prepared by the Jew[12][21]. The highest penalties were imposed on people who helped Jews for altruistic reasons, as well as those who helped Jews for compensation or who were involved in commercial transactions with them. As a result of the invader's principle of collective responsibility, the families of carers and sometimes even entire local communities were threatened with repressions. Moreover, in the occupied Polish lands, the Germans created a system of blackmail and dependence system, obliging Poles, under the threat of the most severe punishments, to report every case of hiding Jewish fugitives to the occupation authorities. In particular, Poles holding positions at the lowest levels of administration (village heads, commune heads, officials)[2][8].
Announcement of November 16, 1942 on the creation of six remnant ghettos in the Warsaw district, reminding of the punishments for helping Jews and for not reporting the fact that such aid has been provided.
In practice, the regulations prohibiting aid to Jewish refugees have not always been enforced with the same severity[2][15][22]. The “2014 Record of the facts of repression against Polish citizens for the help of the Jewish population during World War II” indicates that those accused of supporting Jews were also punished with punishments such as beatings, imprisonment, exile for forced labor, deportation to a concentration camp, confiscation of property, or fines[23]. Sebastian Piątkowski, relying on preserved documents of the special court in Radom, pointed out that especially in the case of small and disposable forms of assistance - such as providing food, clothing or money to the escapees, indicating the way, accepting correspondence - the punishment could be limited to imprisonment or exile to a concentration camp[24]. However, there are also numerous cases where the detection of the fugitive resulted in the execution of the whole Polish family, who took him under their roof, and the robbery and burning of her belongings.
The Frank's decree of October 15, 1941 stipulated that cases concerning the cases of aid to Jewish refugees would be dealt with by German special courts. Until 2014, historians were able to identify 73 Polish citizens, against whom special courts of the General Government conducted cases in this respect. Many times, however, the Germans refused to carry out even simplified court proceedings, and the Jews captured together with their Polish caregivers were murdered on the spot or at the nearest police station or military police station[1][16]. Such a course of action was sanctioned, among other things, by a secret order of the SS Commander and the Police for the Radom district, ordering the extermination of captured Jews and their Polish caregivers on the spot, as well as the burning of buildings where Jews were hidden. At the same time, the Germans took care to give proper publicity to the repressions, so as to intimidate the Polish population and discourage it from providing any aid to Jews. For this purpose, the victims' burials were prohibited in cemeteries, instead they were buried on the scene of the crime, on nearby fields or in road trenches[8].
An announcement by the SS Commander and Police Head of the Kraków District announcing that 73 Poles were sentenced to death, including four who were accused of helping Jews. 1944
Historians point out that Polish blackmailers and denunciators posed a very serious threat to people helping Jews, and in the Eastern Borderlands - additionally collaborators and confidents of Ukrainian, Belarusian or Lithuanian origin[8][12]Barbara Engelking emphasizes that due to the relatively weak saturation of rural areas with German police and gendarmerie units, a large part of the cases of exposing Poles hiding Jews had to be the result of reports submitted by their Polish neighbours. Dariusz Libionka reached similar conclusions[127]. However, the actual scale of denunciation has still not been thoroughly investigated[2][13].
There were also cases when the captured Jews - under the influence of torture or false promises to save their lives - gave out aiding Poles to the German authorities. Jewish people were also among the informants of German police[12].

Number of Poles murdered[edit]

The number of Poles murdered by the Germans for helping Jews has not yet been precisely determined. One of the reasons may be that people helping Jewish refugees were often murdered with whole families and hidden Jews[25][26]. Moreover, in the times of the People's Republic of Poland, no in-depth research was conducted into the problem of Polish aid to Jews. The first major publications on this subject appeared only in the 1960s. According to Grzegorz Berendt, the communist authorities did not, for various reasons, care about comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of aid or, more broadly, about Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World War. The official historiography focused rather on the search for positive behavioural examples, which could then be used for propaganda on internal and international level[8][11].
The remains of Michał Kruk and Alexander Hirschberg, supported by him, hung in public view on the streets of Przemyśl, September 1943.
Szymon Datner, the director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, made the first to attempt to compile a list of Poles murdered for helping Jews[27]. In 1968 he published a brochure "Forest of the Righteous. A charter from the history of rescuing Jews in occupied Poland", in which he presented 105 documented cases of crimes committed by Germans against Poles who saved Jews. Datner established that 343 Poles were murdered because of the help given to Jews, and in 242 cases the victim's name was established. Among the identified victims were 64 women and 42 children[28][16]. Datner's estimates also showed that as much as 80% of executions took place in rural areas. About 65% of the victims were executed and another 5% were murdered by burning alive[139]. The largest number of documented crimes took place respectively in Kraków Voivodeship, Rzeszów Voivodship, Warsaw Voivodeship, Warsaw, and Lublin Voivodeship. In addition, the largest number of victims died in the following voivodships: Kraków, Rzeszów, Lublin, Kielce and Warsaw. Datner also stated that these estimates were preliminary and incomplete, covering only cases examined up to April 1968[16].
On behalf of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes, Wacław Bielawski[27] was investigating cases of crimes committed by Germans due to aiding Jews. The archive of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw contains a separate set of over 2,000 folders containing his materials. Based on the findings of the investigation, Bielawski developed a brochure entitled "The crimes committed on Poles by the Nazis for their help to Jews", which in the second edition of 1987 contained the names of 872 murdered people and information about nearly 1400 anonymous victims. In subsequent years this list was verified by the employees of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation, which resulted in its partial reduction[23][27]. The third edition of the publication entitled “Those Who Helped: Polish Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust” (Warsaw, 1997) included the names of 704 Poles murdered for helping Jews[29][30]. The findings of the Commission's employees showed that 242 inhabitants of the Kraków District, 175 inhabitants of the Radom District, 141 inhabitants of the Warsaw District and 66 inhabitants of the Lublin District were among the victims. The number of 704 murdered did not include Poles murdered in villages, which were to be destroyed by the Germans due to support for Jews. In 2014, INR historians estimated that Bielawski's brochure and the preparation of Those Who Helped.... are "archaic", but they remain "still representative of the topic discussed"[23].
On the basis of data collected until 2000, the Yad Vashem Institute identified over 100 Poles murdered due to the fact that they helped Jews. However, Israel Gutman estimated that the actual number of victims was "certainly expressed in hundreds"[25].
In 2005, the community gathered around the foundation Institute for Strategic Studies initiated a research project entitled "Index of Poles murdered and repressed for helping Jews during World War II". The Institute of National Remembrance, as well as the Head Directorate of State Archives, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the Yad VashemInstitute, the German Historical Institute in Warsaw and the Jewish Historical Institute were invited to cooperate in the project. Researchers involved in the project conducted research in Polish and foreign archives (including church archives), as well as in museums, research institutions, press and Polish and foreign-language literature. As a result of these works, the Institute of National Remembrance and ISS Foundation published the "Facts of repression against Polish citizens for their help during World War II" (Warsaw 2014). It lists the names of 508 Polish citizens (Polish citizens and representatives of national minorities) who were repressed for helping Jews. According to the findings of the Registry it is clear that 221 of the 508 victims were executed or died in prisons and concentration camps[23]. A further thirteen have been sentenced to death, but there is no information on the execution of the sentence. Moreover, it was not possible to establish the fate of several dozen people who were sent to concentration camps or imprisoned in detention centers and prisons.
The Register is open and the information contained therein will be verified and supplemented. Furthermore, the first edition of it describes mainly those cases of repression, the circumstances of which were usually not described in more detail before. For this reason, the list of 508 repressed people does not include the victims of some known crimes committed against Poles who helped Jews (including the Ulma family from Markowa, the families of Kowalski, Kosiors, Obuchiewiczs and Skoczylas from Stary Ciepiełów and Rekówka, the guardians of Bunker "Krysia" in Warsaw, Henryk Sławik)[23].
Other attempts were also made to establish the number of Poles murdered by the Germans for helping Jews. The Polish Association of Former Political Prisoners estimated the number of victims at ca. 2500. Wacław Zajączkowski in his work entitled "Martyrs of Charity" (edited by the Maximilian Kolbe Foundation, Washington 1988) mentioned the names of 2300 Poles who were to be executed for helping Jews[31]. Anna Poray-Wybranowska in her work entitled "Those Who Risked Their Lives" (Chicago, April 2008) included surnames of over 5 thousand victims[32].

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