Impact of Nazi control in Poland

Nazis’ method of occupation

Western part of POL taken by Nazis placed under General Government, staffed exclusively by GER officials

Occupation of POL involved:

• Rounding up + executing potential enemies

• Eviction to make way for GER settlers

• Eradication of POL culture

• Treatment of Jewish people

• Treatment of disabled, Romany and LGBTQ people

• Food rations

• Forced labour

Rounding up + executing potential enemies during Nazi occupation of Poland

• Einsatzgruppen hunted down + executed those thought to pose threat to occupation govt

• Armed with list of 61,000 names inc doctors, intellectuals, political activists, WW1 vets, Einsatzgruppen rounded up + murdered over 16,000 people in first few months after invasion

Eviction to make way for settlers during Nazi occupation of Poland

• Oct 1939: Germans started to expel Poles from lands they’d captured

• Those who weren’t executed faced eviction from homes

  • Over 2m Poles forced from homes + relocated into slums/ghettos while homes were occupied by GER settlers, encouraged by right to resettle in new Lebensraum

Eradication of Polish culture during Nazi occupation of Poland

Attempt by Germans to strip away any sense of national/cultural identity from POL people to break their will to resist:

• All cultural institutions: schools, museums, libraries, theatres, shut down

• Radio receivers confiscated

• Books burned

• Monuments taken down

Treatment of Jewish people during Nazi occupation of Poland

• 3.5m Jewish in POL immediately forced to wear Star of David in public to isolate + make them visible

• April 1940: Warsaw Jewish community forced to begin construction of walled ghetto within ruins of city where they’d be forced to live

  • Jewish community of Warsaw made up 30% of population, but area covered by ghetto was only 5% of whole city

  • Conditions in ghetto: cramped + unsanitary

    • → Outbreaks of typhus + other diseases

    • Along with starvation, caused thousands of deaths

• Many concentration camps created by Nazis located in POL, most famously Auschwitz

  • Ghetto inhabitants, starved and living in appalling conditions, were taken on transportations to camps

  • Labourers were worked to death

• Auschwitz received first group of Poles on 14 June 1940 - within a year, population was thousands

• 140,000-150,000 Poles went through Auschwitz

  • Around half died due to executions, medical experiments, starvation and rest were sent to gas chambers

Treatment of disabled, Romany and LGBTQ people during Nazi occupation of Poland

• Regarded by Nazis as socially undesirable, treated in same way as Jews

• Forced to live in ghettoes and put on transportations to concentration camps where few survived

Food rations during Nazi occupation of Poland

• Food strictly rationed for all Poles

  • Led to desperate struggle for food + malnutrition, worst in urban areas

Forced labour during Nazi occupation of Poland

• General Govt operated forced labour service known as Baudienst

  • Initially, anyone over 18yo could be pressed into service at any time

  • Age was lowered to 14yo; 12yo for Jews

• Many Poles sent to work in factories, farms, construction sites within POL

  • Forced to wear purple P on clothing

  • Subject to curfew

  • Banned from public transport + leisure facilities

• Around 2.3m Poles deported to work for GER war effort in GER / other occupied territories

• As GER labour demands increased, evading forced labour conscription became punishable by death

  • Whole village communities which failed to provide enough workers would be surrounded by GER troops and burned to the ground, massacring everyone

  • Ruins would be left as message to surrounding villages

Resistance to German occupation in Poland

• AK (Home Army) was one group who resisted GER occupation of POL

  • Loyal to POL govt in exile in London

• Formed in Feb 1942, AK had support from 100,000 members at start

  • By summer 1944, membership reached 400,000

• In Aug 1944, AK launched failed uprising in POL Capital Warsaw, which cost lives of 200,000 civilians

Final Solution

• After GER invaded USSR in June 1941, they came across increasing numbers of Jews

  • Einsatzgruppen murdered many, but numbers still increasing

• 20 Jan 1942: Wansee Conference held near Berlin

  • At meeting, plans were outlined for genocide of European Jews

  • ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’

• Known as Holocaust

Key points about Holocaust

• Both USSR and GER divided POL in 1939

• Nazis treated Poles badly + thousands killed / kept in inhumane conditions in ghettos

• Plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews was developed over time as H’s conquests confronted Nazis with more and more Jews

• Extermination camps built with sole purpose of murdering as many Jews + minorities as possible

• Gas + crematoria were main methods of murder in camps - 6m died

Conclusion and aftermath of Nazi rule in Poland

• Total: 3m POL citizens killed + 3m POL Jews as part of Final Solution

  • 22% of country’s population lost in WW2