Holocaust in Poland. During the II World War, jewish and non-jewish residents of Poland have suffered from Hitler Germany's ruthless policy. In particular, Hitler was aiming to kill every single jew in the world. Jews predominantly were living in Poland, Germany constructed extremination and concentration camps, as well as ghettos within the territory of Poland, in order to ruin them very quickly. This Presentation was for Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe Course.

1. HOLOCAUST IN POLAND
By Elmir Badalov

2.  The official Nazi term for the
extermination of Jews during
their occupation of Poland
was the euphemistic phrase
Endlösung der Judenfrage
(the "Final Solution of the
Jewish Question"). Every
arm of the sophisticated
German bureaucracy was
involved in the killing
process, from the Interior
Ministry and the Finance
Ministry; to German firms
and state–run trains for
deportation to the camps.
 German companies bid
for the contracts to build
the crematoria in
concentration camps run
by Nazi Germany in the
General Government
and other parts of
occupied Poland.

3.  Prior to Second World War
there were 3,500,000
Jews in Polish Second
Republic, about 10% of
the population, living
predominantly in the cities.
Between the 1939
invasion of Poland, and
the end of World War II,
over 90% of Polish Jewry
perished

5.  Persecution of the Jews by
the Nazi German occupation
government, particularly in
the urban areas, began
immediately after the
invasion. In the first year and
a half, the Germans confined
themselves to stripping the
Jews of their valuables and
property for profit, herding
them into ghettoes and
putting them into forced labor
in war-related industries.
 During this period the
Germans forced Jewish
communities to appoint
Jewish Councils
(Judenräte) to administer
the ghettos and to be
"responsible in the
strictest sense" for
carrying out German
orders. After the German
attack on the Soviet Union
in June 1941, German
police units, especially the
Einsatzgruppen, operated
behind the front lines to
shoot 'dangerous
elements' (Jews and
Communists).

6.  About 2 million Jews were
shot and buried in mass
graves, many in the areas
of eastern Poland which
had been annexed by the
Soviets in 1939. The
survivors were
incarcerated in newly-
created ghettos.

7.  Accordingly, in 1942, the
Germans began the
systematic killing of the
Jews, beginning with the
Jewish population of the
General Government. Six
extermination camps
(Auschwitz, Belzec,
Chełmno, Majdanek,
Sobibor and Treblinka) were
established in which the
most extreme measure of
the Holocaust
 The camps were
designed and operated
by Nazi Germans and
there were no Polish
guards at any of the
camps,despite the
sometimes used
misnomer Polish death
camps. Of Poland's
prewar Jewish
population of 3,500,000,
only about 50,000-
120,000 would survive
the war.

9.  The liquidation of Jewish
ghettos across Poland
was closely connected
with the formation of
highly secretive killing
centers built at about the
same time by various
German companies
including I.A. Topf and
Sons of Erfurt, and C.H.
Kori GmbH.
 Civilians were forbidden
to approach them.
Kulmhof (Chełmno)
extermination camp was
built as first. It was a pilot
project for the
development of the
remaining sites.

10. Treblinka extermonation camp was ready on July 24, 1942. There were
two barracks near the railway tracks for storing belongings of prisoners;
one disguised as a railway station complete with a wooden fake clock to
prevent new arrivals from realizing their fate.

11.  Auschwitz concentration
camp located 50
kilometers west of Kraków
was fitted with the first gas
chamber at Auschwitz II
Birkenau in March 1942,
and the gassing of Jews
with Zyklon B,following a
"selection", began almost
immediately

12. OPERATING FROM MARCH 17, 1942 TO THE END OF JUNE 1943, THE
CAMP WAS SITUATED IN GERMAN-OCCUPIED POLAND ABOUT 1 KM SOUTH
OF THE LOCAL RAILROAD STATION OF BEŁŻEC IN THE LUBLIN DISTRICT OF
THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT.

13. JEWS FROM POLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, THE NETHERLANDS, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, AND THE
SOVIET UNION, POSSIBLY AS WELL AS SOME NON-JEWISH SOVIET POWS, WERE TRANSPORTED
TO SOBIBOR BY RAIL AND SUFFOCATED IN GAS CHAMBERS FED BY THE EXHAUST OF LARGE
PETROL ENGINES. ONE SOURCE STATES THAT UP TO 200,000 PEOPLE WERE KILLED AT SOBIBOR

14.  More than 79,000 people
were killed at Majdanek
(59,000 of them Polish
Jews) during the 34
months of its operation.

15. THE WARSAW GHETTO
 T he first of the mass
murders in Warsaw took
place when the Nazis shot
53 Jews in the house at 9
Nalewki Street.
 Among the executed
Jewish victims were boys
of 12 and 13-years-old.
 In mid-1940 Warsaw
Jews, and those
deported from many
places throughout
Western Europe, found
themselves enclosed
behind the walls of the
ghetto.
 The figures quoted in
General Stroop's report
speak of 56,065
captured Jews of which
7,000 were summarily
executed while the
remainder were deported
to Treblinka.

16.  Between July 22 and mid-
September 1942, over
300,000 people are
deported from the
Warsaw ghetto: more than
250,000 of them are
deported to the Treblinka
killing center.
 Deportees are forced to
the Umschlagplatz
(deportation point), which
is connected to the
Warsaw-Malkinia rail line
 They are crowded into
freight cars and most are
deported, via Malkinia, to
Treblinka. The
overwhelming majority of
the deportees are killed
upon arrival in Treblinka
 In September, at the end
of the 1942 mass
deportation, only about
55,000 Jews remain in
the ghetto.

17.  The Germans decide to
eliminate the Warsaw
ghetto and announce new
deportations in April 1943.
 Most people in the ghetto
refuse to report for
deportation. Many hide
from the Germans in
previously prepared
bunkers and shelters.
 Jewish fighters battle the
Germans in the streets
and from the hidden
bunkers.
 The Germans set fire to
the ghetto to force the
population into the open,
reducing the ghetto area
to rubble. On May 16,
1943, the battle is over.
Thousands have been
killed and most of the
ghetto population is
deported to forced-labor
camps.
 The Warsaw ghetto
uprising was the largest
and most important
Jewish uprising, and the
first urban uprising in
German-occupied
Europe.

18. The Warsaw Ghetto after destruction (only the Catholic church survived...)

19. THE LODZ GHETTO

20. Jews forced to move into the Lodz ghetto. Lodz, Poland, date
uncertain.

21.  In 1939 Lodz
(Litzmannstadt, Lodzh)
had a Jewish Community
of over 200,000, which
was about 1/3 of the city's
total population. Lodz was
the second largest city in
Poland and the second
largest Jewish center after
Warsaw
 It was covering area of 4
km2, as fixed on April 30,
1940. Surrounded by a
wooden fence with
barbed wire it was
crowded with 164,000
people in indescribable
conditions.
 In later days , 1941-1942,
the population of the
Ghetto was 204,800
persons.
 The total number of
survivors of the Lodz
Ghetto is estimated at
7,000 persons.

24. 52 young Jewish women survivors pose in Vodnany school-hospital
before release. Center front are 4 Czech Nurses. Survivors from Neu
Vorwerk had marched 800 kilometers, often without shoes. Survivors
from DWM (Deutsche Wollenwaren Manufaktur) had marched 700
kilometers.

25. POLISH JEWISH WRITERS RELATED TO
HOLOCAUST
 ASCH Sholem (ASZ Szalom)
 BACZYNSKI Krzysztof Kamil
 BECKER Jurek (Jerzy)
 CZERNIAKÓW Adam
 EDELMAN Marek

26. POLES AND THE JEWS
 The relations between
Poles and Jews during
World War II present one
of the sharpest paradoxes
of the Holocaust. 10% of
the Jews survived, less
than in any other country;
yet, Poland accounts for
the majority of rescuers
with the title of 'Righteous
Gentiles', people who
risked their lives to save
Jews.
 The Poles honored by
Yad Vashem represent
only one–to–ten per cent
of the deserving cases

27.  On November 10, 1941,
the death penalty was
expanded by Hans Frank
to apply to Poles who
helped Jews "in any way:
by taking them in for the
night, giving them a lift in a
vehicle of any kind" or
"feed runaway Jews or sell
them foodstuffs." The law
was made public by
posters distributed in all
major cities.
German Nazi poster announcing the
death penalty for any Pole giving help
to Jews (Warsaw, 1942)

28. RATE OF SURVIVAL
 About 300,000 Polish
Jews escaped to the
Soviet-occupied zone
soon after the war started,
where many of them
perished at the hands of
OUN-UPA, TDA and
Ypatingasis būrys during
Massacres of Poles in
Volhynia, the Holocaust in
Lithuania (see Ponary
massacre), and Belarus,
but most of the Polish
Jews in
Generalgouvernement
stayed put.

29. HOLOCAUST MEMORIALS AND COMMEMORATION
 There is a number of
memorials in Poland
dedicated to the
Holocaust
remembrance.Major
museums include the
Auschwitz-Birkenau
State Museum and the
planned Museum of the
History of the Polish
Jews
 Since 1988, an annual
event commemorating the
Holocaust, March of the
Living, takes place
annually in Poland.

30. HOLOCAUST OF NON-JEWISH POLES
 It is for instance, well
known, that Hitler forced
Jews to wear the Star of
David called by the Nazi’s,
“Schandzeichen” (“sign of
infamy”).
 It is, however, mostly
unknown that all the
close to three million
Polish forced laborers
deported to Germany had
also to wear a “sign of
infamy”: a rhomboid of
yellow fabric framed in
purple with a purple “P” in
the center.

31.  in a speech to the leaders
of German armed forces
on August 22, 1939 Hitler
ordered: “Kill without pity
or mercy all men, women
or children of Polish
descent or language. Only
in this way can we obtain
the living space
(Lebensraum) we need.
The destruction of Poland
is our primary task. The
aim is… annihilation of
living forces.”

32.  An example is the
Konzentration Lager
Warschau (KLW,
Concentration Camp
Warsaw), in which it is
estimated that the
Germans killed more than
200,000 random
Warsovians. The killing by
the Germans continued
until their withdrawal from
Polish territory in 1945. It
is calculated that about
400 Poles were killed
each day.
 Various publications
estimate that more than
three million non-Jewish
Poles were killed under
various circumstances.
One of them, which is little
known, is the killing of
Poles who hid or helped
their compatriots of
Jewish origins.

33.  On September 17, 1939,
the Russians,
collaborating with the
Germans, attacked
Poland from the east, and
occupied half of its
territories. The Russian
deportations and killings
started almost
immediately.
 It is estimated the
Russians deported to the
Gulags or killed
1,700,000 Poles before
the Germans attacked
Russia on June 22, 1941.
 A special case is the
murder, in 1940, of
20,000 Polish officers
taken prisoner by the
Russians and killed
individually by a bullet in
the neck at Katyn and
two other localities.

34. Ceremony of military upgrading of Katyn massacre victims, Piłsudski
Square, Warsaw, 10 November 2007.