
Under SS command, ethnic Germans—members of a Selbstchutz (“Self-Defense”) unit—executed Piotr Sosnowski, a priest, in the Tuchola forest on October 27, 1939. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Instytut Pamięci Narodowej
Piotr was from nearby Byslaw, Poland, and one of 45 Polish civilians killed in this action, ostensibly in reprisal for the burning of two barns owned by ethnic Germans in Piastozyn.