Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era
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Auschwitz mug shot of Czeslawa Kwaka, who was born August 15, 1928. She arrived at Auschwitz on December 13, 1942, and died there March 12, 1943. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
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Mug shot of Auschwitz prisoner Waclaw Jacyna. Waclaw was born on August 7, 1897 in Wolkowyszki. He arrived in Auschwitz on April 22, 1941 and perished on June 13, 1942. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
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Mug shot of Eugenia Smolenka, who was born October 2, 1886. She entered Auschwitz on November 27, 1942, and died there March 8, 1943. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
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A Polish priest, Father Piotr Sosnowski, before his execution by German Security Police, near the city of Tuchola, October 27, 1939. —Institute of National Memory
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Polish women being led to a German execution site in the Palmiry forest, near Warsaw late 1939. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Institute of National Memory
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Expulsion of Poles from their village in territory annexed by Germany. —Institute of National Memory
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One eyewitness of the kidnapping of children at Zamosc later recalled "I saw children being taken from their mothers; some were even torn from the breast. It was a terrible sight: the agony of the mothers and fathers, the beating by the Germans, and the crying of the children." —Institute of National Memory
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Some children ultimately rejected for Germanization were interned in the Dzieyzazn children's camp, where the mortality rate was very high. —Institute of National Memory
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Probably, SD officers questioning a group of Poles they have detained on the street. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jacob Igra
Auschwitz mug shot of Czeslawa Kwaka, who was born August 15, 1928. She arrived at Auschwitz on December 13, 1942, and died there March 12, 1943. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Mug shot of Auschwitz prisoner Waclaw Jacyna. Waclaw was born on August 7, 1897 in Wolkowyszki. He arrived in Auschwitz on April 22, 1941 and perished on June 13, 1942. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Mug shot of Eugenia Smolenka, who was born October 2, 1886. She entered Auschwitz on November 27, 1942, and died there March 8, 1943. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
A Polish priest, Father Piotr Sosnowski, before his execution by German Security Police, near the city of Tuchola, October 27, 1939. —Institute of National Memory
Polish women being led to a German execution site in the Palmiry forest, near Warsaw late 1939. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Institute of National Memory
Expulsion of Poles from their village in territory annexed by Germany. —Institute of National Memory
One eyewitness of the kidnapping of children at Zamosc later recalled "I saw children being taken from their mothers; some were even torn from the breast. It was a terrible sight: the agony of the mothers and fathers, the beating by the Germans, and the crying of the children." —Institute of National Memory
Some children ultimately rejected for Germanization were interned in the Dzieyzazn children's camp, where the mortality rate was very high. —Institute of National Memory
Probably, SD officers questioning a group of Poles they have detained on the street. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jacob Igra
During World War II Poland suffered greatly under five years of German occupation. Nazi ideology viewed "Poles"- the predominantly Roman Catholic ethnic majority- as "sub-humans" occupying lands vital to Germany.
As part of the policy to destroy the Polish resistance, the Germans killed many of the nation's political, religious, and intellectual leaders. They also kidnapped children judged racially suitable for adoption by Germans and confined Poles in dozens of prisons and concentration and forced labor camps, where many perished.
Read more about the persecution of Poles during the Nazi era:
- The Invasion and Occupation of Poland
- Terror Against the Intelligentsia and Clergy
- Expulsions and the Kidnapping of Children
- Forced Labor and the Terror of the Camps
- Polish Resistance and Conclusions
or download the PDF version
