German war crimes during World War II : pacification

Showing posts with label pacification. Show all posts

Wednesday, 16 January 2019

The Nazi German massacre in the prison Radogoszcz / Lodz

Wednesday, 25 April 2018

Bronisław Pekosiński case. Story of a victim.

Repulsive, he was. As kids, we would point fingers at him, laughing, wondering why he walks like a spider. Funny it seemed. But was no fun at all when I learned why he looked so awkward.
I still remember the day when my mum took my tiny hands and explained that the man we had been making fun of, had not deserved to be treated that way...

It was during WWII when he was born, Germans took his family to a transitory camp in Zwierzyniec. His mum threw him over the barbed wire fence in a desperate hope for his salvation by those who were not imprisoned and might have encountered her baby son. He fell on the heap of potatos and endured a serious damage in his hip. That is why for the rest of his life he would walk with difficulty throwing his legs forward like a spider. Fun no more...

His name was Bronisław Pekosiński. This was not his real name. No one knows the real one. He was never reunited with his family. No one knows either whether they had survived anyway. He was named Bronisław as WWII started on 1 September and it is always Bronisław name day this very day. Pekosiński came from an acronym PKOS (Polski Komitet Opieki Społecznej) Eng. Polish Social Help Comittee as this was the organisation that took care for him.

Discover his traumatic story in the award winning film: "Przypadek Pekosińskiego" (1993).
Truly recommended!

Source: Youtube

Bronisław Pekosiński died on 2 January 2013. He is buried in Zamość where he lived all through his life and should never been forgotten. Further reading on the fate of Polish kids during the Pacification of the Zamość Region (Aktion Zamość) is recommended here. A new post describing the infamous camp in Zwierzyniec will be published soon.

Read more:

Agnieszka Jaczyńska: "Sonderlaboratorium SS : Zamojszczyzna "Pierwszy obszar osiedleńczy w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie" (The SS Sonderlaboratorium: the Zamość Region : "The first settlement area in the Generalgouvernement", IPN 2012

http://www.zamosconline.pl/text.php?id=8472&rodz=wiad accessed on 25 April 2018

Aktion Zamość

Images source: Internet

Thursday, 15 March 2018

Bloody Christmas Eve in Ochotnica Dolna

Ochotnica Dolna

Bloody Christmas Eve in Ochotnica Dolna – the symbolic name given to the pacification of the village Ochotnica Dolna (Nowy Targ County), conducted by the German occupiers in the last months of World War II. On the 23rd December 1944 an SS unit murdered 56 residents of Ochotnica, and partially burned the village. The name of the Bloody Christmas Eve refers to the Eve of Christmas, which in 1944 was celebrated on Saturday, December 23rd. On December 22nd, 1944 Germans came to Ochotnica Dolna to rob the village as part of the so-called provisioning action. Despite the protest of the local people a group of Soviet partisans attacked the German soldiers, killing two of them, including the non-com officer, SS-Unterscharführer Bruno Koch.

Next day about 200 SS-men came in six cars from Krościenko. The Germans intruded into the homes, demanding money first, and then murdering people. Kids were thrown alive into the fire or brutally murdered. The crime in Ochotnica Dolna, on December 23rd was committed by criminal company SS. This unit consisted of troops of different nationalities. The majority were storm troopers from 3. SS Division Totenkopf and 4. SS Panzergrenadier Division Polizei, volksdeutsche from Poland, Russia and Ukraine. On 23rd December 1944, 56 people were killed, including 19 children and 21 women. During over two hours almost all the members of Chlipała, Rusnak, Brzeźny, Karczewski families were killed. The fire-station, the folk house and 32 farms were burned.

The pacification of Ochotnica was one of the bloodiest German repressive actions in the Podhale region.

The monument in Ochotnica Dolna presents twenty years old Maria Kawalec, who cradles a little child to her breast. After her husband was shot, Maria jumped out of the window with her son in her hands. The first bullet shot the child in the forehead , another went through the shoulder blade and the jaw of the mother, who squatted under a willow, and she did not release the child from her hands, and froze in this position.

Sunday, 4 March 2018

Ethnic cleansing of Zamojszczyzna

Also known as Aktion Zamość, an operation which aimed at mass expulsions from Zamojszczyzna region (Zamość region) of ethnic Polish population led by Germans during World War II between November 1942 and March 1943.

Zamojszczyzna fell victim to this German policy with 116,000 Poles expelled to concentration camps or forced labour in the 3rd Reich. 30,000 children lost their homes, taken away from their parents, killed, sent to the camps or germanised.

It is estimated by historians that 200,000 Polish children were germanised in total during WWII. Only 30,000 got back home after war. If one may say that there was still any home standing, not to mention lost home and exterminated relatives.

Child abduction was claimed to be genocide by International War Tribunal in Nurnberg. UNESCO conference in Trogen, Switzerland in 1948 confirmed the action of child abduction and extermination as a crime against humanity.

Heinrich Himmler, whom Zamość „the Rennaissance Pearl” was offered by Hitler as a ‘gift’ conducted the whole action together with notorious Odilo Globocnik who resided in Lublin. This was planned as a first ‘act’ of ethnic cleansic before the entire General Goverment terrirory was to be emptied of indigenous Polish population. Germans dreamt of Drang nach Osten, wanted to create Lebesraum (Life span) for their people on the fertile lands located in south eastern Europe.

„The camp in Zamość , located on S. Okrzei street, served as the transit point for selections and further deportations. In the first month of Action Zamość the camp processed 7,055 Polish inhabitants of 62 villages.

People were divided into four main categories with the following code letters:

"WE" (re-Germanization),
"AA" (transport to the Reich),
"RD" (farm-work for the settlers),
"KI" (Kindertransport),
"AG" (work in the General Government),
"KL" (concentration camp).

Those expelled from Zamojszczyzna to perform slave labour in Germany were loaded onto trains departing for temporary displacement camps governed by main resettlement HQ in Łodź. People from the last group were sent to the German Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Majdanek.

The camp in Zamość processed 31,536 Poles according to Germany's own records, or 41,000 based on postwar estimates.

I have seen with my own eyes how the Germans took children away from their mothers. The act of their forcible separation shook me terribly... The Germans beat them with whips until the blood flew in case of slightest opposition, mothers and children alike. One could hear moaning and crying throughout the entire camp on those occasions... I have also seen small children being killed by the Germans. – Leonard Szpuga, farmer expelled from Topólcza related.

Children suffered the most in those camps.

The average stay lasted several months. Starvation, cold, disease were fatal for them a lot more often than for adults. Separated from their parents, children were transported in cattle car (100 up to 150 children in one car) to other destinations. Many of them were sent to the concentration camp for children run side-by-side with the Łódź Ghetto. Kinder KZ processed up to 13,000 children. News about enormous drama of children from Zamojszczyzna quickly spread through entire country. Polish railwayman were forwarding messages about transports to inhabitants of the cities where transports were stopping by. There were several stations where ordinary people took a chance and risked rescuing the children, like in Sobolew, Żelechów, Siedlce, Garwolin, Pilawa and Warsaw.

Another deportation action, called Operation Werwolf, was conducted during the summer of 1944 ahead of the Soviet advance. Many of the inhabitants were forced to evacuate after being previously transferred into these areas by Germany as early as 1939. Entire families ended up in concentration camps at Majdanek (up to 15,000 prisoners of Action Zamość) and Oświęcim, before deportation to forced labour in the Reich. At Majdanek, due to severe overcrowding, entire train-loads were kept in open fields numbered from III to V.

There was also a portion of children designated for germanisation. Those, in which German anthropologists confirmed the presence of desirable racial traits, were supposed to go through transition by being placed in German families or German orphanages. Out of several thousand of children taken to Germany only 800 were successfully reclaimed.

The children were placed in special temporary camps of the health department, or Lebensborn e.V., called in German Kindererziehungslager("children's education camps"). Afterwards they went through special "quality selection" or "racial selection" — a detailed racial examination, combined with psychological tests and medical exams made by experts from RuSHA or doctors from Gesundheitsamt (health department). A child's "racial value" would determine to which of 11 racial types it was assigned, including 62 points assessing body proportions, eye color, hair color, and the shape of the skull.

During this testing process, children were divided into three groups (in English translation):

1. "desired population growth" (erwünschter Bevölkerungszuwachs);

2. "acceptable population growth" (tragbarer Bevölkerungszuwachs); and

3. "undesired population growth" (unerwünschter Bevölkerungszuwachs).

The failures that could result in a child, otherwise fitting all racial criteria, into the second group included such traits as "round-headed" referring to the skull shape. Children could be declared the third group for tuberculosis, "degenerate" skull shape, or for "Gypsy characteristics".

These racial exams determined the fate of children: whether they would be killed, or sent to concentration camps, or experience other consequences.

After the World War II this crime was investigated in Nuremberg. From Polish side statements came from Zygmunt Klukowski – a doctor from Szczebrzeszyn, who knew well conditions of camps in Zwierzyniec and Biłgoraj, and from three of the returned children.” (1)

„Nie było czasu płakać”: https://sklep.roztocze.com/regionalia/1102-nie-bylo-kiedy-plakac-zestaw-tom-1-i-2.html
"Zwierzyniec", Matławska, H.

Sunday, 25 February 2018

Pacification of Sochy, Lublin region

On 1st June 1943 at 5 a.m. German troops and aircrafts came into Sochy village (Lublin region) in order to leave no one alive. 88 houses are reported to be burnt and 183 persons executed.

Numbers may be much higher as there were left very few people to count the exact numer of the victims. Only one house was left standing. Mostly kids survived, whose eyes seem to explain the whole terror of what was done to them. It would have been great if they had received some good explanation why their families were shattered by the turmoils of the war. Why their little worlds got anihilated...

A precise and moving account of the events is given in the book by Anna Janko "Mała Zagłada" (not translated yet (eng. "An Unknown Anihilation"), whose mother (9 at the time) was one of the surviving kids.

Sochy are one of the four most affected villages in terms of German extermination policy. The other three are: Oradour-sur-Glane (Francja), Mazinote (Włochy) i Lidice (Czechy).