Polish POWs - 1939

[JamesL]

It almost looks like the Germans started a new class of prisoners. They could be called 'Disarmed Enemy Forces'.

The Polish prisoners were on their own soil and did not have visits from Red Cross personnel. Maybe they were given short rations and lived in austere conditions.

Yin and Yang. What goes around, comes around.

[henryk]

There was a question on a Polish Genealogy Forum as to why a Polish POW relative was sent to Goldap (former East Prussia), as there was no camp there. I found from my research he was sent there as a "civilian worker" which was common at that time.
From http://www.straty.pl, (my translation)

przydział wojskowy =8. p. a. l. (Army unit)
stopień wojskowy =strzelec (rifleman)
jeniec wojenny (POW)
przeniesiony na status robotnika cywilnego = Tak (released as a civilian worker)
dodatkowe informacje =Stalag I - A; nr jeńca 7713; Stalag I - B; 11.11.1940 zwolniony do Hegelingen, okręg Gołdap
(held in the POW camps, Stalag I-A and I-B, released to Hegelingen, Goldap.

Evidentally this was a common practice, according to:
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/docum ... 57jnwv.htm

What had happened was that most of the Polish soldiers who became prisoners of war were turned i nto " civilian workers " by the German authorities. They were thus -- in defiance of the 1929 Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war -- deprived of their prisoner-of-war status and of the protection this should have afforded them.

[michael mills]

There is information in a book by Jan Tomas Gross on the German administration of the Generalgouvernement published back in the 1970s.

Rank-and-file prisoners held by the Wehrmacht were released and sent home. That is what the term "civilian worker" meant.

POWs held by the Germans whose homes were in the Soviet Zone of Occupation were handed over to the Soviet authorities. That occurred under an exchange agreement, whereby POWs held by the Red Army whose homes were in the German Zone of Occupation were handed over to the Wehrmacht.

Officer POWs held by the Wehrmacht were initially released on parole, but later ordered to report back to the internment camps when it became apparent that some of the released officers had broken their parole and were organising clandestine resistance groups. A large proportion of the officers complied with that order. According to the testimony of those officers, the portrait of Pilsudski was displayed on the walls of the Wehrmacht offices to which they had to report, and loyalty to the name of Pilsudski was invoked as a reason for complying with the order.

Some of the officers disobeyed the order and went into hiding, where they continued to organise the resistance that eventually became the Armia Krajowa.

Once back in captivity, the officer POWs were held until the German retreat from Poland in 1944. In contrast with the Soviet treatment of captured Polish officers, none of the paroled officers who obeyed the order to return to imprisonment was executed.

There was a compound for officer POWs within the confines of the Lublin Concentration Camp (Majdanek). During the final massacre of the Jewish prisoners held in the concentration camp in October 1943, many of the officer POWs stood on the roofs of their barracks to watch the fun, and afterwards held a lively party to celebrate the final solution of the Jewish Problem in their Polish homeland. That incident was reported by Reitlinger in his seminal study "The Final Solution".

[wm]

Officer POWs held by the Wehrmacht were initially released on parole, but later ordered to report back to the internment camps when it became apparent that some of the released officers had broken their parole and were organising clandestine resistance groups. A large proportion of the officers complied with that order. According to the testimony of those officers, the portrait of Pilsudski was displayed on the walls of the Wehrmacht offices to which they had to report, and loyalty to the name of Pilsudski was invoked as a reason for complying with the order.

It is simply not true. What you are talking about were border cases and not the general German policy, the officers were never released.
There were plans to release Polish officers of Jewish origin (brigadier general Bernard Mond was the highest ranking Polish POW of Jewish origin, the defender of the Polish Corridor, he was practicing Jew) so they could have been exterminated. In the end they were separated from the rest of the Polish POWs. The Polish authorities protested the practice, sometimes successfully.

The soldier POWs of Jewish origin (150 thousand served in the 1939 Defensive War) were sent to the ghettos and later exterminated.

There was a compound for officer POWs within the confines of the Lublin Concentration Camp (Majdanek). During the final massacre of the Jewish prisoners held in the concentration camp in October 1943, many of the officer POWs stood on the roofs of their barracks to watch the fun, and afterwards held a lively party to celebrate the final solution of the Jewish Problem in their Polish homeland.

There were no officer POWs in Majdanek or Lublin, only the Soviet and Italian POWs were sent there, but there was a camp for Polish soldiers of Jewish origin in Lublin. There were gradually stripped of their POW privileges and later murdered, still wearing their Polish uniforms.
A penal camp for the Polish officer POWs was in Silberberg (Srebrna Góra).

[michael mills]

It is simply not true. What you are talking about were border cases and not the general German policy, the officers were never released.

Jan Tomas Gross says they were released on parole, and then recalled. Obviously I prefer a statement by a published historian to one by someone posting on the internet under a pseudonym.

There were no officer POWs in Majdanek or Lublin, only the Soviet and Italian POWs were sent there

Reitlinger says there were. Obviously I prefer a statement by a published historian to one by someone posting on the internet under a pseudonym.

[wm]

Well, the only my mistake I can find is that the highest ranking Polish soldier of Jewish origin was major-general Mieczysław Norwid-Neugebauer.

But anyway what I am objecting is posting irrelevant holocaust stories in a topics dedicated to the Polish POWs.
Almost 60 thousand Polish soldiers and NCOs of Jewish origin were exterminated by the Germans. Only 600-700 Jewish officers survived.
469 Polish officers of Jewish origin were murdered in Katyń forest and other places and many more died in gulags.
It is estimated that almost 200 thousand Jews were fighting in the Polish armies during the WWII (according to Beniamin Majerczak "Jewish military casualties in the Polish armies in World War II ").
In the one battle of of Monte Cassino 126 Jewish officers and soldiers were decorated for valor (out of 850).
It is simply insulting to them.

[henryk]

There is information in a book by Jan Tomas Gross on the German administration of the Generalgouvernement published back in the 1970s.

Rank-and-file prisoners held by the Wehrmacht were released and sent home. That is what the term "civilian worker" meant.

This is contradicted by other historians. It is not true for the POW I researched, who lived near Warsaw, and was forced to work in East Prussia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivilarbei ... ilarbeiter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Zivilarbeiter (German for civilian worker) refers primarily to Polish prisoners from the General Government (occupied Poland), used during WWII as forced laborers in Germany. Poles were conscripted on the basis of the Polish decrees (Polenerlasse). [/b

German and Polish poster describing "Obligations of Polish workers in Germany" including death sentence to every man and woman from Poland for sex with a GermanPolish workers were subject to discriminatory regulation (the Polish decrees). Compared to German workers of foreign workers from neutral or German allied countries, Polish Zivilarbeiters received lower wages and could not use public conveniences (such as public transport) or visit many public spaces and businesses (for example they could not attend a German church service, swimming pools or restaurant); they had to work longer hours than Germans; they received smaller food rations; they were subject to a curfew; they often were denied holidays and had to work seven days a week; could not enter a marriage without permission; possess money or objects of value. Bicycles, cameras and even lighters were forbidden. They were required to wear a sign - the „Polish-P“ - attached to their clothing.


Arbeitsbuch Für Ausländer (Workbook for Foreigner) identity document issued to a Polish Forced Labourer in 1942 together with a letter "P" patch Poles were required to wear attached to their clothing. In 1939 there were about 300,000 prisoners from Poland working in Germany;[1] Already in 1944 there were about 2,8 m Polish Zivilarbeiters in Germany (approximately 10% of Generalgouvernement workforce)[2] and a similar number of workers in this category from other countries.[1]

Poles from territories taken over after the German invasion of the Soviet Union and not included in the General Government were treated as OST-Arbeiters.[3]

Notes
1.^ a b John C. Beyer; Stephen A. Schneider. "Forced Labor under Third Reich - Part 1" (PDF). Nathan Associates Inc.. http://www.nathaninc.com/nathan2/files/ ... %20One.pdf. and John C. Beyer; Stephen A. Schneider. "Forced Labor under Third Reich - Part 2" (PDF). Nathan Associates Inc.. http://www.nathaninc.com/nathan2/files/ ... %20Two.pdf.
2.^ A. Paczkowski, Historia Powszechna/Historia Polski, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa 2008, tom 16, p. 28
3.^ Günter Bischof, Fritz Plasser, Oliver Saasa, New Perspectives on Austrians and World War II, Transaction Publishers, 2009, ISBN 1-4128-0883-9, Google Print, p.206
[/quote]
The links in Note 1 do not work.

[wm]

Another example:
Stalag VIII C Sagan(Zagan) - Mannschaftsstammlager -the camp was built in September and October 1939. It occupied the total area of 480.000 square meters and was located in the Southern outskirts of the city, along the road to Ilowa Zaganska (Ger. Halbau). Initially, several thousand of Polish soldiers who had taken part in the September battles, were detained there.
In 1940 these soldiers were deprived of their P.O.W. status, moved into Germany and forced to hard labor there.

[wm]

The same happened to the 7 thousand Polish POWs of Stalag III C Alt Drewitz.

According to the Polish historian Tomasz Szarota 140 thousand Polish POWs were forced to renounce their status.

[michael mills]

The Jewish survivor Alexander Donat, who was himself a prisoner in the Lublin Concentration Camp, attests to the presence of Polish POWs in that camp in his memoir "The Holocaust Kingdom".

The book by Gross is:

"Polish Society under German Occupation : The Generalgouvernement, 1939-1944" ( Princeton University Press, c1979)

In that book, Gross states that Polish POWs of officer rank held by the Wehrmacht were initially released on parole, but then ordered to report back for internment when some of those officers began organising conspiratorial resistance.

[michael mills]

From a Yad Vashem article by Shmuel Krakowski:

http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Micr ... 206215.pdf

The position of the Jewish prisoners was made even more wretched by the
aggressive behavior of some of the Polish prisoners, who organized pogroms
in some of the camps, a phenomenon till then unprecedented. The pogroms,
although instigated partly by the German officers were also an outcome of the
antisemitic attitudes held by a large proportion of the Polish prisoners of war
and of the indifference of the majority. The most serious outbreaks took place
at camp I A at Stablack, the first during the process of segregation shortly
after the prisoners were brought to the camp. It was described as follows:
We were all made to form ranks and one of the German soldiers, Apel by
name, ordered in Polish: 'Jews, get out.' When we stepped out of the ranks he
told us to surrender our shoes, coats, uniforms, etc. to the 'Aryans', 'or they
would take them themselves.' This filled the Jews with despondency. Some of
them tried tearing holes in their coats, so that no-one would want them;
others, with the same object in mind, tried to exchange them for those of
inferior quality. Someone came up to me and demanded my good boots,
offering his light shoes in exchange. I did not hasten to conclude the deal,
luckily for me, because I suddenly heard someone shout out behind me: 'I'd
die rather than let you take the boots off him.' A Polish soldier I had known in
Warsaw was standing behind me. This support stiffened my resistance; I did
not give up my boots, thus saving myself many privations and illnesses.

After this official robbery Jews were formed into groups and allocated a
special tent area... it gradually grew colder and our fellow-prisoners would
increasingly frequently demand that their gear be supplemented at the Jews'
expense. Their forays were sporadic at first, but then became more frequent,
eventually turning into a full-scale pogrom. Large bands broke into our tents
taking not only warm clothing but also fountain pens, watches and other
items.47There was another riot on the Day of Atonement. This time the Jewish
prisoners organized their defence. Possibly as a result of this the German
guards intervened and opened fire from the watchtowers, killing one Jew.
After that the Jewish prisoners of war mounted regular guards in front of each
tent in an attempt to protect themselves from the sudden attacks of their
former comrades-in-arms, who outnumbered them by far.48
The fact that Jewish prisoners were not permitted to hold any position within
the camp, other than command of a Jewish company, led to serious difficulties
for them. The other tasks were frequently assigned to avowed antisemites,
who exploited every opportunity to abuse the Jews. Several noncommissioned
officers who were in charge of the field kitchen and were responsible
for the distribution of food made themselves conspicuous in this
regard. This is evident from the following description:
A few words about the distribution of food to Jews. The commandant of the
camp was a Polish soldier who saw that he could make a profit for himself by
exploiting our situation. Through intimidation, threats and beatings he induced
some of our number to attempt to ingratiate themselves by offering him gifts or
selling him objects of value at ridiculous prices. Loaves of bread at eight
marks a kilogram, as well as tobacco were offered for sale in the Jewish tents;
these items were stolen by the commandant from the allocations for the
Jewish tents... the Polish cooks could with impunity give the Jews the worst
food as well as the watery soup at the top of the pot, leaving the more
nourishing residue for their own people.49
At camp II A, Neu Brandenburg, the German commander issued instructions
as early as October 1939 to the effect that the 'Aryan' prisoners were entitled
to the uniforms and personal effects of the Jewish prisoners. Chaim Joseph
Kaplan writes of this:
We did not have to wait very long. The men who had been comrades-in-arms
the day before immediately fell upon their friends, tumbling them to the ground
and tearing off their coats, uniforms, shoes and hats without even allowing
them time to remove them themselves.50
Those men from whom the last remnants of army uniform had been stolen
were assigned separate tents; half-naked and barefoot they were sent to work
and many of them froze to death.

The same article has information about the release of the Polish POWs:

The Release of Prisoners of War from German-Occupied Territories

At the end of 1939 the first prisoners of war, residents of the German-occupied
areas, were released. The prisoners were despatched under terrible
conditions. They were usually provided with no dry rations whatsoever and
were given food at the stations after two or three days' travel. These rations
were smaller than those they had received at the camps, and usually
amounted to one warm ration per day (beetroot soup without meat or fat). The
prisoners were transported in unheated freight trucks, with temperatures
below 20° centigrade.51

The release of the prisoners extended over a period of several months, and
many were freed only in March 1940. In Stalag I A, Stablack, for example, a
selection was held on March 22, and only then were the prisoners from the
conquered areas released.52 The overall number of prisoners of war who were
released has been estimated at somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000.
They were in a state of total exhaustion, some were wounded or had frozen
limbs and many had contracted tuberculosis at the prisoner of war camps.53
The principal assembly points for released prisoners of war were Warsaw and
some of the large provincial towns. The released men were looked after by
the Jewish population and the Judenrate; considerable aid was also provided
by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

I presume the above figure of 25,000 - 30,000 released POWs refers only to the Jewish POWs; that is what the context suggests.

It seems hard to imagine that ethnic Jewish POWs were eventually released while ethnic Polish POWs were not.

[wm]

The position of the Jewish prisoners was made even more wretched by the aggressive behavior of some of the Polish prisoners

So it happened there. Although I would be surprised if something like that would not have happened because, in desperate circumstances social order was breaking down with monotonous consistency in German extermination camps, concentration camps, or the more genocidal POW camps.
One might even say that a prisoner in a German camp was in greater danger from a fellow prisoner than from even the most bloodthirsty SS guard as the day-to-day operations of the camps were handed over to criminals, criminally-minded people or psychopaths.
One might even say that this happened in Poland generally, one example is that many villages were creating self defense units not to defend themselves against Germans but against Polish criminals.

At Stablack the Jews suffered not because of the wretched antisemites but simply because there were weak and defenseless, and criminal acts against them were allowed and encouraged.
It seems you are believing that those people were harmed because of Poles or because of Poland, I say that they were harmed because Poland was not allowed to protect them.

It is as simply as that.

In the despicably poor prewar Poland, with its second rate leaders a Jew was protected from criminally-minded people, in the rich, modern and enlighten Germany he was not.
Well, thinking about it he really did not need any protection. Poland was strictly a make my day country so with his trusty revolver he could make as many holes in an agressor as he only wished.

[wm]

It seems hard to imagine that ethnic Jewish POWs were eventually released while ethnic Polish POWs were not.

All the Jews were released, the POWs of other nationalities were released partially but eventually most of them were brought back to the land of the Evil Empire. As young healthy men they were prime targets for the numerous Arbeitsamts in the occupied territories.

[henryk]

The release of Polish Jewish POW was discussed previously:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=87056
http://www.zchor.org/meirtchak/volume5.htm

JEWISH MILITARY CASUALTIES IN THE POLISH ARMIES IN WORLD WAR II
By BENJAMIN MEIRTCHAK (5 VOLUMES)
Summary: of the 60,000 Jewish enlisted men taken prisoner by the Germans in the September1939 campaign only a few hundred survived captivity.

[michael mills]

michael mills wrote:
The position of the Jewish prisoners was made even more wretched by the aggressive behavior of some of the Polish prisoners

Actually, it was Shmuel Krakowski who wrote those words.

I merely brought them to the attention of readers.

No doubt Krakowski is biassed. But there is no reason to believe that the incidents recounted by him are not based on fact, even if perhaps exaggerated.