Polish POWs - 1939

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michael mills
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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#31

Post by michael mills » 21 Apr 2012, 02:33

Summary: of the 60,000 Jewish enlisted men taken prisoner by the Germans in the September 1939 campaign only a few hundred survived captivity.
There is a clear contradiction between that claim by Meirtchak and the statement by Krakowski that 25,000 - 30,000 Jewish POWs were released at the end of 1939 or in the first months of 1940 and returned to their homes.

Presumably Krakowski's figure refers to the Jewish POWs who remained in German hands after the POWs who were natives of the Soviet Zone of Occupation (including Jews from that area) had been transferred to Soviet custody.

Perhaps Meirtchak means that few of the former Jewish POWs survived the extermination begun by the German occupiers in 1942, ie after the POWs had been released and had returned to their homes. If that is what he did mean, he should have phrased his statement with greater precision and accuracy.

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henryk
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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#32

Post by henryk » 21 Apr 2012, 20:18

He breaks it down to: died/murdered: before transfer to Stalags, in Stalags, in transfer from Stalags, in forced labour, in camps, and in Soviet custody. Details:
http://www.zchor.org/meirtchak/biblio.h ... e]Benjamin Meirtchak: JEWISH PRISONERS OF WAR IN GERMAN CAPTIVITY - A CONCISE REVIEW (Volume III )

On September 1, 1939 at 6 a.m. the fully motorized and armoured German army crossed the frontier and invaded Poland. The Second World War had begun.

The Polish Army was in a desperate situation without any prospects of stopping the German "Blietz Krieg".

According to official Polish sources the total Polish combat losses amounted to: 63,000 killed, 133,700 wounded and 420,000 taken prisoner 1)

It is estimated that among the prisoners of war taken about 60,000 were of Jewish origin 2).

In the first period of the war, Jewish soldiers, as war prisoners, were detained along with their gentile comrades by the Germans in transit camps located in the Polish cities of Radom, Zyrardow, Siedlce, Krosniewice, Kutno and others.

According to the regulations adopted on February 16th, 1939 by the German Chief of Staff (Field Marshal-Keitel) regarding prisoners of war, Jewish prisoners of ware were separated from their gentile comrades by the Germans. The treatment of the Jewish prisoners was inhuman. There is evidence that Jewish prisoners were murdered in transit camps such as in Zambrow camp, where the Germans shot 250 prisoners. In many cases, the behavior of Polish prisoners of war to their Jewish comrades-in-arms was hostile which worsened the situation for the Jews.

From the transit camps the prisoners of war were transferred to Mannschaftsstamm Lagers ("Stalags") located in Germany3). In all Stalags Jewish prisoners were separated from their gentile comrades. They existed under murderous conditions; hard labor, starvation and incarceration in cells without heat during the difficult winter weather of 1939/1940. This was in addition to daily abuse and torture. Many of them died or were shot. In Stalag XII A in East Prussia, during a period of 10 months, 330 prisoners, out of the 400, were murdered by camp guards.

It is estimated that close to 25,000 prisoners of war of Jewish origin were murdered or died in the Stalags up to and through the spring of 19404).

Jewish officers who were prisoners of war, were incarcerated during the early period along with gentile officers in Offlags (Officer camps) 5.

Since official Polish sources confirm that close to 18,0006) officers were taken prisoner by the Germans we are able to estimate that some 700-900 - 4-5 % of the Polish officers corps incarcerated, were of Jewish origin.

Some of them, who were inhabitants of Western Poland, which was occupied by Germany, were released at the beginning of 1940 and sent home.

Later on, during 1940, Jewish officers were separated from their gentile comrades. They were transferred to "Offlags" such as IIC Woldenberg, VIE Dorsten, VIB Dossel and others. In the Offlags, they were put in ghettos where they suffered from worse conditions than those of gentile prisoners were. It is to be noted that there was no mass extermination in the camps and that the mortality rate in the Offlags was relatively low. It is estimated that the majority of Jewish officers survived the war in the Offlags.

On May 8th, 1945, the day of the German surrender it was recorded that 1667) Jewish officers survived the war in Offlags. VI E Dorsten (93), VI B Dossel (44), IXC Molsdorf (8), XC Bad Schwartan (5), VIE, for air crew (4), and XIB Fallingbostel (12). However this is not the final figure, as many of the survivors left the camps at once after the liberation.

In December 1939 a large number of Jewish prisoners, whose homes were west of the Bug River were released by the Wehrmacht and sent home. They were later to share the tragic fate of the Polish Jews.

The Germans undertook to repatriate prisoners originating from the territories east of the Bug River. A large number of Jewish prisoners were handed over to the Soviet authorities, and returned to their homes during 1939. Some of them later joined the Red Army as Soviet citizens. They fought the Germans, who had invaded the USSR on June 22,1941. Others shared the tragic fate of the Jews of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania.

According to Polish sources more than 7,000 Jewish prisoners of war 8), mostly those who were inhabitants of Eastern Poland, were transferred by train to the Lublin District from the Stalags in Germany, starting on December 1939.

Many of them were found frozen to death when the railroad cars were opened. Many had died from starvation due to the long time in transport.

In Lublin prisoners of war were transferred by the Wehrmacht to the 5.5. Authority, thereby violating international law and the Geneva Convention determining the treatment of prisoners of war.

The earliest transport of prisoners to the Lublin District started on December 1939. Several transports arrived from Stalag IIB in Hammerstein. The prisoners were assigned to work on the Biala-Podlaska airfield. Many prisoners were killed during the "Death Marches" from Lublin to Gala Podlaska, a distance of 130 km.

In December1939 an S.S. unit murdered 100 prisoners near Wlodawa. In January 1940 some 400 prisoners were murdered near Parczew in Julipol and in Niedzwiedzice, a village near Lubartow.

On February 1940 an 5.5. unit murdered 459 prisoners on the "Death March" to Biala Podlaska, and 627 prisoners were murdered on the 14th of February, 1940 on the same route.

According to the records of the Judenrat of Lublin, 3,224 prisoners of war were brought to the Lublin area during the period from mid-February to mid-May 1940.

On January 7th , 1940 1,200 prisoners from Stalag IB, (Hohenstein in East Prussia), were brought by S.S. guards to the Sobibor forest. Most of them were executed on January13 by the guards9). Very few of the prisoners escaped. 2 years later it was to become mass murder camp.

The labor camp on 7 Lipowa Street in Lublin was opened by the S.S. in December 1939. In mid-1940 about 1,200 local Jewish craftsmen were incarcerated in the camp. These workers were released in December 1940 and replaced by prisoners of war. During 1940 transports of war prisoners arrived at the Lipowa Street camp from Stalags in Germany. Some 200 prisoners arrived on December 2nd 1940. Between the 10th and 16th of December1940 another 500 prisoners arrived from East Prussian Stalags, including one on December 14th. Some of the prisoners were transferred to work on the Ryki airfield. They worked under inhuman conditions and died of hunger, disease, and maltreatment. Many were shot by the camp guard. Very few survived.

The largest transport of 2.500 prisoners from the Stalags arrived at Lipowa Street camp on 23 January 1941. The prisoners in Lipowa camp retained some semblance of their P.O.W. status for a time. But from the beginning of 1942, camp authorities frequently transferred groups of P.O.W's to the main death camp Majdanek as ordinary prisoners.

On October 18th, 1943, 2,500 prisoners were incarcerated in Lipowa camp10) and an unknown number of prisoners were incarcerated in Majdanek camp, and in other camps in the Lublin District.

Groups of prisoners worked in military industries in the eastern part of the Lublin District.

In 1941, 2,50011) prisoners of war were murdered at the slave labor camp at Belzec. Very few escaped. On 17th, march 1942 it was to become mass murder camp 12).

On January 1941 a transport of approximately 1,000 prisoners from Stalags was sent to "Judenlager" in Biala Podlaska. Many died of typhoid, starvation or as a result of the inhuman conditions, and others were simply murdered. The survivors were transferred in May 1941 to the Konskowola slave labor Camp. The last survivors were sent to Budzyn Camp, where they worked at the Heinkel aircraft plant. Very few survived.

On November 8th, 1943 in the final act of exterminating the Jews in the Majdanek death camp (given the code name "Harvest Festival" - "Erntefest") 18,500 Jews were murdered by the Nazis, among them 2,500 prisoners of war. These included those confined in the camp in Lipowa Street and other sub-camps in the Lublin area 13).

Efforts to set up a resistance organization were initiated by the Jewish prisoners of war in Lipowa camp and toward the end of summer of 1942, a committee was organized whose main task was to obtain weapons.

In April 1942 a group of 17 prisoners led by Roman Fiszer succeeded in escaping from the camp to the forests of Pulawy in the Lubartow area. On October 28th, 1942 another group, led by Shmuel Gruber and Kaganowicz, escaped from the camp. Kaganowicz was later found dead. On November 11th, 1942 a group of 22 prisoners, led by Stefan Finkiel escaped with arms taken by force from the German guards.

In the spring of 1943 an armed group, led by Samuel Jager, fled to the forest 14). On October 2nd , 1943 several war prisoners fled to Parczew Forest and later joined the Jewish partisan detachment led by Jechiel Grynszpan.

Altogether about 400 prisoners escaped from Lipowa camp. The majority were captured and shot by the Germans. Only about 100 of them joined Jewish partisan detachments and only 20 of them survived the war.

Summary: of the 60,000 Jewish enlisted men taken prisoner by the Germans in the September1939 campaign only a few hundred survived captivity.

Notes
4) Krakowski Shmuel, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Volume V p.1181.
(ed: see source for other notes)[/quote]


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henryk
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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#33

Post by henryk » 21 Apr 2012, 20:33

http://liveweb.archive.org/http://www.z ... te]FORWARD by Dr. Shmuel Krakowski (Volume I) Publ. 1994 page III

The Publication "Jewish Soldiers and Officers of the Polish Peoples Army killed in battle or missing in action 1943--1945", prepared and published by Mr. Benjamin Meirtchak, is the first to commemorate the Jews in the ranks of the Polish Armies killed or missing in fighting the greatest evil in the history of mankind, Nazi Germany.

Mr. Meirtchak deserves the deepest words of appreciation for his noble initiative of commemorating Jewish fighters. Let us hope that this study will be followed by studies commemorating Jews fallen in action in other formations of the Polish Army. The list of Jewish casualties, as presented in the study, is extensive, but represents only a part of all Jewish military casualties in the Polish Armies. The lost of Jewish blood in achieving victory was great.

Jewish soldiers, as with their Polish arid Russian brothers in arms, fought for the liberation of Poland and for the destruction of the German Reich. They were soldiers, as others, but diametrically different. Like their brothers in arms, they came from Warsaw, Siedlce, Lodz, Chelm, Tomaszow and from hundreds of villages, towns, and cities. But in contrast to them, they found in the liberated territories only ashes of their own homes. No more homes, no one from their family; all were destroyed by the Germans.

But they continued to fight, marching to Berlin to destroy the greatest evil of mankind, Nazi Germany. They believed in their victory. They knew that nobody would mourn their death. They were soldiers of the terrible epoch of Extermination.

We shall always remember them!
Dr. Shmuel Krakowski[/quote]

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#34

Post by wm » 21 Apr 2012, 22:56

michael mills wrote:Actually, it was Shmuel Krakowski who wrote those words.
I'm sorry about it, especially as it was a second time.
michael mills wrote: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.
The only bias I see there is that he ascribes antisemitism tendencies to everyone. I would say what he describes is a camp where criminal groups are slowly gaining an upper hand. The huge Polish Army were drawing conscripts from all levels of society, and there were many people there with whom it was not safe to be alone.
I am quite convinced that the ruling gangs was robing the Jews openly, because they were encouraged to do that, and fleecing the rest of the prisoners a little less openly because it was not quite safe to do so.

The place clearly did not need preaching on comradeship, as for some people there the idea was too hard to understand, but a few energetic officers and a firing squad to whip the comradeship to the desired levels.

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#35

Post by michael mills » 22 Apr 2012, 04:17

In December 1939 a large number of Jewish prisoners, whose homes were west of the Bug River were released by the Wehrmacht and sent home. They were later to share the tragic fate of the Polish Jews.

The Germans undertook to repatriate prisoners originating from the territories east of the Bug River. A large number of Jewish prisoners were handed over to the Soviet authorities, and returned to their homes during 1939.
So it would appear that in essence the treatment by the Wehrmacht of their Polish POWs of Jewish ethnicity during 1939 and 1940 was simply a microcosm of the treatment of the bulk of the Polish POws of all ethnicities.

The POWs originating from east of the Bug River, ie from the Soviet Zone of Occupation, were transferred to Soviet custody under an exchange agreement. Their treatment then became a matter for the Soviet authorities.

The POWs originating from west of the Bug River, ie from the German Zone of Occupation, were mostly released and allowed to return home.

Under the exchange agreement referred to above, the Wehrmacht received from the Soviet authorities POWs held by the latter who had their homes in the German Zone of Occupation. The sources quoted so far appear to be silent about the treatment of those transferees, but it is probable that they were released in the same way as the POWs initially captured by the Wehrmacht.

It is known that large numbers of Polish POWs were used for agricultural labour by the German aUhorities in the last months of 1939, for the purpose of bringing in the harvest. That is probably the reason why the release of POWs did not begin until December of that year, and was not completed until the Spring of 1940.

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#36

Post by wm » 16 May 2012, 20:32

michael mills wrote:
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.
To be sure I asked the Archives of the State Museum at Majdanek as they provide information about former prisoners. They have confirmed that there were no officer POWs there.
The Publication "Jewish Soldiers and Officers of the Polish Peoples Army killed in battle or missing in action 1943--1945", prepared and published by Mr. Benjamin Meirtchak, is the first to commemorate the Jews in the ranks of the Polish Armies killed or missing in fighting the greatest evil in the history of mankind, Nazi Germany.
I think it is worth to mention that Henryk Goldszmit - a Jewish educator, children's author, pediatrician and director of the Jewish orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto, who refused freedom and stayed with his orphans when they were sent to the gas chambers of the Treblinka extermination camp had the rank of major in the Polish Army.

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#37

Post by michael mills » 16 May 2012, 23:52

I think it is worth to mention that Henryk Goldszmit - a Jewish educator, children's author, pediatrician and director of the Jewish orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto, who refused freedom and stayed with his orphans when they were sent to the gas chambers of the Treblinka extermination camp had the rank of major in the Polish Army.
So what.

If he was in the Warsaw Ghetto, he was not a POW.

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#38

Post by michael mills » 17 May 2012, 00:10

To be sure I asked the Archives of the State Museum at Majdanek as they provide information about former prisoners. They have confirmed that there were no officer POWs there.
All that would mean is that Polish officer POWs were not recorded on the books of the Lublin Concentration Camp.

That would be entirely consistent, since Polish POWs and the camps where they were held were under the control of the Wehrmacht, not of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps.

Presumably the camp at Lublin in which the Polish officer POWs were being held was not administratively part of the Lublin Concentration Camp. According to Reitlinger, it was close enough to the Lublin Concentration Camp for the Polish officer POWs being held there to observe the massacre of the Jewish prisoners in the grounds of the former.

When I get time I will check Reitlinger's book again to see exactly what he does say.

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#39

Post by michael mills » 18 May 2012, 00:16

I have now been able to check Reitlinger's book, "The Final Solution". The relevant passage is on page 319 of the 1971 edition, where Reitlinger writes:
Prince Christopher Radziwill, one of the original officer-prisoners who had been in Majdanek since 1939, described it this way.
  • "I shall never forget the day the Nazis killed 17,000 Jews at Majdanek, while I was in another part of the concentration camp. That evening, many of my Polish fellow-prisoners got drunk to celebrate. That is terrible but it is true."
The source given by Reitlinger in a footnote to the above passage is:
Interviewed by Sam Welles in Time, 14 July, 1947.
Reitlinger is of course mistaken when he refers to officer-prisoners held in Majdanek since 1939, as the construction of the Lublin Concentration Camp did not begin until October 1941. The officer-prisoners must have been held in some other camp in the area, which Reitlinger confused with the later concentration camp.

I have not been able to find much information on Prince Krzysztof Radziwill, only that he and his wife Zofia were arrested by the Gestapo in 1940 and spent the rest of the war years in various concentration camps, and that he is known for the letters to his children written (in German!) during his captivity.

It would appear that Prince Krzysztof Radziwill was a political prisoner rather than a POW. I could not find any information on whether he had been an army officer.

I have seen other references to Polish prisoners standing on the roof of their barracks to observe the massacre of the Jewish prisoners in the grounds of the LUblin Concentration Camp on 3 November 1943, but I cannot remember where.

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#40

Post by wm » 18 May 2012, 08:19

As I have said before there were no officer camp in that region.
Radziwill was a reserve officer, he took part in the war in 1939 but he never was a prisoner of war and simply returned to his palace, later he was arrested and put in the concentration camp because he created an underground Polish school there.
He is referring to camp criminals who were eagerly awaiting opportunity to loot the property left by the murdered Jews. There were some antisemites who were celebrating too and he says he used physical force on one of them (for the first time in his life) but the main feelings in the camp was of horror, outrage and revulsion.
But it has to be said that in this camp human kindness was hard to come by.
One example - Polish and Russian prisoners hated each other because both groups were fighting for the scant camp privileges and resources and the Russians were losing badly.

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#41

Post by wm » 18 May 2012, 08:50

michael mills wrote: he is known for the letters to his children written (in German!) during his captivity.
The German language was the only language allowed in prisoners' letters.

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#42

Post by wm » 18 May 2012, 14:52

michael mills wrote:So what.

If he was in the Warsaw Ghetto, he was not a POW.
Well it is true, but maybe it is worth a thought that a Jew was a major in the Polish Army but prince of the Holly Roman Empire, cream of the crop of the European aristocracy, leading Polish politician and senator was only a bottom of the barrel second lieutenant.

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#43

Post by michael mills » 18 May 2012, 15:16

The German language was the only language allowed in prisoners' letters.

This is an excerpt from the speech made by Krzysztof Michalski, Rector, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, also Professor of Philosophy, University of Warsaw and Boston University, and member of the Reflection Group on “The Spiritual and Cultural Dimension of Europe”, on the occasion of his being awarded the Theodor Heuss Prize on 3 April 2004:
Was Deutschland für einen Polen bedeuten kann – und was Polen für einen Deutschen – habe ich vor allem von zwei Personen gelernt. Die eine war Krzysztof Radziwill, ein polnischer Fürst. Er gehörte einem der ältesten Geschlechter Polens an, einer Familie mit großen Besitztümer und reichen Beziehungen nicht nur in Polen, sondern auch in anderen europäischen
Ländern, unter anderem in Deutschland. 1940 wurde er von Gestapo verhaftet; den Rest des Krieges verbrachte er in Buchenwald, Majdanek und in anderen Konzentrationslagern. Dass er überlebte, war fast ein Wunder. Aus den Konzentrationslagern – wo er, wie auch die anderen, unter unmenschlichen Bedingungen lebte – schrieb er, wann immer er durfte, an seine Kinder. In makellosem Deutsch; Deutsch war wie seine zweite Muttersprache. Wenn die Kinder in ihren Antworten grammatische Fehler im Deutschen machten, mahnte er sie zu Fleiß, auf dass sie sich die Sprache und damit die Welt von Goethe und von Kafka aneigneten.
http://www.iwm.at/files/nl-84.pdf

Here the Pole Krzysztof Michalski, a professor at the University of Warsaw, has made a somewhat more gracious interpretation of Prince Krzysztof Radziwill's use of the German language than that made by his fellow countryman wm.

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#44

Post by wm » 18 May 2012, 23:26

Well, I suppose I misunderstood you. It is a fact that the prisoners were allowed to write letters up to 15 lines long in German - when the Thousand Year Reich was crumbling. It was no problem for him, Polish nobility regarded a good knowledge of main European languages a must, not to mention that one of his tutors was a German teacher (the other, for some strange reason, was a French general).

There were no doubts whatsoever about patriotism of the Radziwiłł family, serving the country for seventeen generations. Two of his brothers fell fighting in the WWII (although still as lieutenants), another was taken prisoner and spent the war as a POW.

And yet he was so liked by German communists in Buchenwald and Mauthausen, who rescued his life two times, that after the WWII he received a strange gift from the East Germany - a free pass to every Party-maintained sanatorium in Germany, Austria and Hungary.

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Re: Polish POWs - 1939

#45

Post by grassi » 17 Jan 2013, 13:11

Some photos about Offlag VII-A in Murnau:
Theater hinter Stacheldraht: In Oberbayern waren im Zweiten Weltkrieg polnische Offiziere inhaftiert - und verbrachten ihre Tage mit lesen, schwimmen, lernen. So wollte Hitler-Deutschland den Eindruck erwecken, es hielte sich ans Völkerrecht. Ein Bilderfund dokumentiert das vermeintliche Idyll. Von Solveig Grothe
http://einestages.spiegel.de/s/tb/26823 ... urnau.html

Best regards


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