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World of Delusions and Disillusions: The National Minorities of Poland During World War II∗
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
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Perhaps no country in Eastern Europe suffered the human, material, and psychological devastation that Poland experienced during nearly six long years of war and occupation. Caught initially between Soviet Communism and German Nazism, and eventually falling completely under the yoke of the latter, the country became the target of ruthless attempts to impose these totalitarian systems on the hapless vanquished population. Without dismissing the sufferings of the ethnic Poles, this paper will focus on the fortunes of the key ethnoreligious minority groups in prewar Poland — the Germans, Belorussians, Ukrainians, and Jews. It will attempt to portray not only the relationship between the occupying powers and the individual minorities, but also the relationships among those population segments in the face of a concerted challenge to their very existence.
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∗ This is a revised and slightly expanded version of a paper read at the American Historical Association convention held in December, 1977, in Dallas.Google Scholar
1. For a representative sampling of studies on Nazi Polish policy, see Madajczyk, C., Polityka Trzeciej Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce, 2 vols. (Warsaw, 1970), M. Broszat, National-sozialistische Polenpolitik, 1939–1945 (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1965); and S. Segal, The New Order in Poland (New York, 1942).Google Scholar
2. Official Polish government census statistics on “nationality” are notoriously unreliable. Therefore, using “religion” (as listed in the 1931 census) as a more reliable and generally auxiliary category, the following approximate demographic profile of Poland in 1939 emerges:Google Scholar
| Religion | % of pop. | Ethnicity | Numbers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roman Catholic | 54.8 | Poles | 22,500,000 |
| Orthodox | 11.8 | Ukrainians/Belorussians | 8,000,000 |
| Greek Catholic | 10.4 | Ukrainians/Belorussians | 8,000,000 |
| Jewish | 9.8 | Jews | 3,250,000 |
| Protestant | 2.6 | Germans | 900,000 |
NOTE: While there are obvious exceptions to the ethnicity/religion pairing — e.g., Protestant Poles, German Catholics, Orthodox Poles — allowing for these variations still produces a more reliable ethnoreligious profile than the raw “national identity” data.Google Scholar
Polish citizens remaining in German-occupied zones numbered approximately 2,000,000 Jews, 700,000 Germans, 500,000 Ukrainians, and 19,000,000 Poles, a total of about 22,000,000.Google Scholar
3. The resettlement (deportation) program is outlined in the “Decree of the Führer and Reich Chancellor for the Consolidation of German Folkdom,” dated October 7, 1939, and reproduced in the excellent study by Koehl, R. L., RKFDV: German Resettlement and Population Policy, 1939–1945 (Cambridge, Mass. 1957), pp. 242–48.Google Scholar
4. See the detailed discussion of Frank's working guidelines as developed in early October, 1939, in Piotrowski, St., ed., Hans Frank's Diary (Warsaw, 1961), pp. 41–42.Google Scholar
5. Printed in Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremburg Military Tribunal, 5 (Washington, 1951): 91–96.Google Scholar
6. Hans Frank's Diary, pp. 41–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7. In addition to Segal's book, cited above, for accounts of Nazi brutality towards the Poles see Frank's Diary, passim; the wartime publication of the Polish government-in-exile, The Black Book of Poland (New York, 1943), and the excellent study by Homze, R., Nazi German Forced Labor Policy, 1939–1945 (Princeton, 1961).Google Scholar
8. Koehl, , RKFDV, p. 85.Google Scholar
9. This bizarre example of Nazi political deviousness is discussed in Segal, New Order, p. 74; and the Black Book of Poland, pp. 435–38. The latter recounts other attempts in this direction in the incorporated territory, where the rural masses were told repeatedly that their past inclination to swift and thorough Germanization proved that they were really non-Poles at heart, despite their Polish ethnicity.Google Scholar
10. On the German minority of Interwar Poland, see Wynot, E. Jr., “The Polish Germans, 1919–1939: National Minority in a Multinational State,” Polish Review, 27, 1 (Winter, 1972), pp. 23–64.Google Scholar
11. Koehl, , RKFDV, pp. 80–81; Segal, New Order, pp. 22–28, 116-19. R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago, 1961), pp. 576–77, notes that the original Death Camp guards were carefully selected and trained SS men brought into Poland especially for this function; after the turn of German military fortunes their services were needed elsewhere, and then the Volksdeutsche replaced them.Google Scholar
12. Koehl, , RKFDV, pp. 73, 80–81, estimates that altogether about 500,000 Germans were “resettled” in the incorporated areas from October, 1939 to June, 1941, of which over half were placed in the Warthegau region (Lodz-Poznan).Google Scholar
13. Koehl, , RKFDV, pp. 138–40, 171, 183-84, cites German documentary evidence of the numerous Polish attacks against German officials and settlers in these regions.Google Scholar
14. Text printed in Degras, J., ed., Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, 1917–1941, 3 (London, 1953): 378. There are no precise data on how many “repatriates” opted for change in either direction.Google Scholar
15. The formal Soviet note to the Polish Ambassador in Moscow declaring a state of war was published in Izvestiia (September 18, 1939), and is included in Degras, Soviet Documents, 3:374. In a radio broadcast explaining his government's action, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov insisted that Moscow could not “remain indifferent to the fate of its blood brothers” who “even formerly were nations without rights and now have been utterly abandoned to their fate.” Soviet Documents, 3:375.Google Scholar
16. Vakar, N., Belorussia: The Making of a Nation (Cambridge, Mass., 1956), pp. 156–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17. Ibid., pp. 159–60.Google Scholar
18. The USSR Information Bulletin, Vol. 4, no. 18 (February 12, 1944, p. 4, claimed that by January, 1940, there were 932 Polish-language schools, 2 Polish theatres, “numerous” sociocultural clubs, a children's magazine, and a Polish-language daily newspaper provided for the Polish minority.Google Scholar
19. Vakar, , Belorussia, p. 160.Google Scholar
20. Golos narodu (Munich), March 23, 1952. For a detailed description of the Stalinization in the winter of 1939-40, see the article by Margolin, J., “Sovietizacija Zapodnoj Belorussii,” Novyj Zurnal, 18 (1948):242-71.Google Scholar
21. Hans Frank's Diary, p. 78.Google Scholar
22. Vakar, , Belorussia, pp. 170 ff.Google Scholar
23. The best study of this topic to date is R. Torzecki's Kwestia ukrainska w polityce III Rzezy (1933-1945) (Warsaw, 1972), especially chs. 1-3 (pp. 19–193).Google Scholar
24. For a concise description and analysis of interwar Poland's Ukrainian policy, see Wynot, E. Jr., “The Ukrainians and the Polish Regime, 1937–1939,” Ukrains'kyi istoryk, 7 (1970): 44–60.Google Scholar
25. This basic conflict of strategies is summarily reported in Torzecki, pp. 208–10. Toland, John (Adolf Hitler [New York, 1976], p. 914) notes that Hitler “characteristically” was content “to take no active part in the power struggle between Himmler and Rosenberg that would surely begin” with the invasion of Russia. For a more expansive discussion of Rosenbergs plans, see J. Thorwald, The Illusion: Soviet Soldiers in Hitler's Armies (New York, 1975), pp. 9–15, which shows Hitler to be considerably more overtly hostile to the schemes.Google Scholar
26. Black Book of Poland, p. 403.Google Scholar
27. Armstrong, J. A., Ukrainian Nationalism, 1939–1945 (New York, 1955), pp. 49–51; see also Volodymyr Kubijovych, Ukraintsi v Heneralnii Hubernii, 1939–1941: Istoriia Ukrains'koho Tsentralnoho Komitetu (Chicago, 1975).Google Scholar
28. Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia. ed. Kubijovyč, Volodymyr. (University of Toronto Press, 1963). 1:887-88. Armstrong (p. 52) cites schools as a specific example of the Committee's effectiveness: In 1942/43, 4,173 Ukrainian-language schools functioned in the General Government alone, whereas in the same area prior to 1939 there were only 2,510 such schools — and only 457 were really thouroughly Ukrainian, the rest being linguistically “mixed” schools with Polish teachers.Google Scholar
29. The files of the YIVO Jewish Research Institute (New York) contain a report from the German Ordnungspolizei (November 11, 1940) complaining of the prejudiced, often vicious, approach used towards the Poles by Ukrainian police forces, and warning of the possibly disruptive impact this could have on German rule.Google Scholar
30. According to Hans Frank, one such scheme emerged during a high-level conference between Hitler and ranking civilian and military leaders in Poland on September 12, 1939. Foreign Minister Ribbentrop suggested that the Germans provoke an uprising of the Ukrainians in Galicia that would doubtless turn into a bloody riot against the Poles, which could then be used as an excuse for the SS and Gestapo to intervene, “restore order”, and slaughter Poles and Jews indiscriminately in the process. Hans Frank's Diary, p. 44. While Frank scoffed at such bizarre ideas, he was convinced that this divide-and-rule policy was the key German trump card in the General Government, and elaborated upon it at every opportunity. See, e.g., his Diary, pp. 134–35, 267.Google Scholar
31. Ibid., entry of April 12, 1940 (pp. 131–32).Google Scholar
32. As evidence of this fear, and resultant discreet approach to the Ukrainian question reigning in Nazi leadership circles, John Armstrong cites a memorandum (March 2, 1940) from Hitler to Frank expressly urging caution in dealing with the Ukrainians, and a simultaneous decision to ban the book by Rosenberg's confidant Leibrandt, Georges, UdSSR (Berlin, 1940), from circulating even among highly placed Nazi officials because of its openly pro-Ukrainian separatist stance. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, pp. 47–48.Google Scholar
33. Ibid., pp. 73–75.Google Scholar
34. This segment is based mainly on Armstrong's Ukrainian Nationalism (pp. 64–68), the most objective account of Soviet Ukrainian policy in the period 1939–1941.Google Scholar
35. Many Ukrainians paid with their lives for this political indiscretion. Armstrong (Ukrainian Nationalism, pp. 76–77) notes that the Soviets rounded up as many Ukrainians as possible in the face of the rapid German advance, butchering many on the spot and forcibly deporting others into Central Asia and Siberia. For a comprehensive examination of the Ukrainian situation after the 1941 German invasion, see Kost'Pan'kivs'kyi, Roky nimets'koi okupatsii (New York, and Toronto, 1965) and his Vid derzhavy do komitetu (New York and Toronto, 1957); also Ihor Kamenetsky, Hitler's Occupation of Ukraine, 1941–1944: A Study of Totalitarian Imperialism (Milwaukee, 1956); Stepan M. Horak, “Ukraintsi v druhii svitovii viini, 1941–1942.” Ukrains'kyi istoryk, vol. 16, nos. 1-2 (1979).Google Scholar
36. Thornwald, , Illusion, pp. 17–23.Google Scholar
37. Even before the invasion of Russia, Frank openly conceded (Diary, pp. 46, 58) that Ukrainians were to be lumped together with Poles and other non-German peoples as targets of mass genocide. A revelation of Hitler's mentality occurred during a luncheon conversation on September 19, 1941, when he asserted that the Ukrainians — like all Slavs — would only work if thoroughly enslaved and brutalized; leniency and decent treatment were out of the question for them, let alone nonsensical ideas of self-rule. D. Irving, Hitler's War (New York, 1977), pp. 343–44. Of the many English-language studies of the Nazi-Soviet war, the best focus on actual German occupation policy remains Dallin, Alexander, German Rule in Russia, 1941–1945 (New York, 1957).Google Scholar
38. In his memoirs, Inside the Third Reich, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York, 1971), pp. 341 ff, Speer claims full responsibility for his part in this program. Simultaneously, he tries to excuse it by pointing out that, had he not interceded with Hitler, captured Soviet POW's and “civilian criminal elements” would have been summarily shot, rather than sent to Germany as workers. Ibid., pp. 351–52.Google Scholar
39. The Goebbels Diaries, 1942–1943, ed., trans., and with an introduction by Lochner, L. P. (New York, 1948), p. 77. Although Frank boasted to Hitler two years later that the Ukrainians were working under German supervision in “peace and quiet,” reports submitted to him from subordinates in the field indicated otherwise. Hans Frank's Diary, pp. 135–36.Google Scholar
40. The classic study of this aspect of World War II will remain Thorwald, Illusion, which makes use of primary sources hitherto denied researchers on the period. Earlier works, often of a participant's-memoir nature, include Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin 1939–1945 (Bonn, 1950); Sven Steenberg, Vlasov (New York, 1970); W. Strik-Strikfeldt, Against Satlin and Hitler (New York, 1973). The best known detachment of Ukrainians to enroll in German military service against the Red Army was the Ukrainian SS Voluntary Division “Galicia” (Halychyna), which subsequently became the First Division of the Ukrainian National Army under the command of Gen. Pavlo Shandruk. Although organized too late to be militarily effective, these Ukrainians nonetheless distinguished themselves in combat. Wolf-Dietrich Heike, Sie wollten die Freiheit: Die Geschichte der Ukrainischen Division 1943-45 (Dorheim, 1976); Pavlo Shandruk, Arms of Valor (New York, 1958); Basil Dmytryshyn, “The Nazis and the SS Volunteer Division ‘Galicia’,” The American Slavic and East European Review, vol. 15, no. 1 (1956). There were also some highly-effective Cossack detachments organized and directed by Gen. Hellmuth von Pannwitz, whose ranks included many Ukrainians; their story has been told by Bar, H. W., Kosaken-Saga, Kampf und Untergang der Deutschen Kosaken-Division im 2. Weltkrieg (Rastatt, 1966).Google Scholar
41. As emphasized by Stefan Korbonski (one of the key leaders of the Polish resistance movement), The Polish Underground State: A Guide to the Underground, 1939–1945 (New York 1978), p. 161.Google Scholar
42. Ibid., pp. 155–56, 158-59.Google Scholar
43. Koehl, , RKFDV, pp. 100–101, 198-99.Google Scholar
44. Hans Frank's Diary, pp. 89–90.Google Scholar
45. Ibid., pp. 91–92. Examples of his highly inflammatory anti-Semitic speeches are found on pp. 241, 242, 248-51, 258, 265, and 267-68. For actual documents issued by Frank on the Polish Jews, see Chapter 17 of the Black Book of Poland (pp. 236–45). In a revealing psychobiographical profile of Frank, “Hans Frank — Imitation of a Man of Violence,” Joachim Fest argues that Frank often realized the inherently negative impact such overt violence would have upon the German war effort, but was forced to escalating heights of brutality by his rivalry with the SS and Gestapo for true control over the General Government. FEST, The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership (New York, 1970), pp. 215–17. It should be emphasized that this is not a whitewashing of Frank, who emerges as a weak, despicable figure, but rather an attempt to explain some of his actions while Governor General.Google Scholar
46. For discussion of the prewar situation, see the book by Heller, C., On the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland between the Two World Wars (New York, 1977); and the more specific study by E. Wynot, Jr., “‘A Necessary Cruelty’: The Emergence of Official Anti-Semitism in Poland, 1936–1939,” American Historical Review, Vol. 76, No. 4 (October 1971), pp. 1035–58. For outbursts of Polish anti-Jewish activity directly after the 1939 defeat, see E. Ringelbaum, Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War (New York, 1976), passim; N. Levin, The Holocaust: the Destruction of the European Jewry, 1933–1945 (New York, 1967), pp. 165–70; and the contemporary publication, The Black Book of Polish Jewry (New York, 1943), pp. 29–31. See also the sensationalized Escape from the Holocaust, by W. Ruben (New York, 1978).Google Scholar
47. Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelbaum, ed. and trans. Sloan, J. (New York, 1974), pp. 21, 26-27, 36, 44-45, 51-52, 66, 68, 86, 117, and 187 (all instances of Polish-Jewish cooperation). For general studies of the wartime relations between these two ancient neighbors, see the following: P. Friedman, Their Brothers' Keepers (New York, 1957); K. Iranek-Osmecki, He Who Saves One Life (New York, 1971); W. Bartoszewski, The Blood Shed Unites Us (Warsaw, 1970); W. Bartoszewski and Z. Lewin, The Samaritans: Heroes of the Holocaust (New York, 1971); and St. Wronski and M. Zwolakowa, Polacy Zydzi, 1939–1945 (Warsaw, 1971). See also Korbonski's discussion of wartime Polish-Jewish relations, Polish Underground State, pp. 120–39.Google Scholar
48. Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, pp. 138–143.Google Scholar
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50. Vakar, , Belorussia, p. 160.Google Scholar
51. Margolin, , “Sovietizacija,” pp. 262–63.Google Scholar
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53. The head of the Wehrmacht Army Group South Rear Area Command on August 16 ordered that acts of sabotage not directly traceable to Ukrainians or Poles should be punished by mass, random executions of local Jews, “‘to convey the impression that we are just.’” Hilberg, , Destruction, p. 198.Google Scholar
54. Ibid., pp. 201–03; Levin, Holocaust, p. 281; Vakar, Belorussia, p. 187.Google Scholar
55. Black Book of Polish Jewry, pp. 100–101, 107-109; Hilberg, Destruction, pp. 189, 205; Segal, New Order, p. 73.Google Scholar
56. Hilberg, Destruction, (pp. 329–30, 576-77) details the selection process and performance of the non-German Death Camp guards, while Levin (Holocaust, pp. 371–61), Black Book of Polish Jewry (p. 128), and Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto (pp. 163, 170-71, 176, 310) discuss the action of the non-Polish Christian guards in the ghettoes. The most authoritative eyewitness account of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, by Ber Mark, describes the bloody Nazi revenge for the Jewish rebellion and notes bitterly, “The Ukrainian Fascists especially distinguished themselves during the massacre by their sadism, to the great pleasure of their German masters.” Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, trans. G. Freidlin (New York, 1975), p. 26.Google Scholar
57. On the hostile relations between Jewish and Christian partisans, see Levin, , Holocaust, pp. 266, 363-64, 372, 366-67, 380-83; D. Levin, “Life and Death of Jewish Partisans,” Yad Vashem Bulletin, 18 (April, 1966): 44-45; and the postscript to Ringelbaum's Polish-Jewish Relations by Joseph Kermish, pp. 275–315.Google Scholar
58. Daily incidents of Polish-Jewish cooperation, often on a low-keyed, personalized level, are recorded by Hilberg, (Destruction, p. 327) and especially Ringelbaum in Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto (pp. 199, 288, 292, 329, 322-23). Hans Frank's Diary (p. 274) reveals the Governor General's worry that the increasing Nazi pressure on the Jews was rapidly transforming Poles who earlier had been disinterested observers of Jewish fate into pro-Jewish resisters, a point amplified by Hilberg (Destruction, pp. 330–32).Google Scholar
59. Armstrong, , Ukrainian Nationalism, p. 172.Google Scholar
60. Prior to the Warsaw Ghetto rising, such diverse groups as an organization of Polish women back in Poland and a movement among Catholic priests called the “Front for the Restoration of Poland” issued manifestoes to the London exile circles, on the one hand, and their fellow sufferers, in the country, on the other, urging immediate assistance to the Jews (printed in the Black Book of Polish Jewry, pp. 132–34). Acounts of Polish underground help for the Ghetto resisters come from such diverse sources as the above-cited Black Book (p. 235), Hilberg (Destruction, pp. 322–23), and Mark (in Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, passim). However, the last stresses throughout that the pro-London Home Army (Armia Krajowa) gave largely token assistance — and that only reluctantly — while the pro-Communist groups were far more generous and, apparently, enthusiastic in their support.Google Scholar
61. The reluctant pro-Jewish attitude of the London forces was evident as early as 1942, as revealed by a contemporary observation that “The anti-Semitic manifestations among some Polish leaders in London are not rare occurences ….” Segal, , New Order, p. 275. While Ringelbaum (Notes, pp. 295–96) may be a bit extreme in charging the London Poles with deliberately covering up the Jewish situation to keep Allied attention focused exclusively on the tragedy of the Poles at home in Poland, it does appear that the presence of prewar Nationalists in the exiled government exerted an inhibiting influence on the state's willingness to embrace the Jewish cause more openly and sincerely: Kermish, Postcript to Ringelbaum, Polish-Jewish Relations. A similar situation and mentality prevailed in the Soviet Union among the Polish leadership on that front, although it was not displayed as publicly. It has been charged that recruitment for the Polish army of Gen. Anders in the Soviet Union at first refused to accept Jews, and then, when pressured into doing so by Moscow, balked at including their Jewish troops in the eventual evacuation to the West through Iran. P. Meyer and B. Weinryb, The Jews in the Soviet Satellites (Syracuse, 1953), pp. 360–62. For the important role played by Jews in the Soviet-sponsored partisan movement, see R. Ainsztein's “Soviet Jewry in the Second World War,” pp. 281–82, in Lionel Kochan, ed., The Jews in Soviet Russia since 1917 (London, 1970).Google Scholar