JF Ptak Science Books Post 2835
Poland, a Factual Statement that Every American Ought to Read (published by the Polish Information Center, 151 East 67th Street, NYC) sounds like a semi-dry academic pamphlet, waiting to be ignored. But it was printed in 1943, and the audience then would no doubt have been interest in what the hell was going on there. It turns out that there is some extraordinary reading to be done in its quick sixteen pages, not the least of which is a notice of the murder of a million Jews and a description of camp life in Auschwitz (Oswiecim). As there are only five copies of the work located in libraries worldwide (according to WorldCat/OCLC) I thought I'd reproduce its most significant section , the “German Reign of Terror” (pp 12-15). This leads with these numbers of crimes committed by the Germans: To forced labor in Germany (1,000,000 Poles); to the Government General (700,000 Poles); shot and murdered (1,200,000 Poles), starved to death (about 500,000 Poles). “It staggers the imagination to think that every tenth human being in German occupied Poland had already been shot or hanged tortured to death, starved...or deported to Germany.”
There are other stories of mass executions, as well as a short description of Auschwitz: “More than 60,000 Poles have been murdered in the concentration camps of the Government General and the Reich. Oswiecim is the most gruesome on Polish territory. It was set up in July 1940 and consists of ten barracks, each of which is supposed to contain 400 prisoners, but actually houses 1,000 men. Prisoners wear thin cotton uniforms in winter as in summer. They were only given shoes on October 15 and had no caps before December. On arrival they had to fill out answers to 32 questions about their life, family, health, wealth and political activities. Two weeks suffice to break men above 45 years. Younger men lose their vigor and youth within half a year...”
And this: "The Jewish population is closed up in ghettos and suffers no less than the Poles. Particularly in the last six months the Jewish population has suffered an unheard of persecution amounting to a process of willful extermination. Losses in Jewish population up to 1943 exceed one million persons killed."
- Note: I don't know enough to speak about the obvious demarcation in this report between "Poles" and "Jews" except to say that it exists in the text and that I'm aware of it.
And so, here is the scan of the “German Reign of Terror” section:
German Reign of Terror
In his message to Poland broadcast on May 3rd, 1941, Prime Minister Churchill said: "Every day Hitler’s firing parties are busy in a dozen lands. Monday he shoots Dutchmen, Tuesday Norwegians, Wednesday French and Belgians stand against the wall, Thursday it is the Czechs who must suffer, and now there are the Serbs and the Greeks to fill his repulsive bill of execution. But always, all of the days, there are the Poles.”
Let us be frank: for many reasons the world still is not fully aware of the enormity of Polish suffering nor does it realize the importance of Poland’s contribution to the Allied fight for common victory.
January 1943 saw the l,200th Day of the German occupation of Poland.
During the 1,200 days the Germans deported, confiscating all their belongings:
- To forced labor in Germany 1,000,000 Poles
- To the Government General 700,000 Poles
- The Germans shot, hanged, murdered 1,200,000 Poles
- Starved to death about 500,000 Poles
It staggers the imagination to think that every tenth human being in German occupied Poland has already been hanged or shot, tortured to death, starved, or after being turned out of house and home, robbed of all his worldly goods, deported to forced labor in Germany or left to face hunger and privation.
The German ten-year plan for Poland, formulated in 1939 included:
- The "incorporation” into the Reich of Western Poland, that is Silesia, Poznania, Pomerania and part of central Poland, and the setting up of a colonial Government General over the rest of the country.
- Deportation from Western Poland of all Poles, about nine million in all, and the settling of German colonists on their lands.
- Extermination of Polish intellectuals and complete destruction of Polish culture, literature, Science and art.
- Moral degradation of Polish youth.
- Confiscation of Polish property.
- Transformation of the Polish nation, after decimation and the breaking of its spirit, into a slave-people working for the Germans
And the Nazi mouthpiece in occupied Poland, the Ostdeutscher Beobachter wrote in its "New Year" issue for 1940 that "Germans must use the most absolute severity and that they must consider the Poles only as a necessary evil, which could not as yet have been completely weeded out.”
A Nazi henchman, Ingber, in an address at Bytom in the fall of 1941, stated:
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"We still need the Poles now, but after the war we shall liquidate them. . . . Whenever you hear anyone speaking Polish on the Street, you should immediately set things right with a stick or, if need be, with a weapon ...”
For the past three years, the life of a Pole has been utterly without value.
When, in December 1939 a German was killed in a quarrel following a drinking bout in an inn in Wawer, a village near Warsaw, all the male inhabitants were dragged from their homes and one hundred and twenty of them were immediately shot, without any form of trial. In March 1940, a detachment of Polish guerrillas engaged the Germans in the Swietokrzyskie Mountains. Three days later the Germans burned eight villages and murdered the entire male population of these villages numbering more than 1,200 men, women and children.
These crimes are perpetrated by the Gestapo without even the formalities, or rather the farce of a trial. Not long ago German newspapers reported that in the District of Gostynin, 100 persons were arrested and shot in retribution for the murder of two German police- men. At Back, in the district of Plock, several score of people were shot for the death of one German policeman.
Deaths of German soldiers, however, are not the only excuse for the murder of hundreds of Poles, for as the mayor of Lodz announced on September 1941, to the inhabitants of Zdunska Wola, the Poles were collectively responsive for sabotage. For such "crimes” as arson, damage to Communications of derailing, a hundred Poles would be massacred. These words were not idle threats. Mass executions of Poles in the Lodz and Sieradz districts were soon after reported in the press. At the end of August, several stacks of wheat belonging to German settlers were destroyed by tire. Immediately all Poles living in the neighborhood were arrested. On September 17th, public mass executions took place in the vicinity of the Wolczanski forest and in Sieradz.
More than 60,000 Poles have been murdered in the concentration camps of the Government General and the Reich. Oswiecim is the most gruesome on Polish territory. It was set up in July 1940 and consists of ten barracks, each of which is supposed to contain 400 prisoners, but actually houses 1,000 men. Prisoners wear thin cotton uniforms in winter as in summer. They were only given shoes on October 15 and had no caps before December. On arrival they had to fill out answers to 32 questions about their life, family, health, wealth and political activities.
Two weeks suffice to break men above 45 years. Younger men lose their vigor and youth within half a year.
Reveille is sounded at 4:30. No matter what the weather the men, stripped to the waist, are forced to wash outdoors without soap. This is followed by a roll call and a breakfast of one cup of murky hot water, called coffee. At six o’clock they march to work—to dig gravel from the Sola River, to work in stone quarries, to load trucks, and often to carry heavy logs from one spot to another and then back again.
The groups of chained prisoners are guarded by sadistic German ex-convicts who are promised promotion or commutation of their sentences, for torturing these unfortunates to death. Human imagination shrinks before the atrocities that take place. Every day some scores of Polish men die beneath the lash or are kicked to death without any provocation. One day the warden called for a new form of entertainment to top his drinking bout. Races were arranged for the prisoners each carrying a 100-lb. weight. Those who failed to complete the course were beaten over the head with a mailed fist. Fifteen prisoners died that day.
Work lasts from six to four, with half an hour’s rest at mid-day, when prisoners are served 2 ounces of bread and soup made of rotted cabbage leaves. Those unfit for work or too ili to move, are placed in a "sick room” where they are left to die without medical attention. One prisoner who was released arrived home, his teeth knocked out, his ribs broken and with deep gashes on his wrists made by the heavy chains. He died three days later.
There are three degrees of beating, graded according to the "crime.” The first degree is 25 lashes, second degree 50 and third degree 75 lashes. Death usually follows the 50-lash punishment. Prisoners with a temperature of more than 102° are sent to a hospital. Those who report with temperatures of only 101° are charged with sabotage.
Every day death notices from Oswiecim reach families throughout Poland. There are days when one postman delivers scores of these "death cards.” Urns hearing "ashes” of the victims are sent to families upon payment of a four-mark fee. One family received the "death card” and urn twice. The "ashes” sent are always rubble.
A man strong in mind and body returns from Oswiecim a human wreck, his heart weakened to the point of physical exhaustion and with a complete nervous breakdown.
To wipe out and destroy, morally and physically, such is the aim of the German occupants in Poland. The biade of the German executioner’s axe falls mostly on the necks of the educated classes and of Polish leaders.
Polish Universities, professional and technical institutions as well as high schools and all private schools are closed. The Germans degrade the morals of Polish youth by pornographic literature and movies, by encouraging drink and vice in all its forms.
Wounds inflicted on religion in Poland are terrible. Seven Polish dioceses have been completely liquidated: Poznan, Gniezno, Wloclawek, Plock, Pelplin, Lodz, Katowice. Many other dioceses have been partially liquidated. Seven bishops were deported, ninety percent of the clergy has been imprisoned or exiled. A large number of priests have been executed by the Gestapo; churches are closed and many millions of Catholics are entirely without the sacraments and Mass in a country where more than seventy percent of the people are Catholics.
Poles are being slowly and scientifically starved to death. The Germans claim that to maintain life, Poles require only a quarter as many calories as an ordinary individual Polish rations contain only 15% of the amount of protein and 10% of the amount of fat essential for the health of a normal person.
Free market prices are from 700 to 1000% higher than in 1939. And since wages have either remained at a pre-war level or have been reduced by the Germans, it is obvious that 95% of the population is condemned to official rations, in other words, to slow starvation.
The Jewish population is closed up in ghettos and suffers no less than the Poles. Particularly in the last six months the Jewish population has suffered an unheard of persecution amounting to a process of willful extermination. Losses in Jewish population up to 1943 exceed one million persons killed.
The liquidation of Polish public and private property in Polish cities illegally "incorporated” in the Reich has been completed. The Germans not only took all real estate away from the Poles, but they also confiscated all Stores and workshops, and even household furniture. The eviction of the few small landowners that still remain continues. Evicted Poles are replaced by German colonists, imported from the East.
The Poles, to whom only labor for hire is open, are exploited by the Germans; they receive lower pay from which is deducted the "Polenabzug,” a fiat 15% levy on their gross earnings, in addition to the taxes, social Insurance, dues and contributions to the Arbeitsfront, from which, needless to say, they derive no benefits.
Theatres and cinemas are closed to Poles. In the Wartheland, no Pole may enter a cafe or a restaurant. Public parks and beaches are not for Poles. Even in trolley cars and trains, Poles must be segregated. In Poznan, Poles are forbidden to ride on trolley cars between 7:15 and 8:15 in the morning and must cover long distances to work on foot. In all government offices, Poles are face to face with the brutality and overbearing of German officiate. German youths, incited by their leaders, assault Poles, often women and old men, in the streets. In some provincial towns, failure to salute Germans is severely punished. In "incorporated” territory Poles may not leave their residential quarter without special permission, that is difficult to obtain.
Three years of the bell on earth called "German occupation of Poland” has not broken the Poles. None of the other occupied countries, without exception, was able to endure the relentless oppression more than a few months and even if the majority of the nation continued to resist there was always some small group willing to compromise and cooperate with the enemy.
Poland is the only nation that has had no Quisling, no Hacha, no Lavai, even though the Germans have repeatedly, and as lately as the spring of 1942, made offers of "collaboration.”
Defenseless, deprived of all aid from without, a prey to the most bestial oppression, the Polish nation fights on. Men and women, the very old and the very young, all have flung their challenge to the invader. Nearly 400,000 murdered Poles stand for 400,000 acts of active and often of armed resistance.."
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