Figure 1.--The purpose of the NAZI-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was in fact war and aggresion. Here we see Polish POWs taken by the Germans after invading Poland. The snapshot was taken near Brest-Litovsk. It was taken by a German soldier (late-September 1939). Brest Litovsk is where German and Soviet armies met and signed a temporary occupation accord beginning the partition of Poland.

The Poles were the first country to resist the Germans militarily. Most all of the Polish Army that survived the fighting was captured: around 400,000 men by the Germans and over 200,000 by the Soviets (September-October 1939). Transit camps were set up in the Polish cities of Radom, Zyrardow, Siedlce, Krosniewice, Kutno and others. The German treatment of Polish POWs varied and was not nearly as barbaric as that accorded the Soviet POWSs when Hitler launched Barbarossa. As the Polish POWs were taken in 1939 and given the conditions they experienced, large numbers did not survive the War. Given the substantial Jewish minority in Poland, the country had the largest percentage of Jewish soldiers of any World War II beligerants. Over 32,000 Jewish soldiers were killed during the German invasion (September 1939). This included Jews killed while trying to surrender or mmediately after surrendering. About 61,000 were taken prisoner. Some German soldiers separated Jewish POWs and shot them. Once in internment camps a more formalized process of separating out the Jewish POWs began, but we do not yet have full details. We do know that it was a process undrtaken by the Wehrmacht, not the SS. Almost all of the Jewish POWs died while in German hands. Some were transferred to Ghettoes. Some to harsh labor brigades. Many Polish soldiers escaped during the fighting when the Germans did not have full control of the situation. They disappeared into the local population. The German practice at first was to hold all the Poles in POW camps. And at this time they provide lists of the men to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The IDRC lists included relatively few Jewish names despite the numbers taken prisoner. The German practice changed abruptly (February 1940). They stopped providing lists to the ICRC. Suddenly without explantion, the Germans resumed sending POW lists to the ICRC (1943). But they only included the names of officers. The Katyn discovery may have been a factor in this unexplained change in policy. The Germans wanted to prove that they were not killing Polish officers. Conditions for the officers varied. Some were held in relatively corrct circumstances. It seens that the enlisted men were no longer under the control of the Wehrmacht. They had been turned into civilian workers. We are not sure about the conditions. This violated the 1929 Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of prisoners of war. It deprived them of POW status and the protections that should have been provided them. Conditions in these camps were terrible and the death rate was high, but they were not death camps. There were survivors. Polish POWs causing problems were sent to concentration camps. At any rate the ICRC lost track of most of them. The enlisted POWs were transported to German labor and prison camps, abused, used for slave labor, or sometimes shot. Substantial numbers of Polish soldiers fled into neighboring Hungary and Romania when it was clear that the fight was lost. The Germans for a while did not have control of the borders. The Poles there were interned. Both countries were within the NAZI orbit, but there was sympathy for the Poles, especially Hungary. Polish soldiers began disappearing from the internment camps as aesult of both bribable and sympathy. As aeslt, individually and in small groups, Poles made their way west to France and Britain. NAZI diplomats pressed Hungarian and Romanian officials on this, but at this point the NAZIs did not yet in aposition to demand. As a result, a new small Polish military force began to take shape. It was not large enough to play a role resisting the German Western campaign. It would play a role in the Battle of Britain. There were also some Polish soldiers and airmen fighting with the British taken prisoners, but we do not yet know about their treatmnent. The numbers of Polish POWs tken at this time were very small.

Created: 11:19 PM 12/25/2016
Last updated: 11:19 PM 12/25/2016