– In 1939, in the autumn, 400 Polish towns in the pre-war Pomeranian Voivodeship flowed in blood, death was estimated by historians, about 50,000 people. Polish intellectuals, officials, clergymen of the Catholic Church, farmers, workers, but besides the sick – treated by wellness care facilities. Only respective 1000 of these people were found, identified – said Dr. Karol Nawrocki during the press conference in Chojnice.
During a peculiar conference held in the cemetery, a tribute was paid to the fallen and the search for further victims was announced. It has been almost 80 years since the end of the war, and we are inactive uncovering the remains of the dead countrymen, the savagely murdered by the Germans.
This crime has never been punished. 2 mass graves were found in Chojnice, where at least 70 people were discovered. Most likely these are the bodies of residents of the National Welfare Department in Chojnice, who were shot by German officers in late October 1939.
The National Memorial Institute has been searching for bodies of victims for years to identify and paper German crimes in Pomerania. Thanks to the self-sacrifice work of historians, we inactive learn about fresh examples of savagery from Nazi Germans and learn the names of people murdered only for being Poles.
After careful analysis and archaeological research, the Pomeranian historians reached another place where the bodies of Poles murdered by the Germans – the alleged Chojnica Valley of Death – rest. This is another discovery made as a consequence of the investigation of the Branch Crime Investigation Commission against the Polish Nation in Gdańsk on the German crimes of the Second planet War. In the first phase of the war, the Germans murdered up to 50,000 Polish citizens in Pomerania: intelligence, clergy, workers, landowners, mentally sick people. Thanks to the actions of the IPN, this genocide will not be forgotten.
The mass graves in Chojnice are just 1 of many places in Pomerania, where the Germans executed the Polish population. This was not accidental or ad hoc, it was an component of the planned and meticulously conducted action “cleaning up these areas” from Poles. Already in the fall of 1939, the Nazis began a systematic and methodical operation of the genocide of Poles. This action by historians is called the Pomeranian Crime. Poles and Jews surviving in Pomerania, representatives of various social groups – intelligence, clergy, workers, landowners – and mentally sick people, were murdered in the first months of planet War II by Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz troops – local Germans operating under SS supervision. According to various estimates, between 20 and 50,000 people were murdered.
– In 1939, in the autumn, 400 Polish towns in the pre-war Pomeranian Voivodeship flowed in blood, death was estimated by historians, about 50,000 people. Polish intellectuals, officials, clergymen of the Catholic Church, farmers, workers, but besides the sick – treated by wellness care facilities. Only respective 1000 of these people were found, identified – said Dr. Karol Nawrocki during the press conference.
The president of the Institute pointed out that the ground for extermination was prepared by German propaganda for years, inactive in the days of the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. In search of the alleged surviving space, Germany has been planning to “reply” these areas for decades. Initially by Germanization and depolonization, but besides by awakening common hatred. In 1939, Hitler materialized this plan in an even more criminal way.
“The 3rd Reich did not want to duplicate the errors of the nineteenth century Germanization policy of Prussia. Bismarck's policy did not lead to the liquidation of the Polish nation. Hitler, recognizing this as ineffective, added extermination to the recovery and demolition of Polish culture and language.(... Before entering Poland, the German panic apparatus prepared letters with names of Poles. They were constantly replenishing after aggression, mainly thanks to information from volksdeutschs. While the future of central Poland in September and early October 1939 was not foregone, the western territory of the Second Republic of Poland Germany considered German indigenous lands and their business was foregone. The main goal of the German occupier was to “reply” them (Entpolonisierung). The first of the methods of reprisal was genocide" – we read on the peculiar prepared by the IPN website Crimepomorska1939.en.
IN, crimepomorska1939.enToday's press conference in Chojnice showed how much work the Institute of National Memory has done in explaining this crime. However, much has yet to be done. Explaining the German crimes of planet War II is surely not a taste for our western neighbors. This in any way explains the furious attack on IPN and attempts to restrict its activities by cutting funds by the current government, or even announcements of the liquidation of the Institute.
