Zamość Uprising

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Expulsion of Poles from villages in Zamość Region by SS in December 1942.
Expulsion of Poles from villages in Zamość Region by SS in December 1942.
Monument to Polish insurgents in Zamość
Monument to Polish insurgents in Zamość
Monument to Polish insurgents in Biłgoraj
Monument to Polish insurgents in Biłgoraj

The Zamość Uprising refers to the actions by Polish resistance (primarily Armia Krajowa and Bataliony Chłopskie) against the forced expulsion of Poles from the Zamość region (Zamość Lands, Zamojszczyzna) under the Nazi Generalplan Ost. The uprising lasted from 1942 to 1944.[1]

The defense of the Zamość region is considered to be among the largest actions of the Polish resistance.[2][1]

Contents

[edit] German attrocities

For more details on this topic, see Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles.

In 1942, the Zamość region, due to its fertile black soil, was chosen for further German colonisation in the General Government as part of Generalplan Ost.[3][4] In fact the Zamość region expulsions and colonization can be considered the beginning of the large-scale implementation of the Generalplan Ost.[5] The city itself was to be renamed "Himmlerstadt" (Himmler City), later changed to Pflugstadt (Plow City), which was to symbolise the German "plow" that was to "plow the East".[3] The German occupiers had planned the relocation of at least 60,000 ethnic Germans to the area before the end of 1943. An initial "test trial" expulsion was performed in November 1941, and the whole operation ended in anti-partisan pacification operations combined with expulsions in June/July 1943 which were codenamed Wehrwolf Action I and II.

Over 110,000 Polish people from approximately 300 villages were expelled to make room for German (and to a lesser extent, Ukrainian) settlers as part of Nazi plans for establishment of German colonies in the conquered territories (Generalplan Ost).[3][5][6][7] Some villagers were resettled in the Warsaw or Lublin area, but about 50,000 of those expelled were sent as forced labour to Germany, and some others were sent to the Nazi concentration camps.[3] Some villages were simply razed[4] and inhabitants executed.[3] Additionally almost 30,000 children were kidnapped by German authorities from their parents for potential Germanisation.[8][9][3][1][7]

[edit] Polish resistance

For more details on this topic, see Polish resistance in World War II.

Local people resisted the action with great determination[3]; they escaped into forests, organised self-defence, helped people who were expelled, and bribed kidnapped children out of German hands.[1] Units of Polish resistance (primarily of Armia Krajowa and Bataliony Chłopskie) as well as elements of Soviet partisans and the pro-Soviet Gwardia Ludowa helped to evacuate Polish civilians and assaulted German colonists and forces in the region.[10] In December 1942 one of the first large-scale partisan battles of WWII occurred in the region. The resistance forces numbered over several thousand armed forest fighters. The first phase of the resistance took place from December 1942 to February 1943; the Germans then lessened their activities for a few months but counterattacked in June, with major anti-partisan actions and terror directed against the civilian population (Wehrwolf Action I and II).[11]

Nonetheless after several major battles between the partisans and the German units (the most notable being the battles of Wojda, Róża, Zaboreczno, Długi Kat, Lasowce and Hrubieszów[11]), the Germans had to halt the action and in the end very few German settlers were brought to the area.[12] Until the middle of 1943, the Germans managed to settle 8,000 colonists; the number increased by a couple of thousand in 1944. The increasing harassment from the partisans meant that the Germans began to lose the control of the region as early as the spring of 1943.[11]

In the first half of 1944 Polish civilians and resistance was also attacked by Ukrainian units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (see massacres of Poles in Volhynia). Nonetheless by the summer of 1944 the Polish partisans, based in the large forests of the region had taken control of most of the countryside, limiting German control to the major towns.[11] In the summer of 1944 Germans again initiated major anti-partisan operations (Sturmwind I and Sturmwind II) which resulted in the battle of Osuchy (one of the largest battles between the Polish resistance and Nazi Germany), with the insurgents sustaining heavy casualties.[13] However soon afterwards, in July, the remaining Polish units took part in the nationwide Operation Tempest and managed to liberate several towns and villages in the Zamość region. The Germans, pressured by the advancing Red Army, were forced to abandon the region.

[edit] Rememberance

Several monuments, museums and cemeteries have been raised in the area over time. In the People's Republic of Poland the actions of the communist Armia Ludowa were emphasized at the expense of those of the non-communist resistance.

A recent Polish documentary dedicated to the uprising has been recognized in the New York Festivals of 2008 with a bronze medal.[1] [2] [3] [[4]

[edit] References

General
Inline
  1. ^ a b c d Joseph Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East, McFarland, 2004, ISBN 0786416254, Google Print, p.182
  2. ^ (Polish) Armia Krajowa. Encyklopedia PWN. Last accessed on 14 March 2008.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g www.deathcamps.org/occupation/zamosc%20ghetto.html "Zamosc Ghetto". Last retrieved on March 16, 2008
  4. ^ a b Joseph Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East, McFarland, 2004, ISBN 0786416254, Google Print, p.110-111
  5. ^ a b Joseph Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East, McFarland, 2004, ISBN 0786416254, Google Print, p.181
  6. ^ Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland, Columbia University Press, 2005, Google Print, p.338
  7. ^ a b Tadeusz Piotrowski, Poland's Holocaust, McFarland & Company, 1997, ISBN 0-7864-0371-3. Google Print, p.22
  8. ^ (Polish) "Polacy wypędzeni", IPN Bulletin, nr5(40) May 2004
  9. ^ Lukas, Richard C. Did the Children Cry? Hitler's War against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939-1945. Hippocrene Books, New York, 2001
  10. ^ Joseph Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East, McFarland, 2004, ISBN 0786416254, Google Print, p.142
  11. ^ a b c d Joseph Poprzeczny, Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East, McFarland, 2004, ISBN 0786416254, Google Print, p.190
  12. ^ Włodzimierz Borodziej, The Warsaw Uprising of 1944, Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2005, ISBN 0299207307, Google Print, p.41
  13. ^ Martin Gilbert, Second World War A Complete History, Holt Paperbacks, 2004, ISBN 0805076239, Google Print, p.542

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading

  • Janusz Gmitruk, Powstanie Zamojskie, Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego, 2003, ISBN 83-87838-69-1
  • Jan Grygiel, Związek Walki Zbrojnej i Armia Krajowa w Obwodzie Zamojskim 1939-1944, Polskie Wydawnictwo Naukowe 1985
  • Walki oddziałów ZWZ-AK i BCh Inspektoratu Zamojskiego w latach wojny 1939-1944, Związek Żołnierzy Armii Krajowej Okręg Zamość 1990

[edit] See also

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