|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
The Bezirk Bialystok ("district or region of Bialystok"), also Belostok[1] was an administrative unit that existed during the World War II occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany. It was located to the south-east of East Prussia, in present-day northeastern Poland as well as smaller sections of adjacent Belarus and Lithuania.
The territory lay to the east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line and was consequently occupied by the Soviet Union and incorporated into the Belarussian Soviet Socialist Republic. In the aftermath of the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 this western portion of then-Belarus, which until 1939 belonged to the Polish state was placed under German Civilian Administration (Zivilverwaltungsgebiet). As the Bezirk Bialystok, the area was under German rule from 1941 to 1944/45, without ever formally being incorporated into the German Reich.
The district was established because of its perceived military importance as a bridgehead on the far bank of the Memel.[2] Germany had desired to annex the area even during the First World War, based on the historical claim arising from the Third Partition of Poland, which had delegated Bialystok to Prussia from 1795 to 1806 (see New East Prussia).[3]
Contrary to most other territories that lay east of the Molotov-Ribbentrop line and which were permanently annexed by the Soviet Union following the Second World War, most of the territory was later returned to Poland.
After the start of Operation Barbarossa invading Wehrmacht soldiers mass murdered 379 people, pacified 30 villages, burned down 640 houses and 1385 industrial buildings[4]
The first decree for the implementation of Civil Administration in these newly occupied eastern territories were issued on 17 July 1941. The borders for this area ran from the southeastern protrusion of East Prussia (the Suwalki triangle) following the Neman river up to Mosty (excluding Grodno), including Volkovysk and Pruzhany up to the Bug River to the west of Brest-Litovsk and then following the border of the General Government to East Prussia.
The establishment of the Bezirk Bialystok followed on 1 August 1941; it was simultaneously excluded from the operational zones of the German Army in the Soviet Union. From then till 1944 Gestapo and SS engaged in exectutions in the area, for example in Nowosiółki forests near Choroszcze alone they executed 4,000 people. Other places of execution and atrocities existed like Osuszek forest near village of Piliki[4].
At the same time some small lands to the east of the 1939–1941 German-Soviet border were incorporated into the East Prussian district of Scharfenwiese. With this the city of Scharfenwiese henceforth held more hinterland to the east.
The center of administration for the eponymous Bezirk Bialystok was the city of Bialystok. The East Prussian Higher President and Gauleiter Erich Koch from Königsberg (modern-day Kaliningrad) was appointed Civilian Commissioner for the area, later Chief of Civil Administration (Chef-der-Zivilverwaltung).
During first stage of Nazi repressions they concerned mostly the inhabitants of villages who were subject to collective punishment. Pacifications were enacted to crush any resistance movement, stop assistance to independence movement and escaped POWs and Jews. During pacification all or most buildings were destroyed, possessions were robbed, and the local population was either murdered or sent to labor camps or prisons[4].
On 1 November 1941 the city of Grodno including its surroundings was transferred from the Reichskommissariat Ostland to the Bezirk Bialystok. It was later renamed to Garten (En: "Garden") in 1942.
During the night of 15-16 of August 1943, the Białystok Ghetto Uprising was an insurrection in Poland's Białystok Ghetto against Germany by several hundred Polish Jews started an armed struggle against the troops carrying out liquidation of 15,000 people still living in the Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp. It was organized and led by Antyfaszystowska Organizacja Bojowa, a part of the Anti-Fascist Block, and was the second largest ghetto uprising, after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.
On 20 October 1943 the southern border of the East Prussian district Sudauen (Suwalki) in the Province of East Prussia with the Bezirk Bialystok was adjusted and moved back on the northern side of the Augustów Canal.
In July and August 1944 the Bezirk Bialystok was occupied up to the Narew-Bobr line by the Red Army. The government seat for the Chief of Civil Administration was then moved to Bartenstein.
In January 1945 the Red Army re-occupied the last areas of the Bezirk Bialystok, namely the remaining parts of the districts Łomża and Grajewo, driving the Germans completely out of the territory.
Bialystok District was divided into eight county-level administrative units, called district police stations (German: kreiskommissariate, Polish: komisariatów powiatowych). These were police stations Bialystok (Kreiskommissariat Nikolaus), Bielsk-Podlaski (Kreiskommissariat Tubenthal), Grajewski (Kreiskommissariat Piachor, then Knispel), Grodno (Kreiskommissariat Plötz), łomża (Kreiskommissariat Gräben), Sokolski (Kreiskommissariat Seiler), Volkovysk (Kreiskommissariat Pfeifer) and the city of Bialystok.
Erich Koch was appointed "civil commissioner" (Zivilkommissar) on August 1, 1941, and later appointed as Chief of Civil Administration (Chef der Zivilverwaltung) of the Bezirk Bialystok until 27 July 1944. During this period, he was Gauleiter of East Prussia and Reichskommissar in Reichskommissariat Ukraine.
The day-to-day activities were handled by his permanent deputy head of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) in Konigsberg, East Prussia , Waldemar Magunia from 15 August 1941 until 31 January 1942. He was replaced on 1 February 1942 until 27 July 1944 by Friedrich de Brix, Landrat (District Mayor) (German: Landratsamt) of Tilsit.
At the time of its establishment, the Bezirk Bialystok had a population consisting of 1.383.000 inhabitants. Of these 830.000 were of Polish, 300.000 of White Ruthenian (Belarussian), 200.000 of Ukrainian, 50.000 of Jewish and 2.000 of German origin.
|
||||||||||||||||||||