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Honorary guard in front of the Freedom Oak outside Collegium Novum, where soil has been deposited from Sachsenhausen, Dachau, and Katyn – sites where Cracovian scholars were murdered Photo by Anna Wojnar
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
Arrest cards
ALMA MATER
Jagiellonian University monthly magazine Special edition No. 178, November 2015 EDITORIAL OFFICE 31-126 Kraków, ul. Michałowskiego 9/3 tel. +48 12 663 23 50 e-mail: almamater@uj.edu.pl www.almamater.uj.edu.pl
PROGRAMME COUNCIL Zbigniew Iwański Antoni Jackowski Zdzisław Pietrzyk Aleksander B. Skotnicki Joachim Śliwa ACADEMIC CONSULTANT Franciszek Ziejka EDITORIAL TEAM Rita Pagacz-Moczarska – Chief Editor Zofia Ciećkiewicz – Editor Anna Wojnar – Photojournalist
English translation and proof-reading by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa PUBLISHER Jagiellonian University 31-007 Kraków, ul. Gołębia 24 Original idea and layout for the magazine by Rita Pagacz-Moczarska PRE-PRESS Agencja Reklamowa „NOVUM” www.novum.krakow.pl PRINTED BY Drukarnia Pasaż sp. z o.o. 30-363 Kraków, ul. Rydlówka 24 Cover photographs: Front – Prisoners being led into Sachsenhausen concentration camp JU Archive collection Back – View of Collegium Physicum from ulica Św. Anny, with Collegium Maius in the background Photo by Stanisław Mucha from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection The Editors do not return uncommissioned texts and reserve the right to abridge and edit submitted texts. The Editors are not liable for advertisements and notices. Sent to print on 30 October 2015
ISSN 1427-1176
Print run: 2000 copies
BANK ACCOUNT Uniwersytet Jagielloński PEKAO SA 87124047221111000048544672 marked ALMA MATER – darowizna
TABLE OF CONTENTS Rita Pagacz-Moczarska – FROM THE EDITOR .................................................................................... Wojciech Nowak – FROM THE RECTOR ............................................................................................. SONDERAKTION KRAKAU Timeline ................................................................................................. ARRESTED DURING SONDERAKTION KRAKAU .......................................................................... OCCUPIED KRAKÓW – Rita Pagacz-Moczarska talks to Jagiellonian University historian Professor Andrzej Chwalba ................................................................................................. Stanisław Urbańczyk – THE FIRST DAYS IN THE CONCENTRATION CAMP ................................ Antoni Jackowski, Izabela Sołjan – THREE CONCENTRATION CAMP INMATES ........................... Franciszek Ziejka – THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE RELEASE OF THE SCHOLARS OF KRAKÓW ....... Irena Paczyńska – IN SACHSENHAUSEN ........................................................................................... Józef Wolski – THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE ............................................................................... Irena Paczyńska – INTELLIGENZAKTION: THE NAZI GERMAN OPERATION TO DESTROY THE POLISH INTELLIGENTSIA, NOVEMBER 1939 ......................................... LEST WE FORGET! ...............................................................................................................................
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FROM ThE EdiTOR “Do not forget our deaths, do not allow our deaths to be wasted,” said Professor Stanisław Estreicher just before he died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in December 1939. The academic community of the Jagiellonian University is profoundly committed to the memory of his dying words. Every year for the past 76 years, on 6th November, the anniversary of the notorious arrest of 183 Cracovian scholars (including Prof. Estreicher) abducted from Collegium Novum, we have been paying tribute to the victims of that brutal attack on the Polish intelligentsia. The annual memorial ceremony is held in Room 56, where their tragedy started. In the dramatic atmosphere of that room, in the presence of the authorities of the Jagiellonian University and members of the families of Sonderaktion Krakau victims, we read out the roll-call of the names of those who were arrested and died. For over a decade now November the Sixth has been the University’s Memorial Day, on which we remember all of the deceased professors, tutors, and students of the Jagiellonian University. Floral tributes are laid in Collegium Novum, in front of three memorial tablets commemorating the professors of Lwów University murdered by the Germans, the Katyn Massacre, and the victims of Sonderaktion Krakau. We also lay a wreath at the foot of the Freedom Oak outside Collegium Novum, where soil has been deposited from Sachsenhausen, Dachau, and Katyn – sites where Cracovian scholars were murdered. Memorial candles are being lit up in the cemeteries of Kraków… We shall always remember! Rita Pagacz-Moczarska Chief Editor
FROM ThE RECTOR A
t the beginning of the 21st century you might think that the Jagiellonian University’s slogan, Plus ratio quam vis, “Reason means more than brute force,” has always attended its history and never lost its appropriateness. Alas, that has not always been so. The best – or in fact the worst – possible instance of its breach was the underhand operation known as Sonderaktion Krakau, which the German invading authorities carried out on 6th November 1939 during the Second World War, arresting the academics of the Jagiellonian University, the Mining Academy, and several other universities, in the Collegium Novum Building, and subsequently deporting them to the German concentration camps at Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg and Dachau. Their collective arrest appalled academia throughout the world and international public opinion in general. It had only one aim: to terrorise, stifle, and ultimately eradicate Polish scholarship. The arrests that followed later of other members of Poland’s educated elite and the closing down of its schools of higher education only confirmed the invaders’ true intentions. The imprisoned academics, their families and friends went through a dismal time of tears and tragedy. For the whole academic milieu, both in Poland, Europe, and throughout the world, Sonderaktion Krakau came as a vicious blow, an attack against the very foundations of academic life, conveying a dramatic message: reason is not always stronger than brute force. The invaders did all they could to accomplish their aim but failed. Those splendid, brave, unforgettable individuals did not give up, they did not break down. Today we are grateful to them for their attitude and resolution to prove that reason is stronger that brute force, in spite of everything, and we shall never forget their dramatic experience and heroic stance. We shall pay them the tribute they deserve and pass their memory on to future generations. For, as the saying goes, whoever is oblivious of the past is doomed to experience it once again… In this special edition of Alma Mater, our University magazine, we want to present the facts relating to those events and commemorate them. That is our moral duty, for we are unswervingly convinced that reason will triumph over brute force – Plus ratio quam vis! Wojciech Nowak
Rector of the Jagiellonian University
SONDERAKTION KR SONdERAKTiON SON SONd dERAKT ERAKTiiON ON KRAKAU Timeline
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RAKAU
Jagiellonian University Museum collection
3rd November 1939 – Rector Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński received a letter inviting him to call on Einsatzkommando 2 at ulica Pomorska 2 to “discuss University business.” During the discussion SS-Sturmbannführer Bruno Müller, commanding officer of Einsatzkommando 2/I, required the Rector to summon a general meeting of the professors and teaching staff, at which he wanted to “present the German position on scholarship and schools of higher education,” as he put it (den deutschen Standpunkt in der Wïssenschaft und Hochschulfragen klären). 6th November 1939, 12 noon – Müller arrived at Collegium Novum (ulica Gołębia 24) in the company of German police. Julian Lis, beadle of the Rector’s office, welcomed him in front of the building and, on instructions from Włodzimierz Ottman, escorted him to the Rector’s room. Müller gave the Rector a taciturn, unfriendly salutation, whereupon, they went up to Lecture Hall No. 66 (formerly the Copernicus Hall; now Room 56, the Szujski Hall) on the second floor. About 12.10 Müller attended by officers entered the lecture hall, which was packed full, mounted the lecturer’s dais, and without taking his cap off addressed the assembled persons with a malevolent speech, 1 “Die hiesige Universität hat ihr Schuljahr begonnen, ohne vorher die Einwilligung der deutschen Behörden eingeholt zu haben. Das ist eine Böswilligeit. Nebst dem ist es allgemein bekannt, dass die Lehrer stets gegenüber der deutschn Wissenschaft feindlich gesinnt waren. Dies sind die Gründe, weshalb sie Alle – mit Ausnahme der drei anwesenden Frauen [!] – in ein Konzentrationslager abgeführt werden. Jedwede Diskussion oder auch nur Äusserung hierüber ist ausgeschlossen. Wer einen Widerstand gegen die Ausführug meines Befehles wagen würde, wird niedergeschossen.”2 Müller did not allow any of those present to speak. Rector Lehr-Spławiński was silenced by being shouted at that he would be the first to be arrested. Helena Willman-Grabowska and Jadwiga Wołoszyńska, the women professors present in the room, were allowed to leave and informed the families of the arrest. Bishop Michał Godlewski, who had left the Rector’s room just
The alma arrest mater of the Jagiellonian No. 178 University’s professors7 under Sonderaktion Krakau, 6th November 1939. Painting by Mieczysław Wątorski
were members of staff of the following universities and academies: the Jagiellonian University (142 persons); the Mining Academy (now the AGH University of Science and Technology – 21 persons); the Commercial Academy (now the Cracow University of Economics – 3 persons); the Catholic University of Lublin (now the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin – 1 person); and 1 person from the Stephen Báthory University of Wilno (now Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania). In addition 3 students of the Jagiellonian University, 6 secondary schoolteachers, and 6 persons with no connection with academic affairs were rounded up and arrested. When the record-taking was finished the arrestees were divided into two groups and locked up in two halls. A slice of bread each was all the food they were given.
Jagiellonian University Museum collection
a while before, luckily escaped being arrested. The professors were led out into the corridor and searched. The Germans conducted the search with the use of violence against some of the arrestees. Fryderyk Zoll was hit on the back with a rifle butt; and Stanisław Estreicher, Janusz Wiktor Supniewski, Father Konstanty Michalski, and Adam Zechenter were slapped on the face. They were led in pairs down the staircase which was lined with German police, out to the back of the building, and ordered to board the large tarpaulin-covered lorries parked on the corner of the Jagiellońska and Gołębia. They were pushed about and yelled at to get a move on climbing into the back of the lorries. Stefan Harassek, who was late for the lecture, was arrested on the corridor of the second floor; while Stanisław Urbańczyk was apprehended by the Germans on ulica Gołębia. Henryk Szarski and Jan Marchlewski watched the arrest from the windows of the Department of Comparative Anatomy (ulica św. Anny 6). As the professors were being arrested in Room 66 other Germans burst into the secretary’s office and ordered all the administrative staff to leave the University building. A total of 183 persons were arrested. They were taken in lorries via the following streets: Olszewskiego, Wiślna, round by the Planty Gardens, down the Karmelicka and along the Aleje to the prison on ulica Montelupich. The convoy of lorries was followed by an escort of police on motorcycles. On arrival the arrestees were made to stand for two to three hours in the prison yard while their particulars were recorded and a couple of German officers photographed them. While the records were being made more vehicles arrived bringing nearly all of the professors of the Mining Academy, who were attending their own meeting in the conference room of the Faculty of Philosophy in Collegium Novum. The arrestees
7th November 1939, around 10 a.m. – all the arrestees were transported under SS escort in army lorries to the 20th Infantry Regiment’s barracks on the Mazowiecka. They were quartered in several soldiers’ rooms on the second floor on the Głowackiego street side, and kept under a guard of Austrian soldiers of the Wehrmacht who could understand Polish. The arrestees elected Vilim Frančić to be their commander (he performed this office until his and other prisoners’ release on 8th February 1940). In the afternoon Fryderyk Zoll was released. Around 3 p.m. prisoners’ families started to gather outside the barracks. On that day prisoners were permitted to see their families and take the clothing, toiletries, and food they had brought. 8th November 1939 – Dr. Marian Ciećkiewicz, the delegate of the Polish Red Cross, conducted a medical examination and made a list of honorary professors and emeriti, those over 70 and the sick. At noon Dr. Fritz Arlt, head of Abteilung Bevölkerungswesen
List of arrestees’ signatures from the 20th Infantry Regiment barracks on the Mazowiecka, 7th-8th November 1939
Jagiellonian University Museum collection
Prof. Semkowicz’s sketch of his cell in the Kletcschkauerstrasse prison, Wrocław, where he was detained after his arrest with university colleagues on 6th November 1939 before being taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp
und Fürsorge (the Population and Social Welfare Department) in the Office of the Generalgouvernement, arrived and offered to procure the release of Kazimierz Stołyhwo in return for his collaboration with the Germans. Stołyhwo turned down the offer and said that he could not accept it if his colleagues were going to stay in jail. J., an individual suffering from a mental disorder, was released. The families of prisoners arrived for a second visit, but were not allowed to see them. They were only allowed to hand over parcels marked with the recipient’s name. The morning of 9th November 1939 – Dr. Ciećkiewicz arrived and examined the sick to issue applications for their release. Prof. Władysław Konopczyński compiled a list of all the prisoners with their signatures appended. About 1 p.m. the following prisoners were released: Adam Klecz-
kowski; Stanisław Ciechanowski and Witold Wilkosz (both on grounds of illness); Józef Kostrzewski and Zdzisław Przybyłkiewicz; the Ukrainians Mikołaj Czyżewski, Iwan Feszczenko-Czopiwski and Jan Ziłynski; and Adam Zechenter. After 1 p.m. the prisoners were marched out under SS escort to the railway ramp of the freight station at the end of ulica Głowackiego in Łobzów. 172 prisoners boarded a train consisting of four second- and third-class Pullman carriages. Bruno Müller, who saw them off, told them they were being taken to the Third Reich. At 2.45 p.m. the train set off for an unknown destination. It took 14 hours to cover the distance from Kraków to Oppeln (now Opole), via Trzebinia, Dąbrowa Górnicza, Kattowitz (German occupation name of Katowice), and Beuthen (now Bytom). After a few hours it stopped and stood in complete darkness for about 2 hours. 10th November 1939, around 3 a.m. – the train carrying the prisoners arrived
at the main station in Breslau (now Wrocław). The prisoners were allowed to have a coffee under police escort in the station restaurant, and some managed to send a postcard to their families. Around 5 a.m. police vehicles transported the prisoners to the city’s prisons. They were confined in solitary cells on the ground floor of the prison at Kletschkauerstrasse 31 (now ulica Kleczkowska). On the second day of their confinement they were moved to the cells on the second floor and locked up in groups of 10 or 20. Some of the prisoners were confined in the remand prison on Freiburgerstrasse (now ulica Świebodzka), in solitary cells. Five were locked up in police cells and later transferred to the Kletschkauerstrasse prison. While in these jails they were allowed to read books and newspapers. They received regular meals in sufficient quantities. Once a day they were led out for exercise in the prison yard. Those detained in the Kletschkauerstrasse cells held academic talks and
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land, and K. Lepszy on Stephen Báthory (25th November), T. Kowalski on his travels in Asia Minor (26th November), and S. Maziarski on cells in biology (27th November).
Signatures of prisoners held in Room 306 of Breslau prison
16th November 1939 – In cell no. 306 in the Kletschkauerstrasse prison Tadeusz Kowalski started a series of academic talks with a lecture on the 10th-century traveller Ibrahim ben Yakub and his journey in the lands of the Slavs. Subsequent speakers were S. Gąsiorowski on the origins of culture in Asia and Egypt, and T. Estreicher on Kraków in bygone times (17th Novem-
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ber), J. Gwiazdomorski on whether law is a science (18th November), J. Lande on the legal sciences (19th November), S. Pigoń on the Sejm edition of the complete works of Mickiewicz, and M. Gatty-Kostyal on drug design and production (20th November), W. Ormicki on the Italian colonisation of Libya, and K. Piwarski on research on the times of John Sobieski (21st November), S. Leszczycki on regional planning, and K. Nitsch on the Silesian dialect (22nd November),
28th November 1939 – The train carrying the prisoners arrived in Berlin. After several hours of waiting at the freight station it set off again and came to a halt at a stopping point in a woodland area after passing Oranienburg station near Berlin. About 4 p.m. the prisoners alighted from the train, were told to stand in threes Jagiellonian University Museum collection
lectures in their free time. The following inmates of cell no. 300 gave lectures: L. Piotrowicz (on ancient history), J. Fudakowski and J. Zabłocki (on natural history), Z. Jachimecki (on the history of music), and A. Oszacki (on medicine). Some presented their reminiscences. In cell no. 306 T. Kowalski and S. Maziarski gave autobiographical talks, and I. Chrzanowski spent several evenings and afternoons telling the story of his life in a very exciting way, with his recollections of meetings with Polish writers Sienkiewicz, Prus, Żeromski, and Reymont. He also described and assessed the importance of the school strike, and gave an outline of literary affairs in Warsaw at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. Other autobiographical presentations, by K. Nitsch, S. Pigoń, J. Lande, S. Gąsiorowski, J. Gwiazdomorski, and S. Klimecki followed.
26th November 1939 – thanks to efforts undertaken by his family Edward Windakiewicz was released from the prison. After 8 p.m. the prisoners were escorted out of the prisons closely guarded by policemen, put on police vehicles and transported to Breslau main railway station, where they were put into one of the tunnels under the platforms and waited two hours for the train. They were pushed and beaten as they were made to board the train and take seats in carriages which had curtains drawn up over the windows. They were attended by a police guard as they boarded the train, and hostages were selected out of their number who were to be shot if any of them attempted to escape. After a fairly long wait in the station, the train set off for an unknown destination. During the journey, which lasted about 20 hours, several other carriages with prisoners were attached to the train.
Prison number worn with red triangle on prison trousers
S. Maziarski on vitamins, hormones, and ferments, and J. Gwiazdomorski on selected issues in matrimonial law (23rd November), S. Turski on comets and shooting stars, S. Gąsiorowski on Greece before the Greeks (24th November), W. Ormicki on domestic colonisation in Po-
in a column under a double guard. Bareheaded and in torrents of sleet and snow, the prisoners were briskly marched off, and after about fifteen minutes reached the gate to Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camp near Berlin. After passing through the gate they were made to stand
Reconstruction of a concentration camp appeal, painted by Mieczysław Wątorski
Photo by Grzegorz Zygier. Jagiellonian University Museum collection
29th November 1939 – The prisoners were instructed about the concentration camp rules: 5.30 a.m. – reveille, prisoners fold up their blankets in their regulation way, wash, and have their first meal; 7 a.m. – morning appeal; after appeal prisoners proceed to the jobs allocated them; 12 noon – midday appeal, followed by the prisoners’ second meal; around 4 p.m. – the third appeal; around 5.30 p.m. prisoners may return to their barracks. After registration had been completed the Cracovian prisoners were transferred from Block 19 to new blocks: 85 in Block 45, and 72 in Block 46. The ten priests were put in the clergymen’s block; Joachim Metallmann and Leon Sternbach were sent to the Jewish block. Within the next few days the prisoners’ “attire” was completed with a red triangular badge denoting a political prisoner, and their concentration camp number was put on their trousers and jackets. The Cracovian prisoners in the “Concentration Camp University” delivered numerous lectures and participated in discussions. There were 160 lectures in Block 45, and 120 lectures in Block 46. Speakers included I. Chrzanowski, T. Garbowski, S. Kołaczkowski, W. Ormicki, M. Siedlecki, J. Smoleński, W. Konopczyński, and A. Heydel (Block 45), and Z. Saryusz-Bielski and K. Piwarski (Block 46). There were also language classes, given by H. Batowski (Czech), J. Harajda
Concentration camp scene, painted by Mieczysław Wątorski Photo by Grzegorz Zygier. Jagiellonian University Museum collection
for about an hour in front of one of the barracks. Next they were herded into the bath-house, where they undressed, “packed up” their clothes, handed in their money and watches, had their heads shaved, took a shower, and were issued prison garments. They were allowed to keep two handkerchiefs each, their glasses and toothbrush. Their particulars were entered in the camp records and they became “numbers” (viz. Schutzhäftlinge, prisoners detained under the preventive imprisonment order). They spent their first night all together in barrack no. 19, and were given no food.
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Jagiellonian University Archive collection
15th December 1939 – 25th January 1940 – The prisoners from Kraków were made to do Stehkommando, viz. in the hours between the morning and afternoon appeal, and between the afternoon and evening appeal, they had to stand in their barrack (on Sundays they stood from the morning appeal to the afternoon appeal).
Sachsenhausen concentration camp prisoners at work
(Hungarian), H. Bernard (French), W. Wolter and T. Biliński (German), and T. Kowalski (Turkish), and a course of shorthand by S. Korbel. There were also Russian classes. 1st December 1939 – The time of the second meal was moved to around 11.45 a.m. 2nd-3rd December 1939 – For the first time since their confinement in the concentration camp the prisoners from Kraków were allowed to write home.
11th December 1939 – The prisoners from Kraków were photographed in a barrack outside the concentration camp. Three photographs were taken of each: full face with hat and glasses on (if worn permanently), full face without hat and glasses, and a profile view with hat on. 15th December 1939 – A review of the prisoners was held for the first time, to select 1,500 for transfer to a labour camp.
23rd December 1939 – In the afternoon the group from Kraków received their first letters from home. Henryk Hoyer was released from Sachsenhausen. He was freed thanks to an appeal made by his German brother Emil. 24th December 1939 – Antoni Meyer died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp due to lack of medical attention. The cause of death was general debilitation presumably stimulated by ulcers or stomach cancer. 24th—26th December 1939 – Prisoners got “Christmas soup” for their midday meal, viz. 1¼ litres of soup without parsnip or carrot, but with a slightly larger portion of meat than usual. In addition in the canteen they could buy a quarter of a 1½ kg loaf of delicious white bread. They did not have to do Stehcommando over the Christmas holiday. Jagiellonian University Archive collection
5th December 1939 – During evening appeal SS-men violently beat up six or seven of the prisoners from Kraków. Jerzy Lande, Tadeusz Banachiewicz, and Kazimierz Stołyhwo were among those who were beaten up.
8th December – thanks to an appeal by the Hungarian state authorities Jan Dąbrowski and Zygmunt Sarna were released from the Breslau prison. The decision to release them had been taken earlier (29th November), but they were detained in the prison when the other arrested professors left.
17th December 1939, after the midday meal – A review of the prisoners was conducted in the appeal yard. There was a strong, cold wind blowing up clouds of brown dust. The Rapportführer and SS-men accompanying him were selecting prisoners for the labour camp, as prisoners filed past them. Luckily no-one from the Kraków group was selected. Tadeusz Garbowski passed out twice for a short while during the review.
25th or 26th December 1939 – In Block 45 there was a performance by actors from Berlin who were prisoners in the camp. 28th December 1939 – Stanisław Estreicher died at 10 p.m. He had a very painful death. 30th December 1939 – Stanisław Estreicher’s colleagues in Block 45 held a memorial for him with a minute’s silence and a short obituary speech was delivered, in which it was
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Crematorium furnaces in Sachsenhausen
1st January 1940 – Stefan Bednarski died due to lack of medical attention. 5th January 1940 – Jerzy Smoleński died due to absolute debilitation which brought on heart failure. After his death the prisoners from the University held a memorial tribute to him. Wiktor Ormicki spoke on the deceased’s achievements in scholarship; Stanisław Leszczycki paid tribute to him for his work as head of the Jagiellonian University Institute of Geography; Michał Siedlecki remembered him as a person and as a colleague; Ignacy Chrzanowski spoke of his profound and quiet religious devotion; and Tadeusz Banachiewicz commemorated him for his scholarly work connected with astronomy. 8th January 1940 – Tadeusz Garbowski died due to lack of medical attention. 10th January 1940 – Feliks Rogoziński died of pneumonia and injuries incurred when an SS-man gave him a severe beating. 11th January 1940 – Kazimierz Kostanecki died of oedema of the legs due
Photo by Władysław Gumuła, 1963. Jagiellonian University Museum collection
stressed that during his illness he appealed for perseverance and intransigence with respect to the Germans, and expressed his opposition to any ideas of submitting explanations to the Gestapo.
The parcel in which Prof. S. Estreicher’s ashes were sent home
to heart disease. Michał Siedlecki died of pneumonia. 14th January 1940 – Adam Rożański died of hypothermia after having been made to stand for several hours in the appeal yard in sub-zero temperatures. 18th January 1940, 6.45-10.15 a.m.3 – During appeal a selection of prisoners was conducted for work in the Mauthausen
quarry. The prisoners stood outside in the appeal yard with the temperature nearly minus 30 degrees Centigrade. 70 prisoners froze to death, and many others got frostbite in the limbs. Leon Wachholz, who was in a moribund condition, passed out from the cold during the appeal and survived only thanks to the fact that the block functionary Adolf Dobschat allowed Wachholz’s colleagues to carry him back to the block. He regained consciousness on being rubbed down with snow. Due to being kept outside for such a long time in very low temperatures, Henryk Bernard developed diaphragmatic paralysis. 19th January 1940 – Ignacy Chrzanowski died of pneumonia in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. 24th January 1940 – Władysław Takliński died in circumstances indicative of murder. He was thrown out of his bunk by an SS-man, and when he was down on the floor the SS-man put a stick on his throat and stood on it, throttling the victim. 1st February 1940 – The Kraków group of prisoners in Block 46 were moved to Block 45 and put up in one room.
Telegram notification of the death of Prof. I. Chrzanowski
4th February 1940 – The Kraków group’s bread ration was put up from 320 grams to 380 grams per day, and their midday soup ration went up by ¼ litre.
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14th February 1940 – Antoni Wilk died in Kraków of the hernia he had sustained in Sachsenhausen.
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
16th February 1940 – Stefan Kołaczkowski died in St. Lazarus’ Hospital in Kraków of utter debilitation and the injuries he had sustained in Sachsenhausen.
Prof. S. Kołaczkowski on his return from the concentration camp, 13th February 1940
in Kraków main railway station, from where groups of them were taken via the Pawia, Ogrodowa, and Warszawska to the prison on ulica Montelupich. After making a declaration of their state of health to the prison doctor (some did not do this) they left the prison. An ambulance took Stefan Kołaczkowski, who was moribund, from the railway station straight to St. Lazarus’ Hospital.
PAN&PAU Scientific Archives
8th February 1940 – 101 prisoners from Kraków left Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Antoni Hoborski, who was discharged with them, did not leave and died in the concentration camp on 9th February. Some of those released, Jan Nowak, Stefan Kołaczkowski, Franciszek Bossowski, Stefan Komornicki, and Antoni Wilk, and others, Leon Wachholz, Jan Zabłocki, and Kazimierz Majewski, just discharged from the camp infirmary, were so exhausted that they were too weak to walk on their own two feet. 48 Cracovians were left in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After 9 p.m. the prisoners from Kraków who had been released left in four lorries parked in front of the concentration camp gate for Charlottenburg, which was 30 km away, where they boarded a train with warm and comfortable Pullman coaches, for their return journey to Kraków. They were escorted by one guard. 9th February 1940 – Antoni Hoborski died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Although he had been free to go the previous day, he did not leave with the rest because he was too debilitated and gangrene had developed in his big toes due to frostbite. – Around 12 noon the train carrying the prisoners who had been released arrived 14
Corpse removal box and nooses, Sachsenhausen
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18th February 1940 – Jan Nowak died in Kraków of utter exhaustion and diseases contracted in Sachsenhausen. 19th February 1940 – Jan Włodek died in Kraków of bilateral pneumonia contracted in Sachsenhausen. 20th February 1940 – Leon Sternbach died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. 1st or 2nd March 1940 – A group of SS-men under the command of Hauptscharführer Hoffmann arrived in Sachsenhausen concentration camp from Dachau. They decided to move 43 of the Cracovian prisoners to Dachau concentration camp. The 43 were selected from the 54 Cracovians still in Sachsenhausen. All the medical examination consisted of was the naked prisoners filing past the doctor. 4th March 1940 – About 1,500 prisoners were marched off in columns from the
appeal yard to the railway station. The 43 from Kraków were led by Dobiesław Doborzyński. They were transported by train to Dachau concentration camp. On arrival the prisoners were registered and all the Cracovians except for five were put in barrack no. 23. – All Dachau prisoners had to work. The Cracovians worked in craftsmen’s and technical workshops such as the tailor’s shop, the technical department, or the gardening tool shop. Eventually most of them were employed in the nursery of medicinal plants, mostly in the hothouses; for a time some did hard labour digging ditches and building greenhouses. Prisoners Batowski and Bulas worked as interpreters and translators. Eight of the Cracovian prisoners experienced the “post” – a punishment in which the victim was slung up on a post by his arms bent behind his back and kept in that position for an hour.
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
6th March 1940 – Zdzisław Jachimecki and Franciszek Leja left Sachsenhausen. Prior to their release they were locked up for an hour in windowless cells used for the most notorious criminals. Jachimecki was terrorised by a jailer who made him stand against a wall and pointed a gun at him. 20th March 1940, holy Wednesday, 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. – At the evening appeal in Sachsenhausen prisoners were made to stand, and later kneel, in torrents of sleet and snow. That evening they were not given anything to eat. 12th April 1940 – Kazimierz Bulas left Dachau concentration camp. 22nd April 1940 – Adam Bielecki, Dobiesław Doborzyński, and Ludwik Sieppel were released from Dachau. 24th April 1940 – Kazimierz Stołyhwo was released from Sachsenhausen. Prior to his release SS-men were tormenting him for several hours. One of the tortures was pretending he was going to be shot. He was forced to sign a declaration that he was completely healthy, that he promised not to contact representatives of the Polish government, that he had no right to sabotage orders issued by the German authorities, and that he would not criticise NSDAP [Nazi Party] activities.
Sachsenhausen prisoners at work on the railway line
28th April 1940 – Karol Starmach was released from Dachau. Late April 1940 – Wiktor Ormicki was transferred to Block No. 29 in Dachau, on grounds of his Jewish background, and about a fortnight later put into the penal commando. Spring 1940 – Wincenty Majcher and Jan Harajda were released from Sachsenhausen thanks to an appeal by the Hungarian state authorities. 3rd May 1940 – Franciszek Bossowski died in Kraków of exhaustion from his imprisonment in Sachsenhausen.
16th August 1940 – Wiktor Ormicki was transferred from Dachau to Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. 30th August 1940 – Arkadiusz Piekara was released from Dachau. 5th September 1940 – Janusz Maria Borkowski was released from Dachau. 8th September 1940 – Roman Wojtusiak was released from Dachau. 16th September 1940 – Anatol Listowski was released from Dachau. 24th September 1940 – Kazimierz Pazdro was released from Dachau.
alma mater No. 178
15
18th November 1940 – Władysław Semkowicz was released from Sachsenhausen. 21st December 1940 – Stanisław Gołąb, Juliusz Jakóbiec, Bogusław Leśnodorski, Mieczysław Małecki, Jan Miodoński, and Stanisław Urbańczyk left Dachau. 23rd December 1940 – Czesław Piętka was released from Dachau. 27th December 1940 – Stanisław Majewicz and Jan Stępień were released from Dachau. 28th December 1940 – Henryk Batowski was released from Dachau. December 1940 – Józef Hołda was released from Dachau. 4th January 1941 – Father Marian Michalski, Father Jan Salamucha, Julian Kamecki, and Józef Wolski were released from Dachau.
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
9th January 1941 – Antoni Gaweł, Józef Gołąb, Józef Mikulski, Jan Moszew, and Zygmunt Starachowicz were released from Dachau.
Sachsenhausen prisoners working on the railway siding
11th January 1941 – Jan Kozak died in Kraków of diseases contracted in Sachsenhausen. 14th January 1941 – Mieczysław Brożek, Józef Hano, Stanisław Janik, Aleksander Kocwa, Kazimierz Lepszy, Stanisław Leszczycki, Stanisław Skowron, and Stanisław Turski were released from Dachau. 18th January 1941 – Józef Dadak was released from Dachau. February 1941 – Stanisław Malaga was released from Dachau. Jagiellonian University Archive collection
26th September 1940 - Andrzej Bolewski and Tadeusz Milewski were released from Dachau. 10th October 1940 – Lech Haydukiewicz was released from Dachau. 24th October 1940 – Aleksander Birkenmajer was released from Dachau October 1940 – Stanisław Szczotka was released from Dachau.
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alma mater No. 178 Two slices of bread, two cubes of unrefined sugar, and a 10 centime coin, saved by Prof. Wachholz from Sachsenhausen on his release in February 1940
7th October 1941 – Kazimierz Piwarski was released from Dachau. 17th February 1942 – Paweł Łoziński died in Kraków of heart disease aggravated by his imprisonment in Sachsenhausen. 21st August 1942 – Joachim Metallmann died in Buchenwald concentration camp, to which he had been transferred from Sachsenhausen on account of his Jewish roots. 1st December 1942 – Leon Wachholz died in Kraków of general debilitation and diseases contracted in Sachsenhausen.
15th April 1944 – Kazimierz Piech died in Kraków of aortic rupture; the pneumonia he had contracted in Sachsenhausen led to the development of heart disease. 13th November 1944 – Ludwik Kamykowski died in Kraków of tuberculosis contracted in Sachsenhausen.
2
3
This University has started its academic year without obtaining the prior consent of the German authorities. That is an act of ill will. Moreover it is generally known that its tutors have always had a hostile attitude to German scholarship. These are the reasons for which all of you present – except for the three [!] women– will be deported to a concentration camp. There will be no discussion, nor even the expression of an opinion of whatever kind on this matter. Whoever dares to resist the carrying out of my orders will be shot. Survivors’ relations give various durations of appeal, from 1½ to 3 or even 4 hours.
Compiled by Mieczysław Barcik 1
There are three extant relations of Müller’s speech: Władysław Konopczyński’s account, Zdzisław Jachimecki’s account, and Fryderyk Zoll’s version, which is the one cited here, see the papers of F. Zoll in the Jagiellonian Library manuscript collection, ms 9778 III, ff. 79–80; see also Mieczysław Barcik, Wydział Teologiczny Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego (1939–1954), Kraków, 2001, p. 41. Müller’s speech is also cited in the memoirs of Jan Gwiazdomorski and Stanisław Urbańczyk, neither of whom were present in the room to hear it at first hand.
Arrested on 6th November 1939: Jagiellonian University: Faculty of Theology – Józef Archutowski, Antoni Bystrzonowski, Tadeusz Glemma, Józef Kaczmarczyk, Tadeusz Kruszyński, Jan Krzemieniecki, Konstanty Michalski, Marian Michalski, Jan Salamucha, Władysław Wicher; Faculty of Law – Tadeusz Dziurzyński, Stanisław Estreicher, Jan Gwiazdomorski, Adam Heydel, Józef Hołda, Adam Krzyżanowski, Stanisław Kutrzeba, Jerzy Lande, Bogusław Leśnodorski, Zygmunt Sarna, Maciej Starzewski, Władysław Wolter, Fryderyk Zoll; Faculty of Medicine – Eugeniusz Brzezicki, Stanisław Ciechanowski, Jerzy Drozdowski, Józef Hano, Kazimierz Telesfor Kostanecki, Józef Karol Kostrzewski, Ksawery Urn with soil from Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg Lewkowicz, Kazimierz Majewski, Stanisław Maziarski, Jan Miodoński, Aleksander concentration camp Oszacki, Zdzisław Przybyłkiewicz, Jan Zygmunt Robel, Ludwik Sieppel, Stanisław Skowron, Bronisław Stępowski, Janusz Supniewski, Władysław Szumowski, Tadeusz Tempka, Leon Tochowicz, Leon Jan Wachholz, Franciszek Walter, January Zubrzycki; Faculty of Philosophy – Tadeusz Banachiewicz, Henryk Batowski, Stefan Bednarski, Henryk Ludwik Bernard, Adam Bielecki, Aleksander Birkenmajer, Mieczysław Brożek, Kazimierz Bulas, Ignacy Chrzanowski, Jan Dąbrowski, Dobiesław Doborzyński, Kazimierz Dobrowolski, Tadeusz Dobrowolski, Karol Dziewoński, Tadeusz Estreicher, Vilim Frančić, Józef Fudakowski, Tadeusz Garbowski, Marek Gatty-Kostyal, Antoni Gaweł, Stanisław Gąsiorowski, Józef Gołąb, Franciszek Górski, Zygmunt Grodziński, Seweryn Hammer, Jan Harajda, Stefan Harassek, Henryk Ferdynand Hoyer, Zdzisław Jachimecki, Stanisław Janik, Julian Kamecki, Bogdan Kamieński, Ludwik Kamykowski, Adam Marian Kleczkowski, Aleksander Kocwa, Stefan Kołaczkowski, Stefan Komornicki, Władysław Konopczyński, Stanisław Korbel, Tadeusz Kowalski, Jan Kozak, Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński, Franciszek Leja, Kazimierz Lepszy, Stanisław Leszczycki, Stanisław Łukasik, Stanisław Malaga, Mieczysław Małecki, Joachim Metallmann, Sylwiusz Mikucki, Józef Stanisław Mikulski, Tadeusz Milewski, Jan Moszew, Zygmunt Mysłakowski, Kazimierz Nitsch, Jan Nowak, Wiktor Ormicki, Arkadiusz Henryk Piekara, Stanisław Pigoń, Ludwik Piotrowicz, Kazimierz Piwarski, Władysław Semkowicz, Michał Siedlecki, Stanisław Skimina, Jerzy Smoleński, Jan Stanisławski, Leon Sternbach, Kazimierz Stołyhwo, Antoni Swaryczewski, Stanisław Szczotka, Tadeusz Szydłowski, Stanisław Turski, Stanisław Urbańczyk, Tadeusz Ważewski, Antoni Wilk, Witold Wilkosz, Roman Wojtusiak, Józef Wolski, Jan Wojciech Zabłocki, Longin Tadeusz Zawadzki, Jan Ziłyński; Faculty of Agricultural Science – Edward Chodzicki, Franciszek Hendzel, Juliusz Jakóbiec, Anatol Listowski, Paweł Łoziński, Teodor Marchlewski, Kazimierz Piech, Roman Prawocheński, Feliks Rogoziński, Adam Rożański, Stefan Schmidt, Karol Starmach, Jan Włodek. Mining Academy – Zygmunt Bielski-Saryusz, Andrzej Bolewski, Witold Budryk, Edmund Chromiński, Stefan Czarnocki, Iwan Feszczenko-Czopiwski, Mikołaj Czyżewski, Roman Dawidowski, Stanisław Gołąb, Antoni Hoborski, Stanisław Jaskólski, Mieczysław Jeżewski, Aleksander Krupkowski, Adam Ludkiewicz, Antoni Meyer, Wilhelm Staronka, Izydor Stella-Sawicki, Jan Studniarski, Władysław Takliński, Edward Windakiewicz, Feliks Zalewski. Commercial Academy – Arnold Bolland, Walenty Winid, Albin Żabiński. Catholic University of Lublin – Witold Krzyżanowski. Stephen Báthory University of Wilno – Franciszek Bossowski. Victims who were not academic tutors: JU administrative staff – Franciszek Mikulski, Włodzimierz Ottman; JU students – Janusz Maria Borkowski, Lech Władysław Haydukiewicz, Czesław Piętka; secondary schoolmasters – Tadeusz Biliński, Józef Dadak, Wincenty Majcher, Stanisław Majewicz, Józef Nodzyński, Jan Zerndt; others – Kazimierz Pazdro – electrician employed in Katowice, Ludwik Ręgorowicz –school inspecalmaOctober mater No. 178 Jan Stępień –JU MA 17 tor, holder of a JU PhD in Philosophy, Zygmunt Antoni Starachowicz –JU MLL graduate (30th 1939), graduate, Adam Zechenter –retired judge, holder of a JU PhD in Law, J. – mentally retarded passer-by.
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
17th September 1941 – Wiktor Ormicki was murdered in Dachau in an operation to exterminate Jewish prisoners.
ARRESTEd dURiNG SONdERAKTiON
Józef Archutowski
Tadeusz Banachiewicz
Henryk Batowski
Stefan Bednarski
Henryk Ludwik Bernard
Arnold Bolland
Janusz Maria Borkowski
Franciszek Bossowski
Mieczysław Brożek
Eugeniusz Brzezicki
Ignacy Chrzanowski
Stanisław Ciechanowski
Stefan Czarnocki
Mikołaj Czyżewski
Józef Dadak
Jerzy Drozdowski
Karol Dziewoński
Tadeusz Dziurzyński
Stanisław Estreicher
Tadeusz Estreicher
KRAKAU
6th November 1939
Zygmunt Bielski-Saryusz
Tadeusz Biliński
Aleksander Birkenmajer
Andrzej Bolewski
Witold Budryk
Kazimierz Bulas
Antoni Bystrzonowski
Edward Chodzicki
Edmund Chromiński
Roman Dawidowski
Jan Dąbrowski
Dobiesław Doborzyński
Kazimierz Dobrowolski
Tadeusz Dobrowolski
Iwan Feszczenko-Czopiwski
Vilim Frančić
Józef Fudakowski
Tadeusz Garbowski
Marek Gatty-Kostyal
historia.agh.edu.pl
Adam Bielecki
historia.agh.edu.pl
Tadeusz Glemma
Józef Gołąb
Stanisław Gołąb
Jan Harajda
Stefan Harassek
Lech Władysław Haydukiewicz
Franciszek Hendzel
Adam Heydel
Juliusz Jakóbiec
Stanisław Janik
Stanisław Jaskólski
Mieczysław Jeżewski
Józef Kaczmarczyk
Stefan Kołaczkowski
Stefan Komornicki
Władysław Konopczyński
Stanisław Korbel
Kazimierz Telesfor Kostanecki
Jan Krzemieniecki
Adam Krzyżanowski
Witold Krzyżanowski
Stanisław Kutrzeba
Jerzy Lande
historia.agh.edu.pl National Digital Archives collection
National Digital Archives collection
Stanisław Gąsiorowski
National Digital Archives collection
Antoni Gaweł
Jan Gwiazdomorski
Seweryn Hammer
Józef Hano
Antoni Hoborski
Józef Hołda
Henryk Ferdynand Hoyer
J. - a passer-by
Zdzisław Jachimecki
Julian Kamecki
Bogdan Kamieński
Ludwik Kamykowski
Adam Marian Kleczkowski
Aleksander Kocwa
Józef Karol Kostrzewski
Tadeusz Kowalski
Jan Kozak
Aleksander Krupkowski
Tadeusz Kruszyński
Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński
Franciszek Leja
Kazimierz Lepszy
Stanisław Leszczycki
Bogusław Leśnodorski
National Digital Archives collection
Zygmunt Grodziński
National Digital Archives collection
historia.agh.edu.pl
National Digital Archives collection
Franciszek Górski
historia.agh.edu.pl
Paweł Łoziński
Stanisław Łukasik
Antoni Meyer
Konstanty Michalski
Zygmunt Mysłakowski
Kazimierz Nitsch
Józef Nodzyński
Arkadiusz Henryk Piekara
Czesław Piętka
Stanisław Pigoń
Ludwik Piotrowicz
Adam Rożański
Jan Salamucha
Zygmunt Sarna
Stefan Schmidt
Anatol Listowski
Adam Ludkiewicz
Teodor Marchlewski
Stanisław Maziarski
Joachim Metallmann
Jan Miodoński
Jan Moszew
Kazimierz Piech
Feliks Rogoziński
National Digital Archives collection
bg.up.krakow.pl
National Digital Archives collection
Złota księga Wydziału Filozoficznego UJ, Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2000
Ksawery Lewkowicz
National Digital Archives collection
Stanisław Majewicz
Kazimierz Majewski
Mieczysław Małecki
Stanisław Malaga
Marian Michalski
Sylwiusz Mikucki
Józef Stanisław Mikulski
Franciszek Mikulski
Tadeusz Milewski
Jan Nowak
Wiktor Ormicki
Aleksander Oszacki
Włodzimierz Ottman
Kazimierz Pazdro
Kazimierz Piwarski
Roman Prawocheński
Zdzisław Przybyłkiewicz
Ludwik Ręgorowicz
Jan Zygmunt Robel
Michał Siedlecki
Ludwik Sieppel
Stanisław Skimina
Stanisław Skowron
National Digital Archives collection
National Digital Archives collection
pth.home.pl
Wincenty Majcher
Władysław Semkowicz
historia.agh.edu.pl
Private collection of Katarzyna Starachowicz
Zygmunt Antoni Starachowicz
Karol Starmach
Wilhelm Staronka
Jan Studniarski
Janusz Supniewski
Antoni Swaryczewski
Stanisław Szczotka
Stanisław Turski
Stanisław Urbańczyk
Leon Jan Wachholz
Franciszek Walter
Jan Włodek
Roman Wojtusiak
Józef Wolski
Władysław Wolter
Fryderyk Zoll
January Zubrzycki
Jan Stanisławski
Kazimierz Stołyhwo
National Digital Archives collection
historia.agh.edu.pl
Jerzy Smoleński
ae.krakow.pl
National Digital Archives collection
law.uj.edu.pl
Tadeusz Ważewski
Albin Żabiński
Jan Wojciech Zabłocki
pk.edu.pl
Izydor Stella-Sawicki
Leon Sternbach
Jan Stępień
Bronisław Stępowski
Władysław Szumowski
Tadeusz Szydłowski
Władysław Takliński
Tadeusz Tempka
Leon Tochowicz
Władysław Wicher
Antoni Wilk
Witold Wilkosz
Edward Windakiewicz
Walenty Winid
Feliks Zalewski
Longin Tadeusz Zawadzki
Adam Zechenter
Jan Zerndt
Jan Ziłyński
historia.agh.edu.pl
historia.agh.edu.pl
khm.cm-uj.krakow.pl
Maciej Starzewski
PHOTOS FROM THE JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITy ARCHIVE COLLECTION, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED
OCCUPIED KRAKÓW
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
Rita Pagacz-Moczarska talks to Jagiellonian University historian Professor Andrzej Chwalba
□ Rita Pagacz-Moczarska: “What was the atmosphere in Kraków like just before the first German forces invaded the city on 6th September 1939?” ■ Andrzej Chwalba: “Like the inhabitants of other Polish cities, the people of Kraków thought the War would be quite different. They imagined it would be rather like the First World War, long and exhausting, with troops deployed in fixed positions. Some hoped the Germans would never reach Kraków. Some even believed the Polish army would beat the Germans. But things turned out differently. Disturbing news was reaching the city of Polish troops retreating and the loss of whole units near Pszczyna. The air raids
spread panic. Rumours were going round the city, to which refugees were pouring in from Silesia, that it would be dangerous to stay in Kraków, for all the population, not just young men. People were terrified, and many Cracovians decided to leave the city already in the first few days of September. Shops emptied as people stocked up on all sorts of goods. There were also instances of looting, especially of abandoned warehouses and factories which had been hit by bombs, facilitated by the blackout imposed in the city. The last bugle-call from the tower of St. Mary’s sounded over the city on 3rd September 1939 and would not be heard again until 24th December 1940. Tens of thousands are estimated to have left the city in the first days of September, most heading east in the belief
Kraków, Wawel Castle, residence of Hans Frank, governor of occupied Poland. Third Reich flags line the street
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alma mater No. 178
□ “Many returned pretty soon, a few days or weeks later…” ■ “If they were not taken prisoner by the Soviets and survived the German air raids. It is well-known that the Germans bombed refugees. Getting back to Kraków wasn’t easy, no trains were running, and the roads were very dangerous. But yes, many managed to return by the end of October, only to find their homes pillaged.”
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
that that would be a safe place to wait for the War to end. The exodus included representatives of the municipal authorities, its councillors, educational authorities, members of the voivodeship regional government, administrative officers, staff of the municipal services, and even firemen.”
Governor Hans Frank (right) and Robert Ley in a car on “Adolf-Hitler-Platz” (the Market Square), Kraków, August 1941
□ “The first German units entered Kraków on 6th September, about 6 a.m., via the Piłsudski Bridge…” ■ “The rest rolled into the city centre along the Karmelicka and Szewska. The Germans made several rounds of the Market Square, accompanied by a retinue of war correspondents who filmed them treating Polish children to sweets. On the same day they issued detailed regulations and imposed a curfew. For the next few weeks the city, as well as the rest of occupied Poland, was under Wehrmacht rule.”
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
□ “The Germans set up a pseudo-state called the Generalgouvernement, and as of 12th October 1939 Kraków was its capital. Its Governor-General, hans Frank, resided in Wawel Castle, thanks to which Kraków is reputed to have enjoyed a privileged status. What was life like in occupied Kraków?”
■ “The privileges were for the ‘German city of Krakau, capital of the Generalgouvernement.’ The Germans wanted to set up a Nuremberg of the East here, a new city for Veit Stoss. Hans Frank, lord of the GG (nicknamed ‘Frankonia’ or ‘Gengov’) wanted to make the city spick and span, an important centre for German scholarship and culture. To do this, he had to expand its territory, put a stop to chaotic development, and bring in new German investment. So he created a new western quarter, new railway lines, roads, green areas, a new water supply and sewerage network. Old buildings were restored and new public facilities, garages, warehouses, and residential buildings were raised. Such things would have been unthinkable elsewhere, e.g. in Warsaw. On the other hand we must not forget that the German plan for ‘Krakau’ of January 1942 envisaged that following the extermination of its Jewish inhabitants the Poles would be moved out to Podgórze. The old town and the revamped, modernised historic parts of the city were to be reserved
Ulica Krakowska before 1941, with Jews wearing Star of David armbands
alma mater No. 178
27
exclusively for Germans. All the Poles had from the flamboyant redevelopment of their hometown were jobs. They had to wait for Hans Frank to flee to enjoy their city again.”
An overcrowded tram in Kraków, June 1941
attendance rates. Neither slogans like ‘Only pigs go to the flicks, and the richer sort in the theatre themselves disport,’ nor warnings that there might be reprisals for such behaviour had much of an effect. People wanted to go out, to forget about the grim reality even for a short while. Those were the facts.”
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
■ “Some perks were unavoidable. The Germans started investment projects, but German labourers were fighting on the eastern and western fronts. Polish labour was available locally, so Poles got the jobs. There were Polish building contractors, and wages were not so bad, comparatively for those times. The Germans set up institutions they originally reserved for themselves. For example, a philharmonic orchestra, initially with a repertoire chiefly by German, Italian, and Czech composers. But later even Chopin and Moniuszko were occasionally played by the Philharmonie des Generalgouvernements. In a way this was due to Hans Frank fancying Chopin was German. After some time Poles were admitted to concerts. And when Hans Swarowsky was appointed the orchestra’s conductor its repertoire was extended to include Noskowski, Karłowicz, Żeleński, and Różycki. It was one of the best European orchestras at the time, and first-rate Polish musicians played in it. Remarkably, the Cracovian resistance movement did not condemn them, nor the Poles who attended concerts. After the War only those who had shaken hands with Frank when being congratulated by him were reprimanded. Poles also went to the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre, renamed the Staastheater des Generalgouvernements in September 1940. As of 1944 Polish theatregoers were admitted to the theatre now called Teatr Stary. There were six cinemas, and they had good
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
□ “In your book, Volume 5 of Dzieje Krakowa (The history of Kraków), on the city under wartime occupation, you write that the ‘privileges of Krakau’ had social effects, a philharmonic hall and cinemas…”
The No.5 tram in Kraków, May 1940. Its carriage came from Nuremberg
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alma mater No. 178
□ “but it would be wrong to say Kraków was passive – it was the second most vibrant centre after Warsaw for military and civilian resistance activity. There were several major operations in Kraków, including an attempt to assassinate hans Frank…”
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
■ “Yes, indeed. In January 1944 a Home Army combat sabotage unit blew up the railway line near the village of Grotkowice, ahead of an approaching train with Hans Frank on board on his way to Lwów (‘Lemberg’) to celebrate the anniversary of Hitler’s coming to power. It was the best-known, albeit abortive attempt on Franks’ life, showing the tremendous resolution of the Polish resistance forces, and also the fact that the Polish Home Army had its agents in the German officers’ corps, thanks to which it had detailed information on Frank’s movements. Hans Frank was more surprised by the particulars of his whereabouts being leaked – there were no Poles in his entourage – than by the assassination attempt itself. Other attempts to assassinate top Nazis, Wilhelm Koppe and Friedrich Krüger, were organised in Kraków (with the involvement of the Parasol unit from Warsaw), unfortunately both were unsuccessful. Kraków was the headquarters of the RGO (Rada Główna Opiekuńcza – the Central Assistance Council), a charity organisation which helped thousands of people, directed by Adam Ronikier and operating from Ksawery Pusłowski’s mansion on ulica Potockiego (now ulica Westerplatte). Kraków alma mater No. 178 Kraków. Panorama of the city from St. Mary’s tower, April 1940
29
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alma mater No. 178
people being murdered, at first there was only a small group of individuals involved in underground resistance. Not everyone had the qualities and skills required for such activities. Gradually the underground network expanded, escalating to a peak in 1944.”
Kraków. Houses along the Market Square, 1939—1940
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
was the second biggest centre for military and civilian resistance operations, and undercover work in education, academia, the arts, sport, and political parties. Though we should bear in mind that in the conditions of a dreadful wartime occupation, with so many
□ “Which part of the War do you think was the hardest time for Cracovians?”
□ “The Jagiellonian University remembers the notorious Sonderaktion Krakau of 6th November 1939. Were there any other acts of terrorism in Kraków?”
Antoni Jackowski’s collection
■ “The worst time was definitely June 1940 and the defeat of France, the point when Poland’s hopes for a relatively fast resolution of the War collapsed. Only Britain was left still fighting. The prospects were the Soviets and Germany as the lords of Europe. People became depressed, and the suicide rate went up.”
Hempelmann. Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives)
■ “At first the view of the Germans many Cracovians had was influenced by their good relations with the upper strata of Viennese and prewar Munich society. They did not perceive GG government headquarters Germans as cruel, sadists, or murderers, partly because they had no idea of the Nazi doctrine. Hence many yers, parliamentary deputies, representatives of the townspeople, people thought that the Germans arrested the professors under clergymen – a total of around 120. Some were imprisoned at Sonderaktion Krakau to prevent demonstrations on 11th Novem- Nowy Wiśnicz, and some were eventually sent to Auschwitz. In ber, Poland’s Independence Day. They did not realise it was the the spring of 1940 the Germans continued the operation, arrestlaunch of a campaign to destroy the Polish educated classes. That ing members of the Polish intelligentsia throughout the country. was what Stalin was doing in the East, at Katyn, and the Germans Operation AB (Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion – Special did the same in Poland. Many Polish teachers, archivists, judges, Liberation) lasted until 15th June 1940. One of the most notorilawyers etc. were killed by the Germans. On 9th November 1939 ous terrorist acts in occupied Kraków was the arrest of well over there was another wave of arrests in a second Sonderaktion a hundred persons connected with the arts – painters, actors, and Krakau. 32 secondary schoolmasters from 4 Cracovian schools journalists, in April 1942. They were abducted from a café on the were arrested. More arrests followed in the next few days – law- Łobzowska, taken to Auschwitz, and were all murdered. Later the
The court of the Jagiellonian University’s Nowodworski College with the Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit installed in it. Bund Deutscher Mädel (Union of German Girls) flag ceremony, with an address by Irmgard Fischer, May 1944
alma mater No. 178
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□ “Why was there no rising in Kraków?” ■ “The people of the Polish underground state were not united. It was considered whether to stage another uprising, or perhaps assist Warsaw. But even the officers thought that launching an uprising in Kraków was not a good idea, and Archbishop Sapieha, the top person in Kraków at the time, was definitely against it. Moreover, they knew how disproportionate the forces would be and did not Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
■ “The young people were enthusiastic. Some, such as the Skała battalion of the Home Army, joined the ranks of Warsaw’s insurgents. But generally Cracovians were apprehensive. They were well aware of the strength of the Germans, and there was no knowledge of what the Red Army would do. Soldiers involved in Operation Burza (Tempest: a plan for a general rising against occupying forces) were in the know beforehand; politicians and Archbishop Sapieha learned of the Uprising almost immediately; and by 3rd August the whole of Kraków was talking about it. Those involved in the wartime economic boom were worried the Germans might take retaliatory measures. After all, debates on the sense of the Warsaw Uprising are still going on today… At any rate, on 1st August the Home Army in Kraków issued a combat alert and prepared for the potential outbreak of a Cracovian insurgency.”
Hans Frank (second left) and Ernst Boepple (third left) visiting an exhibition in the Staatsbibliothek, Kraków, 1943
reign of terror escalated even more. In this respect Kraków was not at all privileged. Hans Frank spread rumours that Kraków was being favoured. He did this to spark a conflict with Warsaw, but there was absolutely no truth in the rumours.” □ “hans Frank was playing a little game in Kraków. Could you please say something about it?”
□ “how did the people of Kraków react to news of the Warsaw Uprising?”
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Opening ceremony for an exhibition on German heritage in the Vistula Basin. First row left to right: Ernst Boepple, Hans Frank, Police Chief Winkler, Dr. Wilhelm Coblitz. First right in the second row: Prof. W. Rudig Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
■ “Towards the end of the War, when the Germans were losing, Frank tried to persuade the authorities in Berlin to make a fundamental change in their Polish policy, stop treating Poles as racially inferior sub-humans, but instead as political partners. There was no approval for his suggestion, nonetheless he embarked on a ‘new course of action.’ The editorial policy of Goniec, the local paper published by the occupying power, changed, and its articles were no longer as aggressive as at the beginning of the War. In 1944 the Teatr Stary building was opened. The aim of Frank’s political gamble was to divide the Poles and split up the resistance movement and Polish underground state into antagonistic factions. He applied an insistent and highly effective German propaganda to woo the Polish people into acquiescence. They had never been faced with such subtle propaganda before, and some unwittingly succumbed. The Home Army implemented an operation called Wrzód (Blight) against those who entered on business relations with the Germans that went too far. Frank’s venture grew more and more intense the nearer the Red Army got to Kraków.”
Hans Frank’s address at the opening ceremony for the Staatsbibliothek installed in the new building of the Jagiellonian Library
□ “In your book you disprove the myths which we still believe in, such as the story that there was a spectacular manoeuvre that saved Kraków, or the story of a meeting between Archishop Sapieha and hans Frank in the bishops’ Palace…”
Historical Museum of the City of Kraków collection
believe in the success of such an enterprise. The Germans definitely had the upper hand in terms of numbers, firing power, organisation, and communications. They were building fortifications, air-raid shelters, they were mounting guns in the windows of government buildings, and had even brought in special units for street combat. A rising in Kraków would have been bound to fail, probably as soon as it started. Only about 10-15% of the men in the Home Army had guns, and the most the rest would have had in the way of weapons would have been Molotov cocktails or hand grenades. Optimists were still hoping that it would be possible to get arms on the enemy by a surprise attack, but these hopes were dashed when the Home Army’s detailed plans for operations of this kind fell into the hands of the Gestapo.”
The Germans topple the Mickiewicz Monument in the Market Square of Kraków
■ “There was no meeting with Hans Frank in the Bishops’ Palace. Cardinal Sapieha’s meeting with Hans Frank was in Wawel Castle. Cardinal Sapieha tried to persuade Hans Frank and the government of the GG to grant Kraków the status of an open city, like the ones enjoyed by Florence and Rome, with the assurance that there would be no combat on its territory, and that any clashes with the Red Army would be conducted beyond its bounds. But his bid was unsuccessful. As regards the day on which Kraków
was liberated, in January 1945 the Red Army did not conduct any special manoeuvre to save Kraków from total devastation, because the Germans were not intending to blow up the city. So the story of General Konev saving Kraków is just fiction. The Germans had laid explosives only in places which were important from the military point of view, under bridges, viaducts, in railway stations, the gasworks, the electricity station etc. It is not certain whether they put explosives near Skałka Hill and in the Słowacki Theatre,
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
Exhibition on “Adolf-Hitler-Platz” of military equipment captured by the Germans, with the Cloth Hall in the background, July 1942
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Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
Resettled Jews being brought into the Podgórze ghetto, and Poles leaving the area
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alma mater No. 178 Military parade in “Adolf-Hitler-Platz” (the Market Square) on the 2nd anniversary of the creation of the Generalgouvernement
□ “Kraków’s joy at seeing the last of the Germans soon turned into dread of the Red Army…”
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
because there are no records of any explosives being removed from those sites. They definitely did not set up explosives in the Market Square, and they even had anti-air raid devices on Wawel Hill. The Red Army, which had an excellent intelligence network with radio stations in Kraków and its environs, entered other Polish towns such as Tarnów and Bochnia without any damage being done and virtually without a shot being fired. In addition they had Kurt Hartmann, an Abwehr officer, working for them. He was the Red Army’s best spy in Kraków. I don’t see anything special about the operations of the Red Army units under Konev’s command.”
The Wehrmacht’s mobile bookshop in front of the Cloth Hall
munist authorities drafted a letter of complaint to Comrade Stalin himself, but it was never sent because its authors started to fear for their own lives. The nightmare started to turn into a reality.” □ “On 31st August 1939 Kraków had a population of 259 thousand, and by the end of the War that figure had risen. Why?” ■ “Mainly because in 1941 Hans Frank extended the municipal area, pushing out its borders quite considerably to include an extra 70 thousand inhabitants. Hence despite the Holocaust and the murder of the city’s Jewish inhabitants, in December 1944 the population of Kraków was bigger than when the War had just broken out.”
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
■ “Not surprisingly. Some even asked for prayers to be said in church for the Germans to stay. Of course, such incidents were the exception and not the rule, and luckily their votives were turned down. People were afraid for their families and jobs, that once the Red Army entered everything would be nationalised just as it was in the Soviet Union. And that’s just what happened. The Red Army’s unpredictability was evidenced by the looting perpetrated by its men, the evictions, the deportations east, and the collective rape of women and girls. In one incident of rape at the main railway station in Kraków shots were fired at the Poles who tried to stop it. There were so many incidents of rape and theft by the Red Army that the Polish Com-
□ “What were Kraków’s human and material losses during the Second World War?” ■ “As a result of German occupation 60 thousand Jews, several thousand Poles, and a few hundred Roma were murdered. Kraków’s material losses did not come until January 1945, when about 450 buildings were devastated or destroyed. Fortunately, the city did not incur any major losses earlier.” □ “Thank you for the interview” Celebration in the court of Wawel Castle to mark Hitler’s birthday, 20th April 1941. Hans Frank delivers an address to Volksdeutsche (the group in the middle of the court) who had recently joined the Nazi Party or had rendered “distinguished service.”
Rita Pagacz-Moczarska
Professor Andrzej Chwalba specialises in the 19th– and 20th-century history of Poland and Europe. He is the head of the Department of Historical Anthropology in the Jagiellonian University’s Institute of History. He has published about 120 books and articles, including a history of Poland for the 1795–1918 period, Volume 5 of the history of Kraków (the 1939–1945 period), and Volume 6 of the same series, for the 1945–1990 period.
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Jagiellonian University Archive collection
ThE FiRST dAYS iN ThE CONCENTRATiON CAMP Professor Stanisław Urbańczyk’s recollections then our heads were shaved, and those with beards or moustaches had them shaved off. We were given a towel and soap and had a hot shower. Then the storekeeper issued us with new clothes: a threadbare shirt, underpants, an old army jacket, pale blue and dark blue-striped prison trousers, socks, heavy shoes, socks, gloves and a clownish cap made of striped material. It all happened at the speed of lightning, and of course you had no choice and you didn’t have the right to complain. All you were
Stanisław Urbańczyk
allowed to keep of your personal items were your glasses, bandages, handkerchiefs, and some people were allowed to keep their toothbrush. Anyone who knows how “practical” professors can be can just imagine what went on – missing shoelaces, two left shoes making up a pair, glasses being lost and leaving their owners unable to find anything, especially their glasses. Anyone who had a young, practical, and
Plan of Sachsenhausen concentration camp
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S
o we finally went into the block to submit to the admission ceremony. There was a long row of tables where you had to hand in your baggage, then the contents of your pockets and personal belongings, and then you were given a prison number. I got No.5371. From that moment on you were not a professor, a docent, or an assistant anymore, just Schutzhäftling (preventive arrestee) No. so-and-so. Finally you had to undress. When we were naked we had a humiliating body search for pubic lice,
PAN&PAU Scientific Archives
The blocks of Sachsenhausen
brave companion next to them was lucky. Apparently Professor Kostanecki’s erysipelas (red skin) infection started because he got shoes which were too tight and made it easier for him to catch frostbite and the skin infection. Professor Hoborski was one of those who got two left shoes, which also had dreadful consequences. My professor was with me all the time, so I could look after his glasses, shoes etc. I managed to get by without being beaten up. In the group of professors I looked like a youngster, which earned me a sort of sympathy. When a young SS-man was taking something away from me and I said I didn’t care about it, as I would never leave the camp anyway, he looked offended and started comforting me that it wouldn’t be so bad, that many people came out of the camp alive. Professor Hoborski, who was halfblind and had become incapacitated, was passing me by very slowly. I helped him and tried to explain what was going on, as he couldn’t understand what was happening to him and was complaining out aloud at the treatment to which he was being put. To save him from being beaten up I told the SS-men that he was not quite normal, and the poor professor got very cross with
me. A lot of people were hurt or injured. An SS-man hit one of our group in the face twelve times, counting all the blows. SS-men got furious if they caught anyone with an object of religious devotion, such as a prayer-book, a medal, or saw a cross on a chain round someone’s neck. One of the docents (maybe Lepszy?) had his face slapped when he was discovered with a cross. His tormentor ripped the chain off his neck , threw the cross on the ground, and trod on it. It would be hard to describe how much we all suffered just on the basis of my own memories, you would need to interview all of us. But I may add that the prisoners who were there before us had never seen anyone being treated as gently as us. After all, none of us had his teeth knocked out or got his ribs broken. . . . We spent the first night on straw mattresses in two large halls; we were given a blanket each. It was late November and the windows were open. In the morning the cold woke me up. I nudged the man next to me and we covered ourselves with our two blankets and slept in warmth till the reveille. We washed with no towels and soap, and then the soup arrived, even worse than what we had been given in the evening,
and after that there was the appeal in the street in front of the block. We did not go to the appeal yard, because we hadn’t been trained yet. But that did not save us from a visit by an SS-man and a beating. We were drilled all morning: “Stillgestanden! Richt euch! Mützen ab! Mützen auf! Rührt euch!” (Attention! Line yourselves up! Caps off! Caps on! Stand at ease!), until our thick professorial heads stopped being an obstacle to the mechanical movement of our hands and feet. We were in Block 19 only temporarily. Still on our first day we were split up into two groups and taken to Blocks 45 and 46. When we got there we were again split up, half of us were allocated room A and the other half room B. Friends had to do a lot of manoeuvring to stay together, and it wasn’t easy if you didn’t know what was going to happen next. In the end my professor and I were put into room B in Block 45. Once in your room you had to get a cupboard (one for every four men) and a place at the table. Again you had to be smart enough to get into the group of your choice. The other three in my group were the two Estreichers and Nitsch. Each of us was allocated a permanent place at one of
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There were lanes running out radially from the yard to the perimeter and crossing the concentric streets. The blocks faced the lanes. The camp’s administrative area was to the east of the appeal yard, and it was arranged in a different way; prisoners hardly ever went there, Forecourt of the crematorium at Sachsenhausen only to be photographed or interrogated in the political department. the five tables. Each table had a TischälBeyond the blocks there was a lawn or gartester (senior) appointed to keep everything den, and beyond that barbed wire and a high in order at table. Ours was a Czech called live-wire fence, a passage-way for the Desenský, not a very nice fellow. The two guards, more barbed wire, and a concrete Estreichers, Nitsch, Frančić, and Batowski wall topped with high-voltage barbed wire. sat next to or near me. The blocks were not empty when we ar- Any prisoner who approached the barbed rived. In our room there were already 70-80 wire was shot dead without warning. So people, some Germans, a few Czechs, and it was not surprising that inmates who no the majority were Poles from Westphalia longer had the strength to put up with the or the border-zone with Poland. Each room torments of the concentration camp availed was now joined by about 40 Cracovians. themselves of this method to recover their I haven’t said that the priests and the Jews freedom in death. What chance was there from our group were taken to separate of escape? Trying to answer that question blocks isolated off with barbed wire, so would be a waste of time. All the blocks used as living quarters contact with them was very difficult. There rather than for administrative or non-resimust have been about 70 blocks in the dential purposes were as like each other as whole camp. They were arranged concentritwo peas in a pod. They had a pair of doors cally in 3-4 rings around a big, semi-circular in the centre of their long wall leading into appeal yard.
a small entrance hall, which led off into a washroom and toilet straight ahead, the two day rooms on the left and right, and the dormitories behind them. The walls of the blocks were made of a double layer of wooden planks with insulating material between them. Indoors the wood was left in its natural state, but the outer wall had a coat of dark olive paint which the dust from the gravel path made even blacker. The black pines and their mournful rustle made the atmosphere in the camp even more depressing. You couldn’t see anything beyond the pines; all you could see was black, black streets, black blocks, black treetops. That was the setting in which tens, or maybe hundreds of thousands of people went through the most traumatic period of their lives, all within not much more than a decade. The bodies of tens of thousands were turned into ashes in that crematorium near Berlin. When I was there the concentration camp accommodated thirteen thousand people, sometimes fewer, but sometimes more. Inmates died or were transferred to other camps; some were even freed, but as soon as they left new inmates took their place. The Gestapo saw to it that the concentration camp was not idle. Anyone who left Sachsenhausen alive usually left their physical health there, not to mention the psychological trauma.
Professor Stanisław Urbańczyk (1909–2001), a distinguished linguist and professor of the Jagiellonian University, a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and honorary doctor of the Universities of Salzburg, Olomouc, Poznań, and Erlangen. On 6th November 1939, when he was an assistant tutor, he was detained in the group of academics arrested under Sonderaktion Krakau. He was 30 at the time. He was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. Still during the war he started to write up his recollections, which are regarded as one of the fullest testimonials of what the academics went through. He left a record of their experiences from the time they were arrested, through their period in detention and concentration camps, until their discharge. His account describes relations in the camp, both among inmates and SS-men. After the discharge of the senior professors the younger academics including Stanisław Urbańczyk were sent to Dachau concentration camp to prevent them from engaging in resistance activity against the Germans. In 1945 when the Jagiellonian University resumed its activities Urbańczyk earned his habilitation degree. In 1946-1946 he was a professor extraordinary of Toruń University, and later, until 1956, of Poznań University. In 1956 he was appointed ordinary professor of the Jagiellonian University. As of 1953 he was a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, serving as deputy director of the Academy’s Institute of Literary Research, and director of its Institute for the Polish Language in Kraków. In 1989 he became a member of the restored Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and was appointed head of its Philological Class. In 1971-1991 he was chairman of the International Commission on the Grammatical Structure of the Slavic Languages. Urbańczyk’s scholarly interests ranged from the history of language, through dialectology and lexicography, to mythology.
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ThREE CONCENTRATiON CAMP iNMATES T
here were several geographers among the victims of Sonderaktion Krakau: Jerzy Smoleński, Wiktor Ormicki, Stanisław Leszczycki, Stanisław Korbel (all of the Jagiellonian University), Walenty Winid (affiliated to the Jagiellonian University and the Commercial Academy), and Ludwik Ręgorowicz, a Jagiellonian University graduate in History and Geography, an educational campaigner and friend of Jerzy Smoleński, arrested along with the academics after an appointment with Professor Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński on 6th November 1939. A lot has been written on the concentration camp biographies of these academics,1 so this article will present the stories of just three of the people arrested on 6th November 1939. These three scholars represent three generations of geographers. Professor Jerzy Smoleński was head of the Jagiellonian
Nazi propaganda brochure on Polish research on political science, published in August 1939 in Berlin by Bund Deutscher Osten (Union of the German East). Geographers Jerzy Smoleński, Antoni Wrzosek, Stanisław Pawłowski, Eugeniusz Romer, and Stanisław Srokowski are on the list of Polish scholars regarded as the greatest enemies of the Third Reich
University Institute of Geography; Docent Wiktor Rudolf Ormicki was in the middle generation, with proceedings for his titular professorship already initiated; and the young adjunct Stanisław Leszczycki represented the third generation. Their stories stand out against the sinister landscape of the concentration camps shaped by Nazi hatred and the suffering of the victims. This article shows the heroism of people who suddenly found themselves face to face with imminent extermination but kept their personal dignity, which was not easy in conditions of inhuman cruelty and the constant threat of death. All three had been brought up in the patriotic spirit; for all three the supreme value was their Country. Jerzy SmoleńSki
PAN&PAU Scientific Archives
The stories of three geographers
Monday, 6th November started in the Institute of Geography with the usual staff meeting. After the meeting Smoleński, Ormicki and Leszczycki Jerzy Smoleński (1881—1940) on the balcony of his apartment decided to make their way together at Plac na Groblach 8 in Kraków, ca. 1938. Original photo to the meeting with Bruno Müller in owned by Małgorzata Piotrowska Collegium Novum. On the way Smoleński sorge (the Population and Social Welfare dropped into the Theological Seminary on Department) in the Office of the Generulica Podzamcze to see his son Stanisław, algouvernement, who offered to procure who was a priest.2 It was the last time father the release of several of the professors, and son saw each other. Straight after Müller’s lecture the Gestapo started handling the prisoners very brutally. A young Gestapo man ruthlessly beat up Professors Jerzy Smoleński and Signature of Jerzy Smoleński Ignacy Chrzanowski when they were still on the stairs in the Collegium the anthropologist Kazimierz Stołyhwo, Novum Building. 3 The arrestees were the geographer Jerzy Smoleński, and the taken to the Montelupich prison, put in the sociologist and ethnologist Kazimierz chapel, and subsequently transferred to the Dobrowolski, “on behalf of German barracks of the 20th Infantry Regiment on scholarship.” Arlt had met Smoleński before, during the examination of the ulica Mazowiecka. In Kraków the imprisoned academics building of the Institute of Geography, and were visited by Dr. Fritz Arlt, head of he was full of praise for the Institute and Abteilung Bevölkerungswesen und Für- the way it was run. 4 But there was a price
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certain German academics. He had been viciously attacked by Albrecht Penck, a prominent German geographer and geomorphologist, for criticising the German concept of Lebensraum and the “Pomeranian Corridor.” At the 14th Congress of the International Geographical Union, which was hosted by Poland in 1934, he and Ormicki met with vituperation from German nationalists over the guidebook to Silesia which they had published. Finally Smoleński’s name appeared on the list of Polish scholars dubbed the greatest enemies of the Third Reich. That was what a propaganda brochure entitled Politische Wissenschaft in Polen und ihre Organisation, published in August 1939 by the Nazi organisation Bund Deutscher Osten said about him. The people on that list were liable to a range of repressive measures, including the death sentence, which was carried out on the geographer Stanisław Pawłowski from Poznań. On 10th November the academics were transferred to prisons in Breslau (now Wrocław). In a letter of 16th November 1939 to his wife Smoleński wrote:
attached to freedom: they would have to sign a declaration that they would not engage in any kind of political activities and agree to collaborate with the Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit. None of the three agreed.5 Patriotism and solidarity with their colleagues won. They knew that their refusal to collaborate meant deportation to a concentration camp. Another person who visited the prison was Włodzimierz Kubijowicz (Volodymyr Kubijovyč), an ex-docent of geography in the Jagiellonian University dismissed for promoting Ukrainian nationalism.6 He managed to get three JU professors who were Ukrainians discharged, but unfortunately made no effort on behalf of the rest of his colleagues. As he turned down Arlt’s offer Smoleński must certainly have recalled his nasty experience of contacts with
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PAN&PAU Scientific Archives
Page 1 of Prof. Smoleński’s first letter to his wife Helena from the Breslau jail, 16th November 1939
My Darling! I have been in prison in Breslau for a week now. It is quite bearable here . . .. I have everything I need and there’s nothing I want. Physically I’m quite well . . .. Of course being apart is painful, but I don’t think it will last long. Just be optimistic, don’t worry too much about me,
Prof. Smoleński’s last letter to his wife Helena from Sachsenhausen, 17th December 1939
PAN&PAU Scientific Archives
PAN&PAU Scientific Archives
Telegram from Sachsenhausen notifying Helena Smoleńska of her husband’s death of arteriosclerosis, 6th January 1940; with the Gestapo’s seal and permission allowing the widow to travel to Berlin (the handwritten note says that S. was held in prison since 6th November 1939 and died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and that there were no objections to the widow and her son S. being granted a passport)
and look after your health. We have to wait patiently. Kisses straight from my heart for you and the children. Your J.7 The academics initiated their cycle of lectures already in Breslau, which would be held in the evenings after lights-out. The geographers were speakers, too. On November 27th the academics were transported from Breslau to Sachsenhausen concentration camp at Oranienburg near Berlin. They travelled in ordinary railway carriages. To prevent escapes the Germans selected two prisoners from each carriage to act as hostages, who would be shot if any of the prisoners escaped. Stanisław Leszczycki was one of the hostages. 8 When they alighted from the train the prisoners were arranged in a column and had a long march from the railway station to the concentration camp. During the march Smoleński dispensed a lot of physical and moral assistance to weaker prisoners. 9 When they reached their destination the geographers were put in Barrack No.45 and given concentration camp ID numbers: Smoleński 5280, Ormicki 5298, and Leszczycki 5322. Helena Smoleńska’s travel permit to Berlin and back valid for 6th—11th January 1940
The German geographer and geomorphologist Paul Woldstedt (1888–1973)
On 2nd December Smoleński wrote to his wife:
of vitamins and he was getting feebler psychologically. He developed a serious illness and got so weak that Ormicki and Leszczycki had to carry him to appeals. One day Ormicki carried him to the camp infirmary. He was cheerful and sometimes had a gentle smile on his face, but was gradually fading before our very eyes . . .. His death was due to the inhumane treatment in the camp. The measures applied in the camp to debilitate prisoners were too much for his physical powers, but they could not break him morally. 12 He died at 4 a.m. on 5th January 1940. On the day after his death his friends held a clandestine memorial in tribute to him. The speakers were Wiktor Ormicki,
Stanisław Leszczycki, Michał Siedlecki, Ignacy Chrzanowski, and Tadeusz Banachiewicz. The camp authorities notified Professor Smoleński’s wife of his death with a telegram which stated that the cause of death was arteriosclerosis. On learning of her husband’s death Helena Smoleńska managed to get a travel permit and on 6th January 1940 she and her son Father Stanisław reached Berlin. There she was helped by Professor Paul Woldstedt, a German geologist and geomorphologist who was a friend of Smoleński’s. They kept in touch with each other in their scientific activities and privately. They had spent a lot of time together during the 14th Congress of the International Geographical Union
My Darling! I am in perfect health, I feel well and don’t need anything. Don’t worry about me – we just have to wait patiently. Of course I’m thinking about you all the time and I’d love to know what’s going on at home . . .. Are you and the children well? Write to me only about the things that are most important for you and the family . . . . Keep your spirits up. Be optimistic. God bless you! Heartfelt kisses for you, my Darling, and the children . . .. And see you soon, as soon as it’ll be possible. Yours ever, J.10 The prisoners continued their project of learned talks in Sachsenhausen and called it “the concentration camp university.” Smoleński finished his contribution over Christmas. On 17th December he wrote his last letter to his wife:
All the time Wiktor Ormicki looked after his boss with a lot of care and attention, trying to protect him against all the repressive measures the Germans wanted to inflict on him. Smoleński’s health was deteriorating, he was suffering from lack
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My Dearest! My very best wishes to you, the children, and all in the house for Christmas. Take heart, I’m perfectly well. We just have to wait patiently and not let our spirits sink. This is my third letter to you, but I haven’t had a letter from you yet and I’d love to know how you are getting on and what’s new at home. Are you well? And what about the children? I don’t need anything here. I kiss you and the children most lovingly. J. 11
Prof. Szafer’s letter of condolence to Helena Smoleńska, 10th January 1940
Wiktor ormicki On 8th February 1940 the Germans released 101 of the Cracovian academics of 40 and over from Sachsenhausen. On 4th March those who were under 40 were transferred to Dachau. Leszczycki and Ormicki were among that number, even though the latter was 42(!) Since he was the eldest in the group and fluent in German he acted as the group’s representative to the Germans, who in a way treated him with respect.
Wiktor Ormicki (1898–1941), ca. 1938
The Ormicki family tried to get him released. Their endeavours took various forms: officially through the Gestapo, through the RGO (viz. the only Polish charity organisation the Germans recognised), for money, and unofficially through
Wiktor Ormicki’s signature
the services of an anonymous professor of the University of Rome. Probably the unnamed sponsor was Corrado Gini, an
Ormicki Family Archive
Dear Madam, I cannot find the right words of heartfelt sympathy, sorrow, and a friend’s grief to console you in the tremendous calamity that has fallen upon you and your family. Your late husband was my dear and very close friend, a most noble man and an outstanding scholar with whom I shared many mutual interests, aims and objectives. I was always impressed by the constancy and firmness of his views grounded in Christian ethics. He always stood up for the pursuit and advancement of every good cause. In his heart there was only goodness, and in everything he did he was noble and as open and straightforward as truth itself. He was the best of colleagues for us, and a devoted friend and leader for young people. That is why his death, tragic because of the circumstances in which it ensued, comes as a blow so hard to sustain. Failing to find the right words of consolation, for no human can offer you adequate words of comfort, I ask only for
Professor Smoleński’s students, such as Antoni Wrzosek and others, also wrote to his widow.
Ormicki Family Archive
you to be able to find consolation in God, and to know and trust that both I and very, very many other friends of your husband who are unable today to contact you unite with you and your family in grief upon the loss of your husband and father, our friend, a great scientist and a man Poland can be proud of. It is only from sacrifices such as the sacrifice of the late Jerzy’s life that our Country will arise anew and in freedom. Please accept my most profound respects, Yours most sincerely and devotedly, Władysław Szafer. 14
in Warsaw. Smoleński showed him around the Polish capital and then hosted him in Kraków. On receiving news of his friend’s murder in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Woldstedt committed himself to helping the widow. Thanks to his contacts he helped the family get to Sachsenhausen, see the body of their husband and father, and pay their last respects. This was very exceptional indeed. Woldstedt then attended Smoleński’s cremation and made sure that the urn the widow received really contained her husband’s ashes. The urn was sent to Kraków and was interred in the family tomb in Rakowice Cemetery. It was certainly one of the rare instances when a German had the courage to intervene with the Gestapo on behalf of a Pole. After the War Professor Woldstedt kept in touch with Smoleński’s student, Mieczysław Klimaszewski. With the death of Professor Smoleński geography lost a brilliant scientist, one of the world’s most eminent geomorphologists, an outstanding expert on the demographic problems of Europe, and one of the founders of the Polish school of political geography. News of his death soon spread throughout the world, and was reported in the Polish underground press. On 10th January 1940 the distinguished botanist Władysław Szafer, Rector of the Jagiellonian University, 13 wrote the following letter to Helena Smoleńska:
Wiktor Ormicki’s first (last?) letter from Dachau to his wife Irena, 24th March 1940. The white patches mark passages cut out by the censor’s office in the concentration camp
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eminent Italian sociologist, ethnologist, demographer, and statistician, the creator of the Gini index. Gini, an adherent of Fascism, had attended the 18th International Session of the Institute of Statistics in 1929, which was held in Warsaw, and there he met Ormicki. In April 1939 Ormicki had visited him in Rome. Mrs. Ormicka was refused permission to visit her husband in the concentration camp. 15 From the very outset, Ormicki did not submit to despondency. He was one of those people who tried to instil a bit of optimism in his companions. He missed his family very much. His surviving letters show his deep concern for the Institute. In a letter of 11th February 1940 to his wife Irena he wrote: Dearest Irena, Dear Mum, Dear Dad, . . . and Dear boys! I have just received your letter . . . thank you for all your news. . .. I am well, in a good humour, and very optimistic. I’m quite all right. In my thoughts I keep returning home, and I’m close to you, Mum and Dad, and the children. I often think of you, how you are getting on, where you get the necessaries from, who is earning money, how much and in what way, and how you are coping. My needs are very small . . .. Here everyday life is going on quietly, each day is like the next, and week follows week. . . . Write and tell
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Ormicki Family Archive
A page from Irena Ormicka’s letter to the authorities of the Jagiellonian University concerning her husband Wiktor, 29th May 1945
me how you are managing. How are the children? . . . Please do your best to keep the materials I had in the Institute safe. . . . I kiss you and the children. Your Wiktor.16 On 24th March he wrote his first (and maybe his last?) letter to his wife from Dachau. It shows his great concern for his family and for the Institute. He must have written something important about the Institute, because the censor in the concentration camp decided to cut out this passage. Dearest Irena, Dear Parents and Children! Some time has passed since my last letter. I have been transferred to Dachau. The worst thing about it is the gap in correspondence with home. (The last letter I had from you was dated 7th February.) I would very much like to have your news as soon as possible. . . . I’m writing this letter on Wiktor Ormicki’s official death certificate
Easter Sunday, in perfect health and full of optimism. My very best wishes to you all for a joyous Easter! How are Mum and Dad, and the children? . . . Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the Institute. In particular I’m wondering if it might be a good idea to . . . my [passage excised by the concentration camp censor] . . . I still don’t know how much rent you are paying and where you get the money from . . . I need money for tobacco. . . . Write to me about everything that’s important for you and the family. Loving greetings and kisses from your husband Wiktor.17 One day in Dachau the Germans conducted an anthropological examination of the prisoners. When it came to Ormicki’s turn the German who was doing the measurements said he had a Semitic skull type and asked him whether he was Jewish. Ormicki replied in the affirmative. He knew very well that this was tantamount to a death
sentence.18 But Ormicki had always been truthful, he made his decision fully aware of the consequences. Straightaway he was put in the penal commando, in which all the Jews were. On 16th August 1940 he was transferred to Mauthausen-Gusen, which was one of the worst concentration camps in the Third Reich, and its inmates had to work in dreadful conditions. As he left for Gusen, Ormicki continued to be resolute and appealed to his fellow prisoners to stand firm and not lose spirit, for victory and freedom would come. 19 In the new camp he was sent to the penal commando, too. When Ormicki’s family was conducting a campaign for his release Karl Chmielewski, commandant of Gusen concentration camp, summoned him and told him he would never leave the camp alive. In his opinion on Ormicki Chmielewski called him a Polish chauvinist and said he was a threat to German society. 20 The Nazis
Jerzy Sokołowski
A passage from Stanisław Nogaj’s account of the death of Wiktor Ormicki; Polish version, 1945; and German version, 1997
The Jerzy Smoleński and Wiktor Ormicki memorial tablet, unveiled on 19th November 1949. A copy of the tablet is located in the Institute of Geography and Spatial Management building on the JU’s Third Campus
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Jerzy Sawicz
knew about Ormicki’s prewar activities. They remembered the 1928 episode in Beuthen (the city of Bytom, now in Poland, was in Germany at the time). 21 On 25th March 1928 Ormicki was severely beaten up by a German paramilitary group during a lecture he was giving for a Polish educational campaign called Powszechne Wykłady Uniwersyteckie (General University Lectures). They also held against him the patriotic tone of the guidebook to Upper Silesia he and Smoleński had published. They were also critical of the work he did for the Polish Instytut do Badań Spraw Narodowościowych (Institute for Studies on Nationality). Presumably this aspect of Ormicki’s prewar activities was what made
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Jerzy Sawicz
Exhibits dedicated to Wiktor Ormicki in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Museum, 21st November 2009, during the opening ceremony of the exhibition on the Polish and Czech intelligentsia inmates held in Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück at the beginning of the Second World War. The exhibition was organised by the Jagiellonian University and Charles University of Prague
the Germans decide to keep him in the concentration camp – of course, apart from his Jewish roots. Ormicki’s fellow-prisoners were impressed by the stance he took. His esteem grew more and more, even among the criminal prisoners and German functionaries, who were no better than professional cut-throats. According to Stanisław Nogaj22 Ormicki had no fear of death and was ready to die.23 He kept up his scholarly activities to the very last moments of his life, disseminating geographical knowledge among his fellowprisoners. Every Saturday and Sunday he gave secret lectures on geography to an audience of nearly 200 prisoners. He finished writing two books, Problemy zaludnienia kuli ziemskiej (on world demography) and Problemy zaludnienia terenów pustynnych oraz zaopatrzenia ludności w wodę (problems associated with the settlement of desert areas and the supply of water to such populations).24 Shortly before his death he co-organised a large, though unofficial chess tournament, in which nearly 200 prisoners took part. On 17th September 1941 the functionaries were ordered to kill 8 Jews within 24 hours. When the executioners came to the block for him, he entrusted the manuscripts of his books to one of them, asking him to give them to Nogaj. As he left the block he said to his fellow-inmates, “I know why they’ve come for me . . .. Yet I’m going calmly. I’m going profoundly convinced that I’m not dying in vain, that it’s all for the sake of Poland.”25 They marched him off to the bath-house, where executions were carried out. His slayers waiting for him there were utterly impervious to human feelings, yet in their own perverted way they admired and
Sachsenhausen. Geographers from Kraków lay a wreath on the site of the blocks where the academics were detained. Left to right: Jacek Ormicki (Wiktor’s son), Antoni Jackowski, Jan Bromowicz (grandson of geologist Prof. Jan Nowak, a great friend of the geographers), 22nd November 2009
StaniSłaW leSzczycki When the Kraków group arrived in Dachau the Germans decided to exploit its scientific potential and established a Wissenschaftliche Abteilung (scientific division). Stanisław Leszczycki set up and ran a meteorological station, which helped him survive the next 10 months in the camp. His wife Wanda, who was also a geographer, tried many ways to procure his release.
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
planning to publish a Polish version of Mariotti’s fundamental book, Corso di Economia Turistica, in 1939 or early 1940. On 19th July 1940 Mrs. Leszczycka wrote to Professor Mariotti:
Stanisław Leszczycki (1907–1996), ca. 1939
One was by writing numerous applications to the Gestapo in Kraków and Berlin. As of 19th January 1940 she did so regularly every month, but never got a reply. She also turned for help to Professor Angelo Mariotti, a prominent individual in Fascist Italy and affiliated to the La Sapienza University in Rome. Mariotti was a distinguished expert on the economics of tourism and had often lectured in Germany. Leszczycki had made his acquaintance during Mariotti’s visit to Warsaw in the early 1930s. He invited Mariotti to publish a paper the Jagiellonian University’s publications on tourism studies. Mariotti took up the offer and his article “L’organizacione turistica nell’Italia fascista” appeared in a bilingual version (in Polish and Italian) in fascicle 17 (1939) of the Komunikaty Studium Turyzmu UJ series. In addition Studium Turyzmu (Tourist Studies) was
Dear Professor Mariotti, Please excuse my boldness for writing to you, although I do not know you personally. Just a year ago my husband, the geographer Dr. Stanisław Leszczycki, head of Tourist Studies at the Jagiellonian University of Kraków, was working and
Signature of Stanisław Leszczycki
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
liked him for his knowledge, his scholarship, and the information he had often passed on to them on what the papers said. They told him that he was to die by drowning. Ormicki asked them to let him out of the bath-house, promising he would commit suicide by throwing himself on the high-voltage perimeter fence around the camp. They did not agree to this, claiming that the extermination of the Jews was to be carried out on the quiet. “By way of exception” (and they stressed it was a privilege) they offered him death by hanging. Ormicki finally decided on “the hangman’s noose.” 26 And that is how, at 7.30 a.m. on 17th September 1941, Wiktor Ormicki died. A distinguished geographer, one of the founders of Polish regional studies and anthropogeography, the most outstanding geographer of his generation, was slaughtered. Word of his murder went round the camp and was talked about for a long time. According to the official story given to his wife he died “of a heart attack.” Historians regard the date of Ormicki’s death as the end of Sonderaktion Krakau. Less than a year later his father Fryderyk was murdered in Auschwitz. The Germans wanted to desecrate his corpse. Obersturmführer Erik von dem Hoff told the butchers before they killed Ormicki that he wanted them to cut his head off and send it to the taxidermist, so that he could put it on his desk and use it as a bric-a-brac. But the Poles working in the camp’s mortuary saved the professor’s body from this profanation, and it was cremated intact in one of the camp’s crematoria. The urn with his ashes was taken to Steyr in Austria, but it has still not been found. In accordance with the victim’s last will, his executioners actually handed over his manuscripts to Stanisław Nogaj. They were circulated among prisoners, and there was a waiting list for them. Unfortunately just before the camp’s liberation in 1945 their last reader destroyed both manuscripts, fearing a search. 27
A passage from Stanisław Leszczycki’s recollections from Sachsenhausen and Dachau, German version (1997)
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exchanging scholarly experience with you on tourist studies. Your work has been translated into Polish and published under my husband’s care, and that is why I am turning to you with an earnest plea. My husband is suffering the same fate as other academics from Kraków and has been away from home for nine months now, with no opportunity to continue his scientific work. Perhaps you could be so good and kind as to take an interest in his future, so that he might return home and devote himself to the work he loves so much. Once again, please forgive me for my request, but faced with such a disaster one must leave no stone unturned. Please accept my deepest respects. 28 Mariotti did indeed commit himself to helping Mrs. Leszczycka and immediately embarked on a course of action. Evidence of his involvement is provided by a letter of 30th July 1940 sent to him by the Inspectorate for Italian Collections Abroad. Here is the content of this unusual document: Dear Professor Mariotti, In compliance with your request I have forwarded your letter concerning Professor Leszczycki to Berlin. However I must inform you that in similar cases we have always received a negative response. Yours faithfully, General G. Gangemi. 29 Mariotti sent this letter to Wanda Leszczycka. All the indications are that Professor Mariotti’s appeal was of crucial significance in the efforts to liberate Leszczycki, who was released on 14th January 1941. On his return to Kraków Leszczycki worked as a telephone exchange operator in the municipal water supply company, and in the RGO as a warehouse keeper. He was also active in the Home Army underground resistance movement and in
One of many letters Wanda Leszczycka sent to the Gestapo for the release of her husband Stanisław, 30th October 1940
clandestine teaching at the secret Jagiellonian University. After the War he moved to Warsaw. In 1953 he founded the Institute of Geography at the Polish Academy of Sciences and served for many years as its head. In 1998 the unit was named after him, and is now known as the Stanisław Leszczycki Institute of Geography and Spatial Organisation at the Polish Acad-
emy of Sciences. He was a full member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and was the first and up to now only Pole to serve as President on the International Geographical Union (1968—1972). He died on 17th June 1996 in Warsaw.
Antoni Jackowski Izabela Sołjan
Professor Antoni Jackowski, honorary professor of the Jagiellonian University, chairman of the Polish Geographical Society. Cofounder of the postwar Polish school of the geography of tourism; founder of the school of the geography of religion. Historian of Polish geography. Member of numerous learned societies. In 1994 he established the Department of the Geography of Religion, and in 1995 launched the journal Peregrinus Cracoviensis, one of the very few scholarly periodicals in the world on the geography of pilgrimage. Initiator and co-creator of an exhibition entitled Rozwój myśli geograficznej w Polsce on the history of Polish geography (Kraków, August 2014—January 2015). Has published over 400 items, including 30 books, mainly on geography (Historia geografii polskiej, 2008, co-authored with S. Liszewski and A. Richling; Z dziejów geografii na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim (XV-XXI wiek), 2009, jointly with I. Sołjan; Pamiętamy… Geografia polska w okresie II wojny światowej, 2010, co-edited with A. Michno; Kalendarium dziejów geografii polskiej (wybór), 2014; and Rozwój myśli geograficznej w Polsce, 2014, jointly with M. Taborska). Dr. Habilitated Izabela Sołjan, Head of the Geography of Religion Group in the Institute of Geography and Spatial Management at the Jagiellonian University. Currently chief editor of the journal Peregrinus Cracoviensis. Specialist on the geography of religion, the mater No. 178 48 geography of tourism,alma and the history of Polish geography. Has published over 100 items, including Z dziejów geografii na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim (XV-XXI wiek) (Kraków, 2009, co-authored with A. Jackowski).
See A. Jackowski, 2011, ed., Do końca wierny Polsce i Geografii. Wiktor Rudolf Ormicki (1898-1941), Kraków: IGiGP UJ, Komisja Geograficzna PAU; A. Jackowski, 2015, ed., ‘Jerzy Smoleński 1881-1940. Materiały z posiedzenia naukowego w dniu 19 listopada 2010 roku, PAU-AN PAN i PAU,’ Kraków, W Służbie Nauki 25; A. Jackowski, I. Sołjan, 2009a, ‘Geografowie ofiarami Sonderaktion Krakau,’ Alma Mater 118, pp. 81-90; A. Jackowski, I Sołjan, 2009b, Z dziejów geografii na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim (XV-XXI wiek), Kraków: IGiGP UJ; A. Jackowski, I. Sołjan, 2010, ‘Geografia krakowska w latach II wojny światowej,’ [in:] A. Jackowski, A. Michno, eds., Pamiętamy… Geografia polska w latach II wojny światowej, Kraków, IGiGP UJ, pp. 23-86; B. Kortus, A. Jackowski, K. Krzemień, 1999, eds., Geografia w Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim 1849-1999. Vol. 2. Wybitni geografowie Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Kraków: Instytut Geografii; S. Leszczycki, 1988, ‘Z pobytu w Sachsenhausen i Dachau 1939-41,’ Przegląd Lekarski. 45, 1 pp. 104-117; S. Nogaj, 1945, ‘Jak zginął znany geograf – prof. [Wiktor] Ormicki?’ Gusen. Pamiętnik dziennikarza. Część 3. Katowice and Chorzów, pp. 161-170; J. Ormicki, 2009, Ja płakałem później…O okupacyjnych losach swojego ojca, geografa Wiktora Ormickiego, opowiada jego syn, Jacek Ormicki. Compiled by. M. Janik. Alma Mater 118, pp. 161-170. 2 Father Stanisław Smoleński was the spiritual supervisor of seminarians at the time. Later he was appointed auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Kraków. 3 J. Gwiazdomorski 1945, Wspomnienia z pobytu profesorów Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w niemieckim obozie koncentracyjnym w Sachsenhausen, Kraków, p. 27. 4 W. Konopczyński, 1982, Pod trupią główką: Sonderaktion Krakau, Warszawa, p. 9. 5 J. Gwiazdomorski, Wspomnienia, op.cit., pp. 35-36; J. Buszko, I. Paczyńska 1995, Podstępne uwięzienie profesorów Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego i Akademii Górniczej (6 XI 1939). Dokumenty, Kraków, p. 394; A. Bolewski, H. Pierzchała, 1989, Losy polskich pracowników nauki w latach 1939-1945. Straty osobowe. Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, Wrocław, Warszawa and Kraków, p. 178; A. Jackowski, K. Krzemień, 2015, ‘Droga życiowa Jerzego Smoleńskiego,’ [in:] A. Jackowski, ed., Jerzy Smoleński 18811940. Materiały z posiedzenia naukowego w dniu 19 listopada 2010 roku, Kraków: Archives of PAN and PAU, p. 41. W Służbie Nauki 25. 6 V. Frančić, 1975, ‘Profesorowie w Sachsenhausen,’ [in:] Maria Zarębowa, Alfred Zaręba, Ne Cedat Academia. Kartki z dziejów tajnego nauczania w Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim 1939-1945, Kraków, p. 43. 7 Archives of PAN and PAU, sign.no. K III-170. Polish translation by Biuro Tłumaczeń Letterman, Kraków. 8 J. Gwiazdomorski, Wspomnienia, op.cit, p. 68. 9 A. Bolewski, 1988, ‘Kilka słów o profesorze Jerzym Smoleńskim i jego zgonie,’ [in:] J. Babicz, ed., Jerzy Smoleński (1881-1940). Materiały sesji naukowej Instytutu Geografii UJ oraz źródła, Warszawa: PWN, p. 63. 10 Archives of PAN and PAU, sign.no. K III-170. Polish translation by Biuro Tłumaczeń Letterman, Kraków. 11 Archives of PAN and PAU, sign.no. K III-170. Polish translation by Biuro Tłumaczeń Letterman, Kraków. 12 A. Bolewski, 1988, op.cit., p. 64. 13 Szafer was Rector in 1936/1937-1937/1938 and 1940-1944 (the underground University). 14 Archives of PAN and PAU, sign.no. K III-170. Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
Prof. Mariotti during a lecture on the organisation of tourist propaganda in Italy, with Alfons Kuhn, Polish Communications Minister, and Dr. Mieczysław Orłowicz attending. Photo by Pracownia Fotograficzna Henryka Poddębskiego
Archives of the Jagiellonian University Institute of Geography and Spatial Management
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Prof. Mariotti’s letter to Mrs. Leszczycka informing her of his appeal for the release of her husband Stanisław
Letter from Irena Ormicka to the Jagiellonian University, 29th May 1945. – Jagiellonian University Archives, sign.no. KHUW 19. 16 Archives of PAN and PAU, sign.no. K III-170. Polish translation by Biuro Tłumaczeń Letterman, Kraków. 17 Archives of PAN and PAU, sign.no. K III-170. Polish translation by Biuro Tłumaczeń Letterman, Kraków. 18 Ormicki’s ancestors were Jews who converted to Christianity in the 19th century but continued to use their original surname, ‘Nussbaum,’ until 1924, when they considered a change necessary in view of a rising tide of anti-Semitism. 19 S. Urbańczyk, 2014, Uniwersytet za kolczastym drutem. Sachsenhausen-Dachau, Kraków: Wyd. Literackie, p. 189. 20 S. Nogaj, 1961, Oskarżamy. Materiały do historii obozu koncentracyjnego Mauthausen-Gusen, Katowice, pp. 65-66. 15
A. Jackowski, I Sołjan, 2009, Z dziejów geografii na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim (XV-XXI wiek), Kraków: IGiGP UJ, p. 247. 22 Stanisław Nogaj, a Silesian writer and journalist, was the record-keeper on Block 15 housing the penal commando, made up mostly of Jewish prisoners, including Ormicki. Nogaj recorded the events of the last days of Ormicki’s life, in an account that demonstrates all the details of the diabolical atrocities and murder of the Polish geographer committed by the Germans. In 1970 Nogaj was a witness in the Frankfurt-am-Main trial of the criminal perpetrators of Gusen. 23 S. Nogaj, 1961, Oskarżamy. Materiały do historii obozu koncentracyjnego Mauthausen-Gusen, Katowice, p. 70. 24 S. Dobosiewicz, 2000, Mauthausen-Gusen: w obronie życia i ludzkiej godności, Warszawa: Bellona. 25 W. Wnuk, ‘Jak zginął prof. Wiktor Ormicki,’ ms., Jagiellonian University Archives, sign.no. KHUW 19, early 1945 (?) 26 S. Nogaj, 1945, ‘Jak zginął znany geograf – prof. [Wiktor] Ormicki?’ Gusen. Pamiętnik dziennikarza. Część 3. Katowice and Chorzów, pp. 167-168. 27 A. Jackowski, I. Sołjan, 2011, ‘Droga życiowa Wiktora Rudolfa Ormickiego (1 lutego 1898-17 września 1941),’ [in:] A. Jackowski, red., Do końca wierny Polsce i Geografii. Wiktor Rudolf Ormicki (1898-1941), Kraków: IGiGP UJ, Komisja Geograficzna PAU, p. 85. 28 Letter from W. Leszczycka to A. Mariotti [Italian], 19th July 1940 – Archives of the Jagiellonian University Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Polish translation by Biuro Tłumaczeń Letterman. 29 Letter from Fasci Italiani all’Estero. L’ispettore to Prof. Angelo Mariotti, 30th July 1940. – Archives of the Jagiellonian University Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Polish translation by Biuro Tłumaczeń Letterman. 21
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ThE CAMPAiGN FOR ThE RELEASE OF THE SCHOLARS OF KRAKÓW N
ews of the arrest of the scholars of Kraków went round the world. The first to embark on efforts for their release were the families and those of their colleagues who managed to evade arrest. But since the German occupying authorities turned a deaf ear to their pleas a decision was made to try to procure the assistance and support of foreign entities. The first thing to be done was to disseminate information was widely as possible in Western Europe and the United States. The families pinned their hopes on the commitment of the government of Italy and the Vatican. In late November 1939 news of the arrests was published in the British and French press.1 General Władysław Sikorski, prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile and supreme commander of
the Polish forces, spoke on the matter on French radio. A comprehensive diplomatic operation was launched by Polish diplomats in London, Paris, Ottawa, Montreal, and New York. The Vatican and representatives of several governments joined in their efforts. Naturally enough, Polish academics abroad (at the Polish University Abroad and the Paris branch of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences) were committed to this cause, and soon they were joined by French, British, Serbian, Greek, Austrian, and even Germans scholars. In Rome a large group of individuals contributed to the endeavour. They included both Polish ambassadors, Kazimierz Papée (ambassador to the Holy See), and Bolesław Wieniawa-Długoszowski (ambassador to the Republic of Italy).
At the turn of 1939 and 1940 a group of Polish academics in Rome set up a Committee for the liberation of the imprisoned scholars. One of its most active members was Father Józef Bocheński, a prewar docent of the Jagiellonian University who was an eye-witness of the events of 6th November 1939. In his memoirs (Wspomnienia)2 Father Bocheński wrote that he narrowly missed sharing the same fate, and only a chance meeting in the Planty Gardens with his sister Aleksandra, whom he had not seen since the outbreak of the War and a long conversation with her, made him late for the meeting with SS-Sturmbannführer Müller in Collegium Novum. A few days later he managed to reach Italy via Katowice. On arriving in Rome he saw Father Walerian Meyszto-
Copy of a secret letter to Pope Pius XII. A gift from Dr. Anna Kowalska-Lewicka in the Jagiellonian University Museum collection
From the collections of the Jagiellonian Library
wicz, canon lawyer in the Polish Embassy to the Vatican and professor of the University of Wilno, and asked him to help in the efforts on behalf of the imprisoned academics. Without delay Father Meysztowicz invited a group of academics in Rome to join the Committee, whose work he coordinated. Its members were Father Józef Bocheński (its secretary), Father Zygmunt Obertyński, Professor Aleksander Turyn, who had worked in several American colleges and universities before the War, Józef J. Michałowski, head of Title page of the art album Dzieła malarskie Stanisława Wyspiańskiego the library attached to the Rome branch of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, and resistance movement. During her stay Father Paweł Siwek. The Committee had in Kraków in early February 1940 she several meetings in January 1940 to draw assisted the families of the imprisoned up a list of those who had been arrested. academics with a substantial financial The list was copied and distributed by subsidy.7 friends in the academic and diplomatic While in Rome the Committee was milieu. The Committee also compiled considering methods which could be a special memorandum to the Italian used to procure the release of the imprisprime minister. The Polish diplomat Jan oned scholars, in Berlin Prince Janusz Gawroński (1892—1983), who had been Radziwiłł saw Goering and presented Polish envoy in Vienna in 1933—1938, a memorandum for their release from worked with the Committee and expressed Archbishop. Józef Buszko writes that his readiness to pass on the memorandum Benito Mussolini wrote to Hitler with the through the services of his wife, Luciana same petition. Frassati-Gawrońska, to the Italian prime On 8th and 9th January 1940 Il Duce minister. received Luciana Frassati-Gawrońska, The involvement of this writer, well- who gave him an account of the situation known both in Warsaw and Kraków soci- in Warsaw and Kraków, as she had seen it ety, author of a famous book on Blessed herself. Perhaps it was thanks to her apPier Giorgio Frassati (beatified by John peal that Mussolini decided on a personal Paul II),3 has already been described and intervention with Hitler on behalf of the acknowledged in a number of publications Cracovian professors – this is suggested by writers such as Józef Mayer,4 Leopold by her notes on her meetings with MusKielanowski,5 and Zofia Sikorska-Ratsch- solini, published in her biographical book. ka.6 Luciana Frassati-Gawrońska used her On 13th March 1940 during a visit to the Italian passport to travel to Poland several Italian Embassy in Warsaw Hans Frank times during the War. At Christmastide in referred to Mussolini’s intervention. 8 1939 she whisked away General Sikorski’s After a few months the many attempts to wife Helena from occupied Warsaw to get the professors out of the concentration Rome, and thence to Paris, presenting her camp brought results. On 8th February as her children’s governess. In January 1940 101 professors were released from 1940 at General Sikorski’s request she Sachsenhausen, along with the Mayor took a suitcase packed with millions in of Kraków, Stanisław Klimecki, and Polish currency to Warsaw, for the nascent Professor Antoni Hoborski of the Min-
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
ing Academy, who was unfortunately moribund and died in the concentration camp the day after he was informed that he was free to leave. A total of 103 persons were released. 54 were still left in Sachsenhausen, most of whom were transferred to Dachau.9
Luciana Frassati-Gawrońska
In Rome news of the liberation was welcomed with great relief. The general opinion was that the release was largely thanks to Mussolini, and it was decided
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a cold and reticent person. But I gave him a warm welcome and after a few minutes had to change my opinion of him, at least as regards his eloquence. He talked nonstop for an hour, saying how very pleased he was about the release of the professors of Kraków; he also said it was necessary to publicly thank Mussolini as soon as possible for what he had done for them. But his words full of dedication were not accompanied by any specific token of appreciation. We went on to this point, and since an appointment for my next visit to the Palazzo Venezia11 had already been fixed, Father Bocheński asked me to present something I had on behalf of the Poles to Mussolini. I found a magnificent and rare edition of the work of Stanisław Wyspiański, the most renowned representative of Polish Neo-Romanticism, and wrote a dedication . . . in it, which later Father Bocheński signed.12
The Wyspiański volume is now the property of the Jagiellonian University. On 8th November 2004 Dr Andrew Meeson-Kielanowski, stepson of Leopold Kielanowski, and his wife presented the book to the University’s Rector, Professor Franciszek Ziejka, on behalf of the authorities of the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, London, and the Kielanowski family. Rector Ziejka has written about the book’s unusual story, in his article ‘Wędrująca księga’ (Alma Mater 68/2005, pp.32-33) and in his book Miasto poetów: studia i szkice, Kraków, 2005, pp. 331–341. A reprint of the volume (complete with all the dedications) was made in 2007 for the Wyspiański Year, entitled Stanisław Wyspiański: dzieła malarskie, and published by Stowarzyszenie Rozwoju Regionu, (Bochnia, 2007).
Here is the text of the dedication:13 From the collections of the Jagiellonian Library
to thank him for his assistance. A token of gratitude was chosen: it was Dzieła malarskie, an art album with 193 illustrations (23 of them in colour, 86 on separate plates, and 105 built into the text) presenting the work of Stanisław Wyspiański, published at the turn of 1925 and 1925 and dated 1925. It was a bibliophile edition with a print run of 2,500 copies, the second volume published by Sztuka (a Polish artists’ society), edited by Władysław Jarocki and Ignacy Pieńkowski, with essays by Stanisław Przybyszewski and Tadeusz Żuk-Skarszewski. The volume was presented to Mussolini by Luciana Frassati-Gawrońska in the Palazzo Venezia on 24th February 1940. Luciana’s diary contains an entry which gives the background to the presentation. On 18th February she was visited by Father Bocheński. In her diary she wrote: In Rome I was visited by the Dominican Father Innocenty 10 Bocheński. I had met him before and remembered him as
The fine album of Wyspiański’s paintings went into Benito Mussolini’s private library. But not for long. Its destiny was to continue on a long journey across Europe…
Franciszek Ziejka
Rector of the Jagiellonian University, 1999—2005 1
2 3
4
5
6
7
8
9
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J. Buszko, ‘Akcja solidarnościowa na rzecz profesorów krakowskich aresztowanych w ramach tzw. Sonderaktion,’ Studia Historyczne 1981, 24. 3, pp. 441-470. J. Bocheński, Wspomnienia, Kraków, 1993, p. 144 passim. L. Frassati, Mio fratello Pier Giorgio. La fede, Editore Paoline Editoriale Libri, 2004 . J. Mayer, ‘O Stanisławie Pigoniu w pierwszym roku wojny – z zapomnianej książki włoskiej z 1949 roku,’ [in:] C. Kłak (ed.), Wokół Stanisława Pigonia. Nad warsztatem naukowym i literackim Uczonego, Rzeszów, 1983, pp. 133–156. The transcript of a radio broadcast aired by Radio Free Europe on the Wyspiański album was published in the broadcaster’s magazine, see L. Kielanowski, ‘Dzieje pewnej księgi,’ Na antenie 1972, 5, pp. 18–20. Z. Sikorska-Ratschka, ‘Dzieje pewnego albumu,’ Dziennik Polski, London, 20th July 2004. In 1940 Luciana made a gift of $800 to the families of the imprisoned professors. (after J. Zaborowski, S. Poznański, Sonderaktion Krakau. W dwudziestą piątą rocznicę 6 listopada 1939 r., Warszawa, 1964, pp. 139–140). Podstępne uwięzienie profesorów Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego i Akademii Górniczej (6 XI 1939 r.): dokumenty, eds. J. Buszko and I. Paczyńska, Kraków, 1995, p. 543. The Germans decided that prisoners from the group of Kraków academics over 40 could be released, but this criterion was not applied in all cases. Moreover those with Jewish roots were not allowed to leave.
Father Bocheński’s baptismal names were Józef Maria. His name in religion was Innocenty. 11 The Palazzo Venezia was Mussolini’s official residence. 12 English translation from the Polish version, L. Frassati-Gawrońska, Przeznaczenie nie omija Warszawy, translated from the Italian by J. Tygielski, Warszawa, 2003, p. 146. In the original Italian edition (1949) Luciana writes that she and Father Bocheński composed the dedication to Mussolini together, but she wrote it in the book. It is hard to tell whether this was so, but one thing is certain. The dedication was entered in the book in one hand, probably by Father Bocheński, while the Italian text must have been edited by Luciana. In his memoirs Father Bocheński says that he was the one who wrote in the dedication. 13 103 professors of the University of Kraków who have returned from Teutonic ordeal thanks to your intercession, Duce, wish to express their devotion and gratitude for once again showing the world the values. fame, and reaction of Italian culture. On behalf of his colleagues, M. Bocheński of the Jagiellonian University of Kraków. 18th February 1940. Year 17 [of the Fascist age]. From the collections of the Jagiellonian Library
10
Franciszek Ziejka, historian of Polish literature, professor of the humanities, former rector of the Jagiellonian University (1999— 2005), member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, honorary professor of the Jagiellonian University, as of 2005 chairman of SKOZK (the Social Committee for the Restoration of the Monuments of Kraków). He has issued about 300 works of scholarship and for the general reader, specialising in the history of Polish literature and culture, particularly the period under the Partitions (W kręgu mitów polskich, 1977, 1997; Panorama racławicka, 1985; Poeci, misjonarze, uczeni: Z dziejów kultury i literatury polskiej, 1998; Polska poetów i malarzy, 2011; W drodze do sławy, 2015), Poland’s cultural relations with the Romanic countries, especially France and Portugal (Studia polsko-prowansalskie, 1977; Paryż młodopolski , 1993; Nasza rodzina w Europie, 1995; Moja Portugalia, 2008; Mój Paryż, 2009), and the cultural history of Kraków, particularly on the life and work of John Paul II (Mistrzowie słowa i czynu, 2011; Gaudium veritatis, 2005; Jan Paweł II i polski świat akademicki; 2014).
From the collections of the Jagiellonian Library
Another dedication, by Lt.-Col. Jan Lachowicz, commanding officer of the Carpathian Riflemen’s Battalion
The final handwritten note in the album says that it was donated to the Jagiellonian University
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iN SAChSENhAUSEN hat kept the Cracovians going in Sachsenhausen concentration camp was the hope that they would be released, though from 24th December 1939 to 19th January 1940 eleven of them lost their lives, and several others were very seriously ill. Descriptions of their hopes and expectations, and the sustenance they drew from the camp anecdotes are to be found in their recollections and relations, such as the ones written by Professors Zdzisław Jachimecki, Bogdan Kamieński, and Władysław Konopczyński. “News of our imminent release recurred several times,” Kamieński wrote, “only to rub salt in our wounds; but being summoned to the Effektenkammer (personal effects store) was even worse. There were two such occasions when the Cracovian arrestees were called up to the barrack where prisoners’ belongings were kept. The general belief was that this was an overture to release, But on both occasions we were sent away empty-handed while the SS-men grinned maliciously.”1 On 22nd January all the Cracovians were suddenly called out into the appeal yard. “Some of the more sensitive hearts trembled with excitement,” Władysław Konopczyński wrote. 2 “Two officers arrived and one of them started reading out a list of names. All strange names. He had the wrong roll-call. To cover up for the clanger, he ordered all the Tadeuszes to step forward. There were about ten of them, but Tadeusz Kowalski turned out to be the right man. He was taken to the office, and the rest of the livestock were told to go back to their barracks. A few hours later Kowalski told us that he had been given polite notice of eine andere Verwendung3 – perhaps in Berlin, Warsaw, or in Kraków, in a few days’ time. The decision had been taken all because of a German student of his, who had described him as a brilliant Orientalist.4 . . . Word went round that the authorities were compiling a new list of Cracovians, along with the priests and the Jews.” At the beginning of February the Cracovians (minus the priests) were all put in one barrack, No.45. “According to
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Jagiellonian University Archive collection
W
Copy of the German Consul’s letter from Geneva with news of the Red Cross intervention on behalf of the arrested academics
Adolf Dobschat, our decent functionary on Block 46, this meant that soon we would probably be released. So once again our hearts were cheered,” wrote Zdzisław Jachimecki.5 “The project of academic
talks and lectures which we had started earlier expanded, until the camp’s management issued a strict ban, there were to be no more lectures. At the same time dreadful scenes of torture started to take place just
outside our barrack. SS-men would make prisoners roll about in the deep snow, and when their victims were in a supine position they would amuse themselves by jumping on the ribs of prisoners as they rolled in the snow,” Professor Kamieński recalled.6 “On 5th February snippets of information started filtering through to us that we would soon be released,” Professor Jachimecki noted. Here is how Professor Kamieński described the last day in the concentration camp for those about to be released: “In the small hours of 8th February one of us brought the news that the senior professors would be released that day. The news raised our spirits, but the sight of prisoners being tortured outside our block made our blood curdle. That day prisoners were ‘rolled about’ more than on other days. In the afternoon a flogging was carried out in the appeal yard. . . . After the beating had finished the order was given, ‘Krakauer vor!’ We stepped forward in a separate file. Each man whose name was called out was to say, ‘hier’7 and give his year of birth. I was one of the last to be called out. There were over a hundred of us [to be released], counting those who were in hospital, but not counting the juniors and one or two seniors. . . . We were separated off from the rest, they told us to return to our barrack and not to contact the rest of our companions. In the afternoon two officers visited us and one of them said that as of the next day, viz. 9th February, we would be discharged in Kraków by the local police, and he warned us to do exactly as ordered, otherwise we would find ourselves back in the camp.” The afternoon appeal, “the freedom appeal,” as Professor Jachimecki called it,8 the last one for those who had been separated off, was conducted with the very sick professors discharged from hospital present. “I was standing next to Professor Bossowski from Wilno, who was very ill, and Professor Jan Nowak,” Kamieński wrote. “Bossowski was crepitating and about to drop, it took a lot of effort to hold him up for the whole of the long appeal. I propped Nowak up, it taxed all of my strength. Afterwards [Zygmunt] Grodziński and I carried him back to the barrack. We barely managed to get him near the barrack, and then needed the help of [Ludwik] Piotrowicz and a German prisoner, a doctor, to drag him in.” The mathematician Antoni Hoborski, a profes-
sor of the Mining Academy, who was one of the released, did not attend the appeal. He was in such a bad condition that he did not have the strength to get out of bed and died the next day. In the evening they “were marched off to the civilian garments store,” as Kamieński recorded. “Inside SS-mean started to issue us our clothes: they would call out a prisoner’s number and he would have to report for his things. Woe betide him if he did not do so fast enough. Then the SS-man would throw them at their owner as hard as he could. He bowled over the elderly Professor [Kazimierz] Majewski and socked a few others in this way. Some of us were so weak that they could not stand up. This was the situation with Bossowski, [Leon] Wachholz, and Nowak. But the hope of going home gave them strength. In a frosty barrack we changed into our freezing civvies. . . . The disinfection had utterly spoiled our hats, coats, and suits. We looked like louts. A few people’s clothes had gone missing despite the ‘perfect’ German system.”9 As Professor Konopczyński observed, “Not everybody got all their cases, blankets, watches, valuables, documents, and money back. For the last time we were called vulgar names,” and taken to Charlottenburg in four tarpaulin-covered lorries, and thence by a fast train to Kraków. The train arrived at Łobzów station in Kraków before nine in the morning according to Professor Konopczyński, or – according to Professors Kamieński and Gwiazdomorski – around midday. On 8th February 1940 101 persons left Sachsenhausen, 80 from the Jagiellonian University, 13 from the Mining Academy, 3 (Arnold Bolland, Walenty Winid, and Albin Żabiński) from the Commercial Academy, Franciszek Bossowski of the Stephen Báthory University of Wilno, Witold Krzyżanowski of the Catholic University of Lublin, and three others: Stanisław Klimecki, acting Mayor of Kraków in September 1939, the catechetist Father Józef Nodzyński, and the school inspector Ludwik Ręgorowicz. Johann von Wühlisch submitted a list of the men who had been released (as on 20th March 1940) to the German Foreign Office (document 225, attachment 1). 10 On arrival in Kraków they were taken to the jail on the Montelupich, where they had a medical examination and were told to sign a declaration that they were
in good health. Then they were released. They were not allowed to talk about the concentration camp or leave Kraków. When they arrived in Kraków they looked ghastly; some couldn’t be recognised even by their own families; all were in need of medical treatment and regenerative nutrition; many could not return to their homes, from which their families had been evicted and in which there were Germans now. All of them were in a very poor material condition. The deaths started soon after their return. The astronomer Antoni Wilk, discoverer of four comets, died on 14th February, followed shortly afterwards by the historian of literature Stefan Kołaczkowski, the geologist Jan Nowak, and the agricultural scientist Jan Włodek. Franciszek Bossowski died on 3rd May. 54 were left in Sachsenhausen, where the 76-year-old Classics scholar and Byzantinist Leon Sternbach died on 21st February. Sternbach, an honorary professor of the Jagiellonian University, had been put in the Jewish barrack on arrival in Sachsenhausen. The same had happened to Dr. Joachim Metallmann, a specialist in the philosophy of science, who was twenty years younger than Sternbach. Metallmann was transferred to Buchenwald, where he died on 21st August 1942. Others were later released from Sachsenhausen: the musicologist, composer and conductor Zdzisław Jachimecki and the mathematician Franciszek Leja (6th March 1940); Dr Jan Harajda, tutor in Hungarian, and Professor Kazimierz Stołyhwo in April; and Wincenty Majcher on an unknown day in the spring of 1940. This is how Professor Jachimecki described his release: “Finally on 6th March Professor Leja and I were summoned to report in the evening and sent to the block where our civilian clothes were kept. Before we were let out of the camp we were kept for an hour in the dungeon cells, in which the camp’s worst offenders were locked up, so we had the chance to experience that penal installation, from which presumably few prisoners ever returned to their blocks.” Before Jachimecki was allowed to walk out of the gate “games were played” with him – he was put up against a wall and a gun was pointed at him. 11 The anthropologist Kazimierz Stołyhwo also remembered those “games,” which in his case lasted longer, the whole day on 24th April – he was ac-
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Copy of a letter from the Swedish Envoy in Berlin to the German Foreign Office on behalf of Prof. Konopczyński
cused of murder, threatened with death, put up against a wall and had a gun pointed at him. Later he wrote that he owed his release to the efforts of his wife Eugenia, the RGO, and “the endeavours of my colleague Professor Fabio Frassetto of Bologna, who . . . made several visits to the German Embassy in Rome, asking for my release so that I could come to Bologna and work in the Institute of Anthropology at the University of Bologna, to which he had invited me, . . . offering my wife and myself accommodation in his house in Bologna. Another person who helped to procure my release was Dr. Arlt, who sub-
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mitted an application for my release to the appropriate authorities. It was supported by Professor Walter Gross, who was very influential in German government circles because he directed all matters concerning anthropology on behalf of the Nazi Party.”12 *** The release of a large number of prisoners in February 1940 and subsequently of others over the next few months was the outcome of continuous efforts and appeals made on their behalf by many people and institutions. These endeavours and the
public outcry voiced in radio broadcasts and the press of many countries as well as in numerous resolutions signed by academics were a significant factor contributing to the release of so many individuals. The Jagiellonian University arrests triggered a storm of protests. People were appalled, not only in countries at war with the Third Reich, which itself ignored such complaints; but the move was strongly disapproved of by neutral countries as well. The Auswärtiges Amt (German Foreign Office) took the reports coming from its consulate in Geneva very seriously (see doc. nos. 97 and 188), as well as the telegram sent in by Eduard Hempel, its envoy in Dublin (doc. no. 236), with information on a growing tide of hostility to him from the local university. Germany’s allies did not condone the Cracovian arrests, either. The clearest sign of this came from its closest ally, Italy, which manifested a reaction of outright disapproval. There were also letters of protest from German scholars. They were sporadic, nonetheless they showed that the Nazi authorities could not count on a united and uncritical front even at home among its own academics. The conditions imposed on German universities by the Nazi totalitarian system ruled out any expression of sympathy, let alone solidarity, with the imprisoned Polish academics. This makes the behaviour morally all the more commendable of those German scholars who had the courage to embark on an effort to procure the release of their Polish colleagues despite the terror and the intimidation of German scholarship. Some of these brave Germans met with serious reprisals for their undertakings. When they made the decision to release the first group of Cracovian arrestees the German authorities must have reached a conclusion that in the specific international situation early in 1940 it was not in their interest to let the wave of protests against the imprisonment of the scholars of Kraków continue. Perhaps there was a connection with their plans to launch an offensive against the countries of Western Europe, the aim being to convince western societies that the Nazi authorities did not deserve such a bad press and the negative reputation that had been built up against them in diverse opinion-making circles due to the Collegium Novum arrests. The subsequent series of releases was merely a
Irena Paczyńska S. Kamieński’s relation, 25th April 1945, in: Relacje pracowników Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego o ich losach osobistych i dziejach uczelni w czasie drugiej wojny światowej, ed. J. Michalewicz, Kraków, 2005, p.413. 2 W. Konopczyński, Pod trupią główką, in: Relacje pracowników…, pp. 577–588. 3 eine andere Verwendung – another assignment. 4 The student concerned was Annemarie von Gabain, a specialist in Chinese and Turkish, who had been appointed in 1926 to the post of assistant in Eastern Commission of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. In 1935—1937 she worked in Ankara, and subsequently in Berlin. In fact she had never been a student of Kowalski’s, but worked on Turkish manuscripts and had recommended him for employment in the Prussian Academy of Sciences as a distinguished expert for work on Turkish manuscripts. 5 Z. Jachimecki’s relation, undated, in: Relacje pracowników…, pp. 774–775. 1
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
consequence of the first decision and the continuing pressure from the institutions and individuals who intervened. The German authorities might also have decided that they had already achieved the aims of the operation: the activities of the Polish academic and intellectual milieu of Kraków had been suppressed and to a large extent stifled in the key, initial stage of German rule on occupied Polish territory, and a psychological message of deterrence had been broadcast to other groups of the Polish intelligentsia and to Polish people in general. Fifteen of the academics arrested on 6th November lost their lives in concentration camps. A further five died soon after their return home due to general debilitation, and eleven more died before the wartime occupation of Poland ended. Two died in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, and four on being re-arrested and sent to Auschwitz. But the overwhelming majority of the arrestees of 6th November 1939 survived, and this fact can hardly be overrated. They survived only thanks to the persistent campaign for their freedom, initiated in Kraków by their families and continued by more and more individuals and institutions, which brought international repercussions serious enough for the Nazis to think again and release the incarcerated academics.
Certificate confirming Tadeusz Milewski’s release from Dachau S. Kamieński’s relation..., p. 413. Krakauer vor – Cracovians step forward; hier – here. 8 Z. Jachimecki’s relation..., p. 775. 9 S. Kamieński’s relation..., pp. 414–415. 10 Longin Zawadzki, senior assistant in the Chemistry Department of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University, is not named in this list; on the other hand, the list includes Father Józef Rychlicki, who was released from Nowy Wiśnicz on 20th June 1940. The 6 7
list does not mention Jan Zerndt, a secondary school teacher who during his confinement in Sachsenhausen declared a change of nationality and on his release took up employment in the Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit in Kraków. The list includes Professors Zdzisław Jachimecki and Franciszek Leja, who were released on 6th March. 11 Z. Jachimecki’s relation..., p. 775. 12 K. Stołyhwo’s relation, 2nd August 1945, in: Relacje pracowników..., pp. 492–494.
Professor Irena Paczyńska, professor emerita of the Jagiellonian University Institute of History; member of the Commission on History in the Kraków Branch of the Polish Academy of Sciences; author of numerous publications. She is an expert on Sonderaktion Krakau and has edited source materials relating to its history. Co-author (with Józef Buszko) of Podstępne uwięzienie profesorów Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego i Akademii Górniczej (6 XI 1939 r.): dokumenty, a volume of documents relating to Sonderaktion Krakau. In 2011 the magazine Polityka awarded her its History Prize in the source publications category for Grypsy z Konzentrationslager Auschwitz Józefa Cyrankiewicza i Stanisława Kłodzińskiego, her edition of the secret messages smuggled out of Auschwitz by Józef Cyrankiewicz and Stanisław Kłodziński.
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ThE hAPPiEST dAY OF MY LiFE Professor Józef Wolski, a victim of Sonderaktion Krakau, recalls he whole of the time I spent in concentration camps, first Sachsenhausen, and later Dachau, I kept asking myself how it was that human beings could have done this to other humans – condemn them to such dreadful, physical torture and mental humiliation, all without a trial. And I could find no answer, because there is no answer. Not only was there no trial and no sentence, but instead a paranoid belief in Deutschland über alles in der Welt. Many accounts have been written of life in Sachsenhausen, in books like the ones by Professor Jan Gwiazdomorski or Professor Stanisław Urbańczyk, which describe the deaths of many of the most distinguished Polish academics. Each of us was nagged by the dreadful thought when his turn would come. In all the drabness of everyday life in the concentration camp, in all those “exercises” of rolling about and bunnyjumping in the snow, there was one incident which stuck in my memory. You have to know that our life in the concentration camp barrack was enclosed in two rooms, the Schlafstube (dormitory), with straw mattresses on which two, or even three prisoners had to sleep; and the day room, where we did Stehkommando, standing up for hours on end, because we were not allowed to sit down during working hours. Each block was supervised by a functionary called a Blockälteste, who was of course an inmate, usually a German, and a lot depended on him. Most of them would turn a blind eye if an elderly prisoner sat down for a while, especially when we were listening to lectures, which filled in our time between the morning and evening appeals. In the day rooms there were lockers in which we put
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our bowls, cups, and spoons. It was strictly prohibited to keep anything else at all in the lockers. This incident involved Professor Adam Krzyżanowski, our distinguished economist. An anecdote said that during a viva he used to ask students what did the phrase “seat with a hole” mean. Usually the student wouldn’t have a clue. The right answer was “not enough capital to cater for depreciation.” Anyway, one day Prof. Krzyżanowski left a few sips of “breakfast,” which consisted of a bowl of herb tea, in his cup. That day a young Blockführer, the lowest rank in the camp’s Gestapo, burst into the block and started inspecting the lockers. When he got to Prof. Krzyżąnowski’s locker he checked the utensils and found a few drops of “tea” in the cup. When Prof. Krzyżanowski owned up the cup was his, the SS-man poured the contents over his head, and in compliance with the Nazi German rule
Józef Wolski as a JU assistant
of collective responsibility punished the whole block by making all the inmates get under the tables and lift them up with their heads. SS-men were particularly fond of thinking up weird punishments. But that was not the only black day that stuck in my mind. When the senior professors were released on 8th February 1940, Sonderaktion ceased to exist. About 40 of us juniors PAN&PAU Scientific Archives
T
The gallows at Sachsenhausen
PAN&PAU Scientific Archives PAN&PAU Scientific Archives
were left. But we did not stay for long in Sachsenhausen. On 4th March we were transferred in a large group of prisoners to Dachau near Munich.
In my first days in Dachau I got a job – it must have been a miracle. When Sonderaktion was wound up each of us was expected to find a job for himself.
There were several greenhouses in the camp, which produced herbs and flowers for the Gestapo, and in one of them I got a job, maybe thanks to my knowledge of
A Sachsenhausen block
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Anna Wojnar
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The last video of Professor Wolski, screened during the memorial exhibition on Sonderaktion Krakau alma mater No. 178 organised by the Jagiellonian University Archives in 2009. His daughter, Dr. Teresa Wolska-Smoleń, stands on the right
Anna Wojnar
Professor Wolski in Room 56 (formerly LXVI) in Collegium Novum, during the memorial meeting on the 68th anniversary of Sonderaktion Krakau, 6th November 2007
German. It was managed by Hans Weber, a miller from the Sudetenland border zone, a Communist and a very honest man, always smiling. Even though we were always liable to be moved to another block in the camp and in 1940 there were mass arrests of the Polish intelligentsia, priests, teachers, judges, which meant that blocks got very congested, Mieczysław Brożek, with whom I became friends for the rest of my life, and I started to get very weary of being in this German clink. In a concentration camp you never knew where the next blow would come from. But in letters sent to us we got a camouflaged message that the day of liberation was approaching. And indeed, around Christmas 1941 many of my companions were released. I shall never forget 4th January 1941. We were standing in the block, waiting to go out into the appeal yard, when Henryk Batowski came in. He worked as an interpreter from the Slavic languages into German, and therefore knew in advance what was coming. Seeing me, he pointed a finger at me and said, “Today you’ll be released.” In a TV interview I once did I said it was the happiest day of my life. You have to understand the mentality of a concentration camp inmate.
And indeed, after appeal a Blockführer read out my name and the names of Julek Kamecki and two priests, Salamucha and Michalski. Words can’t describe what I felt when I took off my striped concentration camp gear and put on my own clothes. They were very creased and mangled, but they were my own. After a few formalities in the office I got my Entlassungschein (certificate of discharge), and we were escorted by an SSman to Dachau station, and there we boarded a train for Munich. We were free men. To conclude the story of this 15-month period in my life I’d like to recall two episodes connected with our stay in Munich. Due to heavy snowfall there were no trains running to Hof and we had to stay in a hotel for the night. When we were in the reception hall discussing what to do an elderly lady came up to us and asked if we were from Dachau. We must have looked like spectres. When we said yes she reached into her bag and slipped a large amount of white bread rolls, of the kind we hadn’t seen since we left Kraków, into our briefcases. Her deed should not be misunderstood, for presumably she must have thought we were Germans. The second episode was more telling. Before we got to the hotel to sleep for the
night before setting off for Poland, we went to a restaurant for something to eat. But the waitress wanted our Fleischmarken (meat ration tokens), without which we could not get anything. As we were discussing the problem a Gestapo man who had been watching the scene came up, asked who we were, took Fleischmarken out of his wallet, and told the waitress to cut off a few tokens. Thanks to that we could have some cold meats. And in the evening in the restaurant at the railway station we had an Eintopfgericht (a rich German soup), like everyone else. It was so filling that it stopped our hunger. The conclusion we drew from the episode was obvious: not all Germans were adherents of Adolf Hitler. We spent the night in the hotel. What a pleasure it was, or indeed an ecstasy, to wash and go to sleep in a comfortable bed with white linen. In the morning, and as I remember, it was a Saturday, we set off. The train was slow, travelling via Nuremberg, Hof, Leipzig, Breslau (now Wrocław), Katowice (Kattowitz under Nazi occupation), and around 4 o’clock in the afternoon we got off at Kraków station, that day under a thick mantle of snow. After saying goodbye to my companions I made my way home…
Professor Józef Wolski (19th March 1910 – 2nd October 2008) was an Ordinary Professor of the Institute of History at the Jagiellonian University, and Honorary Professor of the Jagiellonian University, the doyen of Poland’s specialists in ancient history, an expert on the history of ancient Iran and the Hellenistic period. In 1928–1932 he read History in the Faculty of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University, graduating in 1934 with an M.A. in History. In 1936 he obtained a Ph.D. in Philosophy, and in 1946 his Habilitation degree in Ancient History. The academic title of Professor was conferred on him in 1946, and of Ordinary Professor in 1962. He was affiliated to the Jagiellonian University for virtually the whole of his professional life (as of 1932). On 6th November 1939 he was arrested by the Nazi Germans under Sonderaktion Krakau and imprisoned in Breslau prison, and later Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. On his release from Dachau in 1941 he became intensely involved in the University’s clandestine teaching in Kraków. In 1948—1952 he was Professor of Ancient History at the University of Łódź, and in 1952—1958 he was a Professor of the University of Wrocław. In 1958 he returned to Kraków and was appointed Head of the Chair of Ancient History at the Jagiellonian University, a post he continued to hold until his retirement in 1980. In 1965—1968 he was Dean of the Jagiellonian University’s Faculty of Philosophy and History. A page from Professor Józef Wolski’s memoirs, Professor Wolski was a distinguished scholar and an excellent academic tutor Kraków przede wszystkim, published by the who educated several generations of historians, philologists, and archaeologists. Jagiellonian University Press in 2004. He was a member of many Polish and foreign learned societies, such as the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (1990); he was a member and for many years chairman of the Committee on Ancient Culture of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 1983 he was President of the Société Internationale d’Études Néroniennes; he was also a member of the Société Hongroise d’Études Classiques. In 1971–1975 he was President of the Kraków branch of the Polish Historical Society. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Wrocław (1993). He held many medals and distinctions, including the Polish Officer’s Cross (1989) and the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1984), the Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2000), the Commission of National Education Medal (1980), and the Auschwitz Cross (1989). alma mater No. 178 61 Professor Józef Wolski was not only an eminent historian, but also a personality, a man of great goodness and kindliness.
T
he annihilation of Polish culture, Poland’s educated classes and a variety of its institutions and organisations, along with a ban on the involvement of Poles in scholarship and the arts was one of the aspects of the Nazi German anti-Polish
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policy. Plans to implement this policy were made before the German invasion of Poland, not only in the RSHA (the central security agency of the Third Reich) 1 and institutions working with it.2 A contribution to these plans came from the staff
of universities and academic institutions involved in Ostforschung (“Eastern studies”), especially centres along Germany’s border with Poland,3 as well as from German diplomats, journalists, and activists representing the German minority in
Kraków. Panorama of the city from a church tower, April 1940
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
INTELLIGENZAKTION: ThE NAZi GERMAN OPERATiON TO DESTROY THE POLISH INTELLIGENTSIA, NOVEMBER 1939
Hitler’S directiveS on tHe PoliSH intelligentSia and univerSitieS In the late summer and autumn of 1939 Hitler issued several directives on how the Germans were to behave on Polish territories. Perhaps the clearest formulation of his orders was delivered at a series of conferences on 12th September in his special train at Ilnau (now Jełowa; traditional German name Jellowa) in Lower Silesia. General Erwin von Lahousen-Vevremont, Canaris’ deputy in the Abwehr, attended this conference and testified at International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg that plans
to exterminate the Polish intelligentsia, kept at a low level, all we want is to use clergy, and all who could be considered it as a labour force. . . . 6. . . . all signs leaders of a Polish resistance movement of life in Poland consolidating are to be were discussed at this conference.5 removed. 7 Another prominent Nazi who conferred with Hitler on these proposals in the initial EinsatzgruppEn taSkS phase of the War was Hans Frank, minister without portfolio. Frank was a lawyer, Before Frank started to implement president of the German Academy of his orders special anti-Polish tasks were Law, and designated head of the civil- already being carried out by SS security ian authorities in occupied Poland. Their police and task forces (Einsatzgruppen first meeting was on 15th September in Hitler’s Lower Silesian headquarters near Gogolin. On 3rd October, on assuming his post in Poznań, his first headquarters, Frank presented the instructions he had received from Hitler. The comprehensive programme for the unrelenting exploitation of occupied Poland entailed a point that said all the schools, particularly the technical colleges and the universities, were to be closed to prevent the rise of a Polish intelligentsia. The people of Poland were to be slaves working for the German global empire. At a meeting with the heads of the departments in the Governor General’s Office on 19th January 1940 Frank summed up the tasks he was entrusted with: On 15th September 1939 I was asked to take over the administration of the occupied territory in the East, and given a special order to treat it as a conquered war zone and loot it ruthlessly. Hans Frank (first left) leaving after the opening ceremony I would be expected to reduce Kraków. for the Staatsbibliothek, April 1941 its economic, social, cultural, and political fabric to a pile of rubble.6 der Sicherheitspolizei und des SicherheitsOn 17th October 1939 Frank received dienst der SS), under the command of SS more orders from Hitler, this time during Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, chief a meeting attended by Heinrich Himmler, of the Reich Main Security Office, and asReichsführer of the SS and Chief of the sociated with particular German armies.8 German Police, and Wilhelm Keitel, Chief Einsatzgruppen operations in those parts of of the Supreme Command of the Armed Poland which the Germans had earmarked Forces, in connection with the decision for incorporation in the Reich were supto replace the military administration of ported by the Selbstschutz, an extremely occupied Poland by a civilian authority. dangerous organisation made up of local Hitler ordered Frank to Germans deeply hostile to Poles and with 3. . . . prevent the Polish intelligentsia a good knowledge of local conditions.9 from becoming a leadership group. The As Heydrich said on 2nd July 1940, the standard of living in that country is to be guidelines for Einsatzgruppen were excepLehmann Gerhard
Poland. The plans were backed up with the development of a theory of the cultural inferiority of Poles. At that stage there was no precise definition which groups of Polish society were deemed to belong to the intelligentsia, instead expressions such as “management groups,” “leaders,” “representatives of the Polish national movement” etc. were used interchangeably, and occasionally specific professions were named as particularly dangerous to Germany. But by the time Erhard Wetzel and Gerhard Hecht, who were on the staff of the Racial Policy Office of the NSDAP (the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, viz. the Nazi Party) issued their memorandum of 25th November 1939 on how the population of occupied Poland was to be treated, such a definition had been devised, and was formulated as follows: The concept of the Polish intelligentsia entails above all Polish priests, teachers (including the academic staff of colleges and universities), medical practitioners, dentists, veterinary surgeons, officers, senior administrative staff, merchants and businessmen, landowners, writers, newspaper editors, and all graduates of universities, colleges, and secondary schools.4 The German invasion forces and occupying authorities considered these social groups the “management group” and “leaders” of the Polish nation, its spiritual and political authorities, and therefore a potential threat to German power in Poland. The destruction of these groups would ensure the Germans of dominance over the rest of Polish society, the peasants and working class, who were to be turned into a mindless mass of submissively toiling robots deprived of all rights.
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Hempelmann; photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
Kraków. The reading room in the Staatsbibliothek
tionally radical (e.g. an order to annihilate numerous leading groups in Polish society, involving thousands of individuals),10 and they were very general, which meant a lot of freedom for those who carried them out. Heydrich defined the Einsatzgruppen tasks at a series of briefings.11 On 7th September 1939 he briefed the chiefs of the offices responsible to him, giving them the following recommendations: The leading groups in Poland should be neutralised as far as possible. The rest of the population will not be given any special education, but will be subordinated in one way or another . . .. It has been decided that top-rank leaders will not be allowed to remain in Poland under any circumstances, but will be transported to concentration camps in Germany, while lower-rank leaders will be sent to provisional concentration camps set up to accommodate them in the border zone at the rear of the Einsatzgruppen . . ..12 At a briefing in Berlin on 21st September Heydrich gave Einsatzgruppen commanders guidelines for the solution to the Jewish question, resettlement, and the treatment of the Polish intelligentsia.13 At a briefing in the RHSA on 14th October, also attended 64
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by the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen operating in Poland, including Walter Huppenkothen, the new chief of Einsatzgruppe I,14 Heydrich discussed the problem of the annihilation of representatives of the Polish leadership, which had to be done by 1st November. Einsatzgruppen commanders were to submit lists of persons to be regarded as political leaders, persons to be arrested immediately, persons already sent to the Reich etc. 15 The guidelines said explicitly that the aim of the operation was to counteract all groups that were anti-German and hostile to the Reich and located on the rear of the forces engaged in combat, in other words, basically these were the same objectives as those pursued by the Reich’s police services.16 Kazimierz Radziwończyk writes: The Sipo and SD were conducting Operation Tannenberg, viz. the pacification of the local population; but they were also involved in the Intelligenzaktion targeted against the Polish intelligentsia, in which the aim was to “neutralise” specific groups and segments of Polish society which could be dangerous politically. The motives for this extermination campaign were not merely an anti-Polish drive and a plan to
Germanise Poland’s western and northern territories. There was also a third, very important motive: the Germans hoped that Intelligenzaktion would prevent the rise of a patriotic resistance movement.17 The Einsatzgruppen had a highly efficient means of spreading terror – Schutzhaft (preventive arrest) and concentration camps, where Schutzhaft was exercised. The general principles for Schutzhaft had been formulated in an order issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on 25th January 1938.18 Schutzhaft was a “coercive” measure applied as a means of defence for the prevention of all hostile intentions against the [German] nation and state, and against persons whose conduct posed a threat to the continuity and security of the [German] nation and state. Those arrested on the grounds of Schutzhaft were detained for an indefinite period of time, in principle in a concentration camp. On 28th August, three days before the invasion of Poland, Himmler issued a circular simplifying the procedure for the imposition of Schutzhaft.19 His guidelines for the operations of the security police and services abroad defined the persons subject
to arrest in a broad and imprecise manner: Persons whose names are on arrest warrants, émigrés from the Reich, and those of the local inhabitants who resist or are evidently liable to resist measures applied by the German authorities, or by virtue of their status and personal qualities may spread unrest, are subject to arrest. The head of the civil administrative authority should be notified prior to the detention of prominent individuals, unless the delay would be dangerous.20 When combat operations started a series of further orders following on from the general instructions for the security police were issued for the task forces “securing” areas that had been occupied.
commander of the German land forces, issued a special order to the Einsatzgruppen, giving them a free hand to continue their tasks in any way they pleased. 23 On the directly annexed territories scholarship was given short shrift. Poles were prohibited on pain of death or incarceration in a concentration camp from taking part in any public form of scholarly activity. Both secular and Catholic colleges and universities were closed down, and so were scientific centres, academic foundations, learned societies and associations promoting science and scholarship. Libraries and archives were closed down, and their collections and movable property were destroyed or sent to Germany. Some of the Polish scientists and academics were murdered immediately, sent to concentration camps or for slave labour. They were evicted from their residences and forced to move to the outskirts of the cities, rural
The regions of Poland annexed and directly incorporated in the Third Reich, 23.7% of Poland’s prewar territory, were very quickly and brutally “cleansed politically” with the use of proscription lists compiled earlier and supplemented with further names as soon as the invaders had seized control of these areas. There were 80 thousand names on them – political leaders, social and economic campaigners, veterans of the Silesian and Greater Polish Risings, artists, academics, teachers, administrators, newspaper editors, Catholic priests and others.21 As Czesław Łuczak has put it, the political cleansing operation settled accounts with the people of Poland for their political and socio-cultural activities in partitional times (to 1918) and in the two decades of independence (1918-1939). It affected individuals from all classes and walks of life, but it was the intelligentsia which suffered the greatest losses numerically, and hence these atrocities committed by the Nazi German authorities were sometimes referred to in official statements and records as the Intelligenzaktion. Under this operation over 40 thousand people were killed on Polish territories directly incorporated in the Third Reich. The operation to “politically cleanse the conquered territory” was conducted basically until the end of 1939, but it was only the first stage of the drive to annihilate the Polish educated classes.22 It was implemented with exceptional vehemence as of 21st September, when General Walter von Brauchitsch, supreme
imPlementation of tHe guidelineS under military adminiStration On the area dubbed the “Generalgouvernement for the Occupied Polish Territories” (on the grounds of Hitler’s decree of 12th October 1939), which was initially slightly larger than the annexed area, the destruction of the Polish intelli-
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
conSequenceS of tHe directiveS on PoliSH territory incorPorated in tHe tHird reicH
the GG, and prevented from carrying out their ecclesiastical duties.25 A ban was put on Polish cultural activities in the annexed regions. Theatres, museums, libraries, cinemas, publishing houses, bookshops, cultural societies, and even sports clubs were closed down, and their property was taken over by the German Reich or passed on to approved individuals. Schools of all types whatsoever were closed down, and their teachers suffered the same fate as the academics. 26
Joseph Goebbels (in the leather coat) is welcomed by theatre intendent Friedrich-Franz Stampe in the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre turned into the Staatstheater des Generalgouvernements, Kraków, 1st September 1940
areas, or resettled in the GG. Some were allowed to take up inferior jobs well below their qualifications. Fort VII, a precinct in the old fortress of Poznań, became notorious as a prison and place of execution where many of the most eminent inhabitants of Poznań died.24 The clergy suffered huge losses. 250 Catholic priests were killed, and over 1,000 incarcerated in prisons or concentration camps, where over 800 died. Hundreds were resettled to the GG. The bishops were arrested, interned, or deported to
gentsia was staggered over a longer time. It was conducted in a series of operations under diverse code-names and in diverse ways depending on current ideas on how to set up “the new order” in Europe, the situation on the front, the tasks currently being handled by the security police etc. From September to 25th October this area was under military administration exercised by the Wehrmacht and Einsatzgruppen, and the first phase of operations against the Polish intelligentsia proceeded on the basis of decisions and measures taken by
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Army hitherto, continued to perform his duties. On 1st October General List issued a directive that to restore security in the occupied territories all persons who may be regarded as leaders and representatives of the chauvinist Polish nation must be arrested and detained until the end of the War. The detention order applied to Polish officers in active service and in the reserve forces, able-bodied men capable of military service, as well as teachers, administrative officers, landowners and forest rangers. 27 On 11th October Dill instructed his subordinates in the civil administration of the “Krakau” military
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
the military authorities. At this stage of the War General Walther von Brauchitsch was supreme commander of the German land forces, and the execution of his orders passed down to the commanding officers of the various armies. The force conducting operations in Southern Poland was the 14th Army under the command of General Wilhelm List, and the chief of the civil administration attached to it was SS-Oberführer Gottlob Dill, whose headquarters were in Kraków. The military authority set up local offices distributed throughout the occupied area to collect data on the local population, particularly on individuals considered to belong to the
Kraków. The building of the Queen Wanda Grammar School, which was taken over to accommodate the German school, January 1940
intelligentsia. As a security measure they took hostages, usually local personalities. In early October 1939 there was a change in the system, when Hitler’s decree of 25th September 1939 on the organisation of the military administration of occupied former Polish territories came in force. Hans Frank was appointed head of the civil administration attached to the Supreme Commander in the East, with the occupied territories divided into four military regions under his command. Initially General Wilhlem List was the commanding officer of the “Krakau” military region in Southern Poland; while SS-Gruppenführer Arthur Seyss-Inquart was envisaged as the chief of its civil administration, however, due to his absence Gottlob Dill, who had been head of the civil administration attached to the 14th
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region to implement List’s order. The military administrative system entailed a variety of military, summary, and special courts set up by the German police or by the Einsatzgruppen. These courts handed down verdicts on members of the Polish intelligentsia. tHe deciSion to cloSe doWn tHe Jagiellonian univerSity Following on from the directives, Dill issued a number of orders. On 11th October he wrote to Bernhard Rust, German Minister of Science, Education, and National Culture, notifying him that at the beginning of the month he had imposed a prohibition on the activities of all organisations in the area administered by him, and that on 2nd October he had permitted
primary, secondary, and vocational schools to open and resume teaching (except for history and political geography classes), but had ordered the University of Kraków to remain closed. He added that a few schools had not been permitted to open. He made a general observation that the organisation of the Polish system of education would depend on two conditions: 1) the regulation of the legal and constitutional status of the occupied territories, and 2) the regulation of the cultural status of the Polish nation, and concluded that in his opinion the Führer’s decision was required on both matters.28 Dill’s first condition was met on 26th October, when the Generalgouvernement for the occupied Polish territories was established on the grounds of Hitler’s decree of 12th October 1939. 29 This move signified Hitler’s withdrawal of the concept of a Polish rump state and of his earlier plans to conclude a peace treaty with France and Britain on his own terms. It also meant his decision to remove all the constraints that had been applied hitherto in German policy on the occupied territories, and their replacement with a policy of physical extermination of the Polish intelligentsia and leading personalities, and the subjection of this part of Poland as well to looting and a maximum of economic exploitation. The cultural policy to be pursued in the GG was outlined at a conference held in Łódź on 30th October and attended by Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, at which Frank announced that the Poles should be given sufficient education to make them realise that they had no prospects as a nation . . .. The universities and colleges had already been closed down and the seminaries which the Wehrmacht had allowed to open would also be closed down unconditionally, since they were only breeding-grounds of hatred of Germans.30 This conference dispelled any doubts Frank might still have had on the cultural situation of the territories under his authority. On the last day under military government SS-Gruppenführer Otto Gustav von Wächter, deputy head of its civil administration, ordered all the institutions of higher education and the secondary schools closed down. On 13th November he informed Rust of this move,31 in response to the latter’s notice sent to Frank on 31st October, instructing him not to
Brandner Paul; photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
A Philharmonie des Generalgouvernements concert in the court of Collegium Maius, Kraków, September 1944
allow the Jagiellonian University to open: I hereby notify you of this decision and ask you not to permit the University of Kraków to resume its activities under any circumstances.32 With fully coordinated guidelines on the Polish intelligentsia and higher education issued to the Wehrmacht, Frank, the Einsatzgruppen, and the civil administration of the military government, there could be no question of the occupying authorities’ consent to the opening of the Jagiellonian University. On the last day of October Frank issued an order permitting only the Polish primary and vocational schools to open.33 tHe underHand arreSt of tHe ScHolarS of krakóW The arrests in Southern Poland in November 1939 were conducted by Einsatzkommandos 2 and 3 of Einsatzgruppe 1. Einsatzkommando 2, under the command of SS-Sturmbannführer Bruno Müller, arrived in Kraków on 13th September and was quartered at ulica Pomorska 2. This was the unit which carried out the arrest of the scholars of Kraków. On 26th October the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkom-
mandos were transformed into permanent security services and police (SD and Sipo units), but they were not wound up officially until 20th November. 34 On 26th–28th October Himmler was in Warsaw, Lublin, and Kraków. On the 28th he held a conference in Kraków with Frank’s deputy, Seyss-Inquart, SS- and police chief Wilhelm Krüger, chief of “Kreis Krakau” Otto Wächter, and SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Harster, chief of the Sipo and SD for Kreis Krakau.35 We do not know what arrangements were made at this meeting, but we cannot rule out that they concerned the police operations which were conducted in Kreis (and subsequently Distrikt) Krakau in November. As regards the Jagiellonian University, perhaps the German authorities were waiting for an opportune moment which would facilitate the implementation of a repressive operation. The Rector of the Jagiellonian University, Professor Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński, had no knowledge of the German directives against the Polish intelligentsia or of the decisions that had been made concerning schools. He tried to contact Seyss-Inquart and (at the beginning of November) Ferdinand Wolsegger, head
of the Governor-General’s office for Kreis (later Distrikt) Krakau, but his attempts proved abortive. “Neither of them replied to my letters with information when and how I could contact them,” Rector LehrSpławiński said on the witness-stand at the trial of Josef Bühler in the Polish Supreme National Court after the War. As long as the city was under military administration the University and the schools could get on with their work more or less quietly. The authorities did not interfere in it, and whenever they saw us said that every citizen should go about his normal business. The first problems in the schools emerged when the civil administration headed by Seyss-Inquart was appointed. . . . In late October relations started to deteriorate. Police visits became more frequent at the University and the [Provisional] Board of Education. Time and again someone would call, make notes, and tell us to draw up lists of names. It all started making us apprehensive of something dangerous ahead.36 By the end of October the University was being penetrated by the political police. Professor Władysław Wolter, Dean of the Faculty of Law (in fact acting dean during the absence of Professor Adam alma mater No. 178
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A Philharmonie des Generalgouvernements concert in the court of Collegium Maius, Kraków, September 1944
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
Heydel) was visited on two occasions by a pair of Germans who flashed Geheime Staatspolizei (secret police) IDs and asked a lot of questions. It was obvious that by inquiring about current matters they were spying. When they came to the University a third time the Rector was out, so they talked to Vice-Rector Tadeusz Dziurzyński in the presence of Professor Wolter, who said the following in the inquiry held in 1946 on the circumstances of the arrest of the professors and the developments that followed: During one of their visits they asked me whether we were going to open the University, to which I said yes. Not only did they not say that this was inadmissible, but on the contrary, they implied that they regarded it as absolutely understandable. This is a relevant detail, because we were arrested on the grounds of having opened the University without permission from the German authorities. Therefore I assert that the German political police knew perfectly well that the University was going to open and did nothing to prohibit this move, which would serve as a convenient pretext to close the University down. After that the visits of those gentlemen stopped, and I never saw them again.37 Presumably during one of these visits they also called on the Rector’s secretary, Józefa Piasecka. In 1945 she made the following record in writing: a few days before the professors were arrested a pair of plain-clothes Germans who spoke broken Polish came to the Rector’s secretariat and asked for the list of lectures. They went through it, and with a look of dissatisfaction on their faces returned it, saying it was not what they wanted. They wanted a list with the addresses of the professors, in other words the staff list in the University handbook, which they took.38 The way they put their demand shows that they had not done their homework properly for the tasks Heydrich had ordered them to do. Every year the University issued a handbook entitled Skład Uniwersytetu, printed in its printing shop and containing a full list of the names and addresses of all of its faculties and departments as well as of all of its academic staff, along with their degrees and titles, distinctions, membership of Polish and foreign learned societies etc. The handbook was public and easily accessible. Apart from making these general inquiries, prior to 6th November the German
(subsequently the start of classes was postponed to the 13th). On 3rd November the Rector issued an appeal to students.40 On 3rd November the Rector was asked to call at the headquarters of Einsatzkommando 2 (on the Pomorska) on “matters concerning the University.” On the following day, during the discussion, which the Rector described as “courteous,” Müller asked for some information on the University’s organisation and its staff, particularly on “the number of Jewish staff and students,” and he demanded a meeting with the professors and lecturers, “to present the German point of view on scholarship and schools of higher education.” The Rector reluctantly agreed, and the meeting was General Walther von Brauchitsch (second right) and Governor called for 6th Hans Frank (first right) leaving Wawel Cathedral, in the company November at 12 of German officers, February 1940 noon in Room 66 (now 56) of the Collegium cordon. Police were also stationed at Novum Building. 41 A circular all of its entrances and in the corridors. was sent round informing staff Lorries were parked in the Jagiellońska, of the meeting and met with the street adjoining Collegium Novum, a number of misgivings. In the ready to transport the detainees. Müller’s end the professors decided to speech ended with the arrest of those who attend, in solidarity with the had come to attend his “lecture,” along Rector, out of curiosity of what with other persons who happened to be in the Germans had to say, or to or near the building or about to enter it – avoid incurring the displeasure a total of 183 persons (142 members of the Jagiellonian University’s staff; 21 from the of the German authorities. “None of us wanted to at- Mining Academy, who were having their tend that meeting, but we were own meeting in the Collegium Novum, curious what the representa- as the Germans had confiscated their tive of the Nazi authorities building; 3 persons from the Commercial had to say on matters of vital Academy who also lectured at the Univerimportance for scholarship sity;43 one each from the Stephen Báthory and academic life; none of us University of Wilno44 and the Catholic suspected that the invitation University of Lublin; 45 and several othwas a satanical trap, set to ers including 2 students, 6 teachers,46 and destroy our University,” the a Catholic priest who taught religious Top cover of the edition of the memoirs of Zygmunt Starachowicz Rector would say in March instruction in a secondary school.47 (1914–1944), who was arrested under Sonderaktion Krakau. StaThose arrested from the Jagiellonrachowicz survived Sachsenhausen and Dachau, and on his return 1945 at the inauguration cerian University were its Rector, Professor emony for the first academic home engaged in work for the Rada Główna Opiekuńcza (the Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński, 6 honorary proCentral Assistance Council) and served as a soldier in the Home year after the Germans had Army underground resistance movement. In 1944 he was re-arre- fled Kraków.42 fessors, 2 professors emeriti, 50 ordinary sted and murdered by the Germans in the Montelupich prison in and 22 extraordinary professors, 1 deputy At noon on 6th November Kraków. The location of his grave is unknown. His memoirs were professor, 28 docents, 8 adjuncts, 13 senior the Collegium Novum was discovered in 2011, edited by his great-granddaughter Katarzyna and 3 junior assistants, 1 voluntary asStarachowicz and Franciszek Wasyl of the Jagiellonian University surrounded by a tight police Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
police were also interested in particular units of the University, especially the Department of Ancillary Studies and the School of Political Science. They paid visits to the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences as well, where they wanted to see the records of the Committee for Silesian Publications. The Rector was even given a warning, but only later realised its true meaning. At the very end of October I received a warning of sorts concerning University affairs, but only fully understood it after our arrest. It came from Professor Hans Koch of the Universität zu Breslau, who was an officer and was staying temporarily in Kraków, on matters concerning the interim military command.39 Unaware of the German intentions, the University Senate decided to inaugurate a new academic year and started registering students. An inauguration Mass was to be said on Saturday, 4th November, and classes were to begin on the 9th
Museum, and published in 2012 by Wydawnictwo Oskar
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Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
Frank receives representatives of the RGO Polish charity, New year 1940
sistant, 8 readers, and 2 persons from its administrative staff. Those arrested from the Mining Academy included 1 person holding its honorary doctorate (Edward Windakiewicz), 13 ordinary professors (including Władysław Takliński, who was its acting Rector at the time),48 3 titular professors, 1 extraordinary professor, 2 docents, and 1 deputy professor. 6 of the detainees held honorary doctorates awarded by foreign universities; 26 were members of foreign academies and learned societies; 37 were members of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences; and 13 were former or current rectors. All of them were taken first to the Sipo prison on the Montelupich (Sicherheitspolizei Gefängnis Montelupich), where their particulars were taken down. On the following day they were taken to the barracks of the (Polish) 20th Infantry Regiment on the Mazowiecka, where they were kept until 9th November. The Germans put the professors of Kraków in the “dangerous to the security of the Reich” category and dubbed them “Polish nationalists.” They were put in the custody of Amt IV (the Gestapo) of the RSHA (Main Security Office of the Reich). Each had a preventive arrest card (Schutzhaft-Kartei) issued, which gave the grounds for his arrest as Aktion gegen Univ[ersitäts]-Professoren (Operation against University Professors), followed by the code IID Haft Nr. 96, where IID stood for Department II, Section D of the Gestapo Office, reorganised as Group (Department) D Section 2 (the Generalgouvernement), Amt IV (Gestapo) of the RSHA. 49
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On 6th November the Germans re-arrested Stanisław Klimecki, acting Mayor of Kraków in September 1939, and his deputy, Wincenty Bogdanowski, on the 8th. They joined the arrested professors.50 Repressive measures were also taken against the families of arrested professors who had apartments in the University’s residential properties. They were evicted, and on 25th November the University’s properties were taken over by the Treuhandstelle (Trust Office) and subsequently by its successor, the Hochschulkuratorium (Board for Schools of Higher Education), with headquarters at ulica Jabłonowskich 5. The Treuhandstelle set about the closing down of the University’s departments. The buildings and laboratories were padlocked. The movable property was destroyed, and anything the Germans found useful was “secured” or “provisionally allocated for use,” and transferred so many times to new premises that eventually it was damaged. The University’s printing shop would henceforth be used exclusively for German publications. The University Museum was looted. This was the job of Kajetan Mühlmann, whom Hermann Göring had authorised to “secure all Polish cultural assets,” and Paul Paulsen. In October 1939 Paulsen and a group of collaborators conducted a search of the premises of the University, the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Mining Academy, looking for artworks and cultural goods. German scholars came to Kraków and took any equipment they wanted. The greatest damage was
sustained by the science and medical laboratories with expensive apparatus. Vacated premises were turned into offices, warehouses, factories, barracks etc. The furnishings of the lecture halls were destroyed completely. Desks, benches, cabinets etc. were removed from the lecture halls, taken to the Botanical Garden, and burned. Only 5 out of the University’s 137 departments and units – the Botanical Garden, the Department of Forensic Medicine, and the Departments of Medical Chemistry and Bacteriology – managed to survive the “security operation” and to a certain extent continue their work because the Germans needed them. The new building of the Jagiellonian Library was turned into the Staatsbibliothek, but there were also offices on its premises. The Collegium Novum was also put to new use. First it accommodated the court martial, and later the Arbeitsamt (employment office), and as of the spring of 1941 the statistical office (Statistische Amt für das Generalgouvernement). As of 14th January 1942 it also housed the Administrative Academy of the GG. The Collegium Maius premises were allocated to the Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit. cracovian arreStS, 9tH–10tH october 1939 The wave of repression against the Polish intelligentsia launched on 9th October coincided with the Munich Bürgerbräukeller attempt to assassinate Hitler.51 On orders from Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller, the Sipo and SD decided to immediately arrest persons known as leading officials.52 On the same day lorries were despatched to Kraków’s secondary schools. Not all of them were still in their prewar buildings, some of which had been requisitioned by the army, and thanks to the ensuing confusion some of the city’s teachers managed to evade the repression that followed. Eight teachers, the school inspector for the Kraków educational area, and the principal of the teacher training college were arrested in the building of the teacher training college at ulica Straszewskiego 22, then temporarily accommodating the Nowodworski boys’ grammar school. Five teachers were arrested from the Sienkiewicz boys’ grammar school,53 and another five from the Hoene-Wroński boys’ grammar school; three each from the Queen Jadwiga grammar school and
Following the arrests most of the city’s secondary schools suspended teaching; women teachers taught in the ones that didn’t, but attendance rates were low. On 18th November Wächter banned all secondary school teaching, and the 21st was the last day of classes. The ban was imposed on the grounds of Frank’s order permitting primary and vocational schools as the only type of educational establishments to remain open for Polish pupils. By 9th November, when the later arrests were being carried out, 172 of those detained in Collegium Novum were already on their
way to Breslau (11 of the original detainees had been released in Kraków). They were incarcerated in two prisons. Five were locked up in police cells but soon put with their colleagues. Three individuals were released and returned from Breslau to Kraków.60 On 28th November 1939 169 Schutzhäftlinge (prisoners detained under preventive arrest orders) arrived in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. All had their heads shaved, prison gear was issued to them, and they were given a concentration camp number and a red triangular badge denoting a political prisoner. They were put into barrack Nos. 45 and
Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
the Witkowski boys’ grammar school; two from the Kościuszko boys’ grammar school (one of them, Jan Zaćwilichowski, was a Jagiellonian University docent); one from the girls’ grammar school attached to the Joteyko women’s teacher training college (this teacher was also head of the central teacher training library); the headmaster of a primary school, and the headmistress of the girls’ grammar school for business and commerce.54 There were more arrests on this and the following day: the president of the central board of the Polish Red Cross; Senator Zygmunt Klemensiewicz; Henryk Mianowski, director of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry; the lawyer Bolesław Rozmarynowicz; parliamentary deputy Stanisław Rymar; and the lawyer Oskar Stuhr, who was also president of the Podgórze branch of the Sokół patriotic sports organisation. Henryk Mianowski’s record of arrest had the grounds Akt[ion] geg[en] polni[schen] Intelligenz inscribed on it, and the code-name IID Haft Nr. 95,55 meaning that these arrests were carried out on the same grounds as the arrest of the Cracovian scholars, but the two decisions were implemented in the reverse order. In their book Montelupich Wincenty Hein and Czesława Jakubiec write of 40 surviving arrest records testifying to the operation.56 On 10th November Father Marian J. Morawski SJ, Deputy Professor of Dogmatics at the Jagiellonian University, was arrested during a special operation targeted at the Jesuit College at ulica Kopernika 26. A total of 25 priests, seminarians, and monks were arrested.57 There were also arrests of (mostly male) patrons of Cracovian cafés (the Pod Gruszą and the Europejska). Tadeusz Pankiewicz, the manager of the apothecary shop at plac Zgody 18, was rounded up from the Pod Gruszką café (he was released on 5th December). Preventive arrest was exercised on a total of 120 “hostages” prior to Poland’s Independence Day (11th November), as Otto Wächter, chief of Distrikt Krakau, informed Frank.58 On 16th November Jan Krauze, Professor of Machine Science at the Mining Academy, joined the arrested professors. He was out of town on the 6th, and on his return went to the Gestapo on the Pomorska to petition for the release of his colleagues.59
Kraków, the National Museum building turned into a German museum. German soldiers in front of a map of the Generalgouvernement, March 1941
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Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
Kraków, the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre turned into the Staatstheater des Generalgouvernements, 1940
arreStS elSeWHere in SoutHern Poland Anti-intelligentsia operations were conducted in the south-eastern part of Distrikt
The Juliusz Słowacki Theatre turned into the Staatstheater and festooned with Nazi flags
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Krakau by the third Einsatzkommando of Einsatzgruppe I commanded by SS-Sturmbannführer Alfred Hasselberg. This unit was subsequently moved to Jarosław, and finally to Lublin. From 2nd to 6th November the unit carried out a series of terrorist operations. They convened meetings of the local intelligentsia of Przeworsk and its powiat district, and of the Powiat of Łańcut, inviting teachers, reserve officers, clergymen, local and central government administrative staff, representatives of the free professions, and landowners. German policemen arrested most of those who attended. The same happened in Rzeszów with the priests of the local parishes and from the Observantine Monastery. Similar operations took place in the Powiats of Rzeszów and Jarosław, and to a lesser extent in the Powiats of Jasło and Dębica. 62 The German authorities called a meeting of teachers from the Powiat of Rzeszów to Nisko for 10th November, arrested all who turned up, and incarcerated them in Rzeszów prison. 63 On the same day many Photo from the NAC (National Digital Archives) collection
46, and a strict regime was imposed on them. They were exposed to cold, hunger, and disease. Those who were rounded up in Kraków on the 9th and the following days, along with others arrested in other places throughout Southern Poland, were transported as of 23rd December to Arbeitslager Neu-Wisnicz bei Bochnia, a new labour camp at Nowy Wiśnicz. Some of those over 40 were subsequently released from Nowy Wiśnicz, mostly in June 1940. Those who were not were transferred to Auschwitz on 20th June 1940 and given Auschwitz numbers from 759 to 1071,61 as the Nowy Wiśnicz camp was closed down. They included the renowned sculptor and painter Xawery Dunikowski (born 1875), who was arrested on 24th April 1940, and the parliamentary deputy Józef Putek, arrested a second time in November 1939.
persons were detained from the left-bank part of Przemyśl and its environs. A total of over 600 persons were arrested by Hasselberg’s unit in November. Some were released after two or three weeks, and the rest were imprisoned in Rzeszów, Tarnów, and Kraków.64 rePreSSion in tHe lublin region
The severest repressions in the GG occurred in Lublin and its region, where German policy took a different course from what was practised in other Distrikte. Frank’s deputy Seyss-Inquart arrived in Lublin in late October and at a meeting in the Bank Rolny Building told Germans and Volksdeutsche that the Polish intelligentsia had to be exterminated, and that the majority of the Polish nation was to be wiped out and the rest were to work for the Germans. Polish schools would be closed down.65 Hasselberg, who was appointed Sipo and SD chief for Distrikt-Lublin on 7th November, arrived from Jarosław, and on 9th November launched repressive operations against the Polish intelligentsia in the Distrikt.66 Two days later SS-Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik was appointed SS and police chief for the Distrikt. 67 The local clergy made up the largest number of detainees. The operation started on the 9th with the arrest of many of the parish priests and curates of Lublin parishes, as well as of priests who taught religious instruction in the local schools. This was followed on the 11th with the arrest of all the professors of the Catholic University of Lublin who happened to be in town, while its Rector, Father Antoni Szymański, was put under strict surveillance. On 17th November the University was closed down and a group of its students arrested. On the 11th 7 professors of the local seminary (including its Rector, Father Piotr Stopniak) were arrested. On the 17th the Germans entered the Bishop’s Curia and arrested Msgr. Marian Fulman, Bishop of Lublin, his Suffragan Bishop, Msgr. Władysław Goral, and several other priests who happened to be in building. On the 23rd the seminarians of the Bobolanum Institute of Theology were detained.68 On 9th November most of the teachers of Lublin’s primary and secondary schools were rounded up, and the heads were summoned to the Bank Rolny building for a meeting concerning the schools, whereupon they were all arrested and imprisoned in Lublin Castle.69 More arrests followed over
the next few days, and Lublin’s administrative officers, physicians, and lawyers were also locked up in the Castle. The presidents, deputy presidents, and prosecutors of the Lublin District and Appeal Courts were rounded up in the courthouse.70 The wave of arrests spread out to cover the entire Region of Lublin – Chełm, Hrubieszów, Krasnystaw, Lubartów, Zamość, and other towns, even small places. Those detained were members of the intelligentsia, teachers, social campaigners and political activists. Over 2 thousand persons were imprisoned, and on 23rd December 10 were executed. On 27th November the Bishop of Lublin and his Suffragan were sentenced to death, and on 3rd December they and 11 other clergymen were deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The same happened to several other priests and teachers.71 Terrorist operations were conducted in other parts of the GG as well, and affected Piotrków, Koluszki, Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Radomsko, and Częstochowa (9th–10th November).72 About 150 persons were rounded up in the Powiat of Radom,73 by Einsatzkommando II of Einsatzgruppe III under the command of SS-Sturmbannführer Fritz Liphardt.74 *** Most of those arrested in the GG in November 1939 were released in the period from December 1939 to June 1940. Of the Cracovian academics sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the first to return to Kraków was Henryk Hoyer, honorary professor of the Jagiellonian University, who was released on 23rd December1939. A group of 101 left Sachsenhausen on 8th February 1940. Antoni Hoborski, the first Rector of the Mining Academy, was discharged with this group, but was so infirm that he was unable to leave the camp and died the next day. People who saw the condition of those who returned to Kraków were horrified; some were not even recognised by their families, and all required medical treatment and nutritional therapy. 54 of the original academics were left in Sachsenhausen. At the beginning of March 43 of them were transferred to Dachau concentration camp. They were gradually released over the period from March 1940 to October 1941. 15 of those arrested in Collegium Novum died in concentration camps, 13 in Sachsenhausen,75 including: Leon Sternbach
Cover of a special issue (No. 64) of Alma Mater, published in 2004 for the 65th anniversary of Sonderaktion Krakau, containing a set of articles on Kraków under German occupation and the repressive measures against Polish scholars
For the 70th anniversary of Sonderaktion Krakau in 2009, we published a special bilingual (Polish and English) issue of Alma Mater, to accompany a special exhibition on the imprisonment of members of the Polish and Czech intelligentsia in the German concentration camps at Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück at the beginning of World War 2. The exhibition was organised by the Jagiellonian University Archives and Museum, and Stiftung Brandenburgische Gedenkstätten, and it was opened on 21st November 2009 on the site of the former concentration camp at Sachsenhausen. This special issue contained the recollections of family members of the academics imprisoned and murdered in Sachsenhausen, and articles on subjects relating to the concentration camp, including pseudo-medical experiments conducted on inmates. It was illustrated with a large number of reproductions of archival photographs and documents
on the grounds of his Jewish roots (20th February 1940); Wiktor Ormicki died in Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp on 17th September 1941, and Joachim Metallmann in Buchenwald on 21st August 1942 (both because of their Jewish origins). A further six died in 1940, soon after their release due to loss of health and debilitation;76 another ten in 1941–1944; 77 two fell in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944; 78and four died in Auschwitz after being re-arrested.79 The wave of violence and oppression launched in November 1939 by the German occupying authorities against Polish academics and teachers led to the closing down of official secondary and higher education for Poles, but very many teachers and academic tutors became involved in clandestine teaching. The operations of November 1939 were merely a prologue to further repression against the Polish intelligentsia in the GG. Their aim was to terrorise Polish society and break down its determination to resist. At first many people thought that it was only a preventive measure in connection with the Polish Day of Independence (11th November), but gradually such illusions were dispelled, especially by the end of 1939, when the first transports of deportees from the western regions of Poland started arriv-
ing and news of what had happened there to the Polish intelligentsia became more widespread. In the spring of the following year a new wave of pacification code-named Auβerordentliche Befriedungsaktion (AB) was launched against the “leading groups” in Polish society. Severe repressions against this group continued for the rest of the War and claimed a huge number of victims.
Irena Paczyńska 1
2
3
4
5
One of the sections in this institution, the Zentralstelle II P[olen], kept a list of persons to be detained when Germany invaded Poland and coordinated the operations of the Central Office of the SD (Security Service). See K. Grünberg, SS – czarna gwardia Hitlera, Warszawa, 1975, pp. 145–146; A. Ramme, Służba Bezpieczeństwa SS, Warszawa, 1984, pp. 110–112. The Gestapo conducted similar operations. The RSHA was created on 27th September 1939 by the amalgamation of several police agencies. Especially the Geheimes Ostinstitut at Wannsee on the outskirts of Berlin, which operated under the supervision of Department II of the Main Office of the SD and subsequently of Department VI (Foreign Affairs) of the RSHA. See A. Ramme, op.cit., pp. 101. The Osteuropainstitut in Breslau, the Ostland-Institut in Danzig, and the Institut für Ostdeutsche Wirtschaft, Königsberg. Okupacja i ruch oporu w Dzienniku Hansa Franka 1939– 1945, eds S. Płoski, L. Dobroszycki et al., Vol. 1: 1939– 1942, Warszawa, 1970, p. 133 (Doc. No.28A). S. Piotrowski, Dziennik Hansa Franka. Sprawy polskie przed Międzynarodowym Trybunałem Wojskowym w Norymberdze, Vol. 1, Warszawa, 1956, p. 37. A digitised version of Hans Frank’s Tagebuch (Diary) is available in the U.S. National Archives, see http://gdc.gale.com/ archivesunbound/nazism-in-poland-the-diary-of-governor-genera-hans-frank/ (accessed 10th Aug. 2015)
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S. Piotrowski, op. cit., pp. 260, 402–403. Okupacja…, pp. 119–120 (doc.. 20A). See also ‘Instrukcje Hitlera o polityce niemieckiej w Polsce,’ Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce, Vol. 4, Poznań, 1948, pp. 116–117; and S. Piotrowski, op.cit., pp. 35–37. On 12th October 1939 Hitler appointed Hans Frank Governor General of the occupied territories of Poland in a decree which was to come in force as soon as the military government was wound up, which took place on 25th October 1939. 8 See K. Radziwończyk, Zbrodnie generała Streckenbacha, Warszawa, 1966; K. Leszczyński, ‘Działalność Einsatzgruppen Policji Bezpieczeństwa na ziemiach polskich w 1939 r. w świetle dokumentów,’ Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, Vol. 22, Warszawa, 1971, pp. 7–290. 9 K. Grünberg, op.cit., pp. 220–221. 10 Okupacja…, p. 111 (Doc. No.14A); K. Leszczyński, op.cit., p. 175 (Doc. No.62). 11 Okupacja…, p. 100 (Doc. No.5A). 12 Okupacja…, p. 101 (doc. 5A). 13 ‘Akcja Tannenberg grup operacyjnych Sipo i SD w Polsce jesienią 1939 r.,’ ed. K. Radziwończyk, Przegląd Zachodni 1966, No. 5–6, pp. 98–99, 111–113. 14 The hitherto chief of Einsatzgruppe I, Bruno Streckenbach, was appointed commander of the Sipo and SD for the occupied territories of Poland, and as of 26th October for the GG. 15 Okupacja…, pp. 117–118 (Doc. No.18A). 16 K. Leszczyński, op.cit., p. 267 (Doc. No.56). 17 K. Radziwończyk, ‘Wojskowe i polityczne podłoże zbrodni hitlerowskich popełnionych podczas agresji na Polskę w 1939 r.,’ Biuletyn Głównej Komisji…, Vol. 32, Warszawa, 1987, pp. 47–48. 18 ‘Erlaß des Reichsministers des Inneren an das Geheime Staatspolizeiamt vom 25. Januar 1938, die Schutzhaft betreffend,’ in: Topographie des Terrors. Gestapo, SS und Reichssicherheitshauptamt auf dem „Prinz-Albrecht-Gelände“: eine Dokumentation, Hrsg. von R. Rürup, Berlin, 1987, pp. 99–100 (Doc. No.20). See also S. Ryszka, Państwo stanu wyjątkowego: rzecz o systemie państwa i prawa Trzeciej Rzeszy, Wrocław, 1985, pp. 358–360. 19 S. Ryszka, op.cit., p. 360. 20 K. Leszczyński, op.cit., p. 269 (Doc. No.55). 21 K. Grünberg, op.cit., pp. 145–146; C. Łuczak, Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna hitlerowskich Niemiec w okupowanej Polsce, Poznań, 1979, pp. 72–73. 22 C. Łuczak, Polityka ludnościowa…, pp. 74–75. 23 K. Radziwończyk, Wojskowe i polityczne podłoże…, p. 49. 24 See, for example, C. Łuczak, Polska i Polacy w drugiej wojnie światowej, Poznań, 1993, pp. 479–482; M. Walczak, Szkolnictwo wyższe i nauka polska w latach wojny i okupacji 1939–1945, Wrocław, 1978, passim. The following professors of Poznań University died in Fort VII: the physicist Stanisław Kalandyk; the Slavicist Edward Klich; the lawyer Romuald Paczkowski; the geographer Stanisław Pawłowski, several adjuncts and assistants; Ludwik Posadzy, director of the University Library; Nikodem Pajzderski, director of Muzeum Wielkopolskie (the Museum of Greater Poland); Mikołaj Kiedacz, Deputy Mayor of Poznań; and music and theatre critic and journalist Witold Noskowski. By the end of November 1939 8 thousand persons had been shot in Greater Poland. For a list of the region’s academics who were killed or who died in 1939–1945, see M. Walczak, op.cit., pp. 206 –293. 25 C. Łuczak, Polska i Polacy…, pp. 490–492. 26 Ibidem, pp. 438, 469. 27 K. Radziwończyk, Wojskowe i polityczne podłoże…, p. 46. Radziwończyk estimated that preventive internment affected hundreds of thousands, both in the cities and the rural areas of the occupied country. 28 Podstępne uwięzienie profesorów Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego i Akademii Górniczej (6 XI 1939 r.): dokumenty, eds. J. Buszko and I. Paczyńska, Kraków, 1995, p. 14. 29 Decree of 12th October 1939. In: Okupacja…, p. 116. 30 S. Piotrowski, op.cit., p. 254. 31 Podstępne uwięzienie..., p. 97 (dok. No. 15). 32 Ibidem, pp. 89–91 (Doc. No.8). 6 7
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Verordnungsblatt des Generalgouverneurs für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete 1939, No. 3, pp. 18–19. 34 K. Leszczyński, op.cit., passim. 35 S. Wroński, Kronika okupowanego Krakowa, Kraków, 1974, p. 40. 36 Podstępne uwięzienie…, p. 524 (annex, No. IX). 37 Podstępne uwięzienie…, pp. 518–519 (annex, No. VII). 38 Józefa Piasecka’s statement, 22nd December, 1945, in: Relacje pracowników Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego o ich losach osobistych i dziejach Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w czasie drugiej wojny światowej, ed. J. Michalewicz, Kraków, 2005, p. 938. 39 Podstępne uwięzienie…, pp. 522–533 (annex, No. IX). 40 Podstępne uwięzienie…, pp. 84–85, 87–89, 95–97 (Doc. Nos. 2–3, 6–7, 13–14). 41 Ibidem, pp. 502, 524 (Doc. Nos. I and IX). 42 Ibidem, p. 502 (Doc. No. I). 43 The chemist and the Academy’s former rector Arnold Bolland; its rector, economist Albin Żabiński; and geographer Walenty Winid. 44 Franciszek Bossowski, who had been appointed assistant professor by the Council of the Jagiellonian University Faculty of Law, to lecture in Roman Law (16th October 1939). 45 The economist Witold Krzyżanowski, who had an appointment concerning employment in the University, scheduled for 6th November 1939 in the secretary’s office of the Faculty of Law. 46 Some of the teachers who were arrested along with the academic staff were in the building on business with the Tymczasowa Komisja Szkolna (Provisional Board of Education), which had been allocated premises in Collegium Novum by Rector Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński, who was the head of this social organisation, set up at the beginning of the new school year to replace the school supervisory institutions which had been evacuated. 47 Father Józef Nodzyński, who taught religious instruction in the Queen Wanda Grammar School for girls. This school had been evicted from its building, which had been taken over by the Wehrmacht. Rector Lehr-Spławiński, allocated it a few rooms for classes in Collegium Novum. On 6th November the German police threw the girl students and female teachers out of Collegium Novum, but arrested Father Nodzyński, who had been giving a class at the time. 48 Władysław Takliński performed the duties of the Academy’s Rector, with the consent of its newly elected Rector, Walery Goetel, who was busy with matters concerning the evacuation of the Academy’s premises, which the Germans had taken over. 49 For records of arrest, see Podstępne uwięzienie…, pp. 20–21. 50 S. Wroński, Kronika okupowanego Krakowa, Kraków ,1974, p. 47; Podstępne uwięzienie…, pp. 170 (attachment to Doc. No. 83), and 173. Wincenty Bogdanowski was released in December 1939. 51 This attempted assassination, by a carpenter called Johann G. Elser, occurred on 8th November 1939. There are speculations that it was deliberately set up to justify the wave of repressions that followed. 52 ‘Akcja Tannenberg…,’ pp. 104–105, 117 (Doc. No.12); K. Radziwończyk, Zbrodnie…, pp. 106–107. 53 Father Józef Rychlicki. Doctor of Theology, who lectured in Catechetics in the Faculty of Theology of the Jagiellonian University and was the catechist in the Sienkiewicz Grammar School, was also arrested. He was held in Kraków and subsequently sent to Nowy Wisnicz, from where he was released on 20th June 1940. 54 For the names of those arrested see B. Chrzan, ‘Ofiary eksterminacji i terroru hitlerowskiego spośród nauczycieli i pracowników szkolnictwa m. Krakowa,’ Materiały do dziejów oświaty w okresie okupacji hitlerowskiej (1939–1945) na terenie dystryktu krakowskiego, Part. 5, Kraków, 1968, pp. 207–223. See also F. Bielak, ‘Akcja z dnia 9 listopada 1939,’ ibidem, pp. 227–231; and R. Terlecki, ‘Ze studiów nad szkolnictwem Krakowa w okresie między wrześniem a grudniem 1939 roku,’ ibidem, Part 14, Kraków, 1983, pp. 56–58. 55 See the photocopy of Henryk Mianowski’s SchutzhaftKartei, Biuletyn Głównej Komisji…, Vol. 4, Poznań, 1948, after p. 128. 56 W. Hein, and C. Jakubiec, Montelupich, Kraków, 1975, p. 238. 57 Father Jan Poplatek’s statement, in: Relacje pracowników…, pp. 21–24. Father Marian Morawski was held first in the 33
Montelupich prison in Kraków, thereafter transferred to Nowy Wiśnicz, and finally (on 20th June 1940) to Auschwitz, where he died on 8th September 1940. 58 Okupacja…, Vol.. 1, p. 87 (Doc. No. 5). 59 A. Bolewski and H. Pierzchała, Martyrologia profesorów Akademii Górniczej w hitlerowskich więzieniach i obozach koncentracyjnych, Kraków, 1985, p. 97. 60 The three were Edward Windakiewicz (aged 82), Doctor honoris causa of the Mining Academy; the historian Jan Dąbrowski, fellow of the Hungarian Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences and other Hungarian learned societies; and Zygmunt Sarna, head of the Jagiellonian University’s School of Political Science. 61 F. Bielak, op.cit., pp. 227–229; R. Terlecki, op.cit., p. 57. 62 T. Kowalski, ‘Z badań nad eksterminacją inteligencji w Rzeszowskiem w okresie II wojny światowej,’ and M. Wieliczko, ‘Akcja AB w dystrykcie krakowskim,’ in: Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion 1940. Akcja AB na ziemiach polskich: materiały z sesji naukowej (6–7 listopada 1986 r.), Introduction and ed.. Z. Mańkowski, Warszawa, 1992, pp. 84–85 and 33. 63 ‘Akcja Tannenberg...,’ p. 105. 64 T. Kowalski, op.cit., p. 85. 65 S. Litwiński, ‘Martyrologia młodzieży szkolnej Lublina w latach 1939–1945,’ in: Sonderaktion Lublin: listopad 1939, ed. Z. Mańkowski, Lublin, 1989, p. 65. 66 K. Leszczyński, op.cit., p. 27; Z. Mańkowski, ‘Pierwsze miesiące rządów okupanta w Lublinie,’ in: Sonderaktion Lublin…, p. 12. 67 Z. Mańkowski, Między Wisłą a Bugiem 1939–1944. Studium o polityce okupanta i postawach społeczeństwa, Lublin, 1978, p. 88. 68 Z. Leszczyńska, ‘Masowe aresztowania lubelskiej inteligencji w listopadzie 1939 roku,’ and J. Ziółek, ‘Aresztowani nauczyciele akademiccy, pracownicy administracji i studenci Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego,’ in: Sonderaktion Lublin…, pp. 33–48, 49–60. Zofia Leszczyńska writes that the Gestapo arrested any priests they saw on the streets of Lublin during the operation in a cassock. They were all imprisoned in Lublin Castle, and made to pay the fare for the cab taking them to jail. 69 E. Zaleska, ‘Nauczyciele aresztowani w Lublinie w listopadzie 1939 roku i ich losy,’ in: Sonderaktion Lublin…, pp. 21–32 70 Z. Leszczyńska, op.cit., pp. 34, 44. 71 Ibidem, pp. 34–35. 72 J. Góral, ‘Eksterminacja inteligencji i tak zwanych warstw przywódczych w zachodnich powiatach dystryktu radomskiego (1939–1940),’ in: Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion…, pp. 72–73. 73 ‘Akcja Tannenberg…,’ pp. 117 (Doc. No.13). 74 Fritz Liphardt was appointed Chief of the Sipi and SD in Distrikt-Radom in November 1939. See K. Leszczyński, op.cit., p. 13. 75 The following academics died in Sachsenhausen: in 1939. – Antoni Meyer (24th Dec.), Stanisław Estreicher (28th Dec.); in 1940 – Stefan Bednarski (1st Jan.), Jerzy Smoleński (5th Jan.), Tadeusz Garbowski (8th Jan.), Feliks Rogoziński (10th Jan.), Michał Siedlecki (11th Jan.), Kazimierz Kostanecki (11th Jan.), Adam Rożański (14th Jan.), Ignacy Chrzanowski (19th Jan.), Władysław Takliński (25th Jan.) Antoni Hoborski (9th Feb.), and Leon Sternbach, who was transferred to the Jewish block (20th Feb.). 76 The following academics died shortly after their release in 1940: Antoni Wilk (14th Feb.), Stefan Kołaczkowski (16th Feb.), Jan Nowak (18th Feb.), Jan Włodek (19th Feb.), Franciszek Bossowski (3rd May), and Arnold Bolland (5th Sept.). 77 They were: Jan Kozak (11th Feb. 1941), Paweł Łoziński (17th Feb. 1942), Tadeusz Szydłowski (25th Oct. 1942), Edward Windakiewicz (12th Jul. 1942), Leon Wachholz (1st Dec. 1942), Zygmunt Bielski-Saryusz (12th Apr. 1944), Ludwik Kamykowski (13th Nov.1944), Maciej Starzewski (4th Dec. 1944), Kazimierz Piech (15th Dec. 1944), and Longin Zawadzki (15th Dec. 1944). 78 Józef Archutowski and Jan Salamucha. 79 Adam Heydel (14th Mar.1941), Włodzimierz Ottmann (27th Apr.1942), Dobiesław Doborzyński (May 1942), and Walenty Winid (19th Jan. 1945).
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
LEST WE FORGET!
1962
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
Rector Kazimierz Lepszy’s address, 6th November 1962
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
Jagiellonian University Archive collection
Every year on 6th November, the anniversary of Sonderaktion Krakau, the Jagiellonian University community pays tribute to the academics arrested in 1939. Memorial ceremony on the 23rd anniversary in Room 56, from which they were abducted
2002 THE STANISłAW KUTRzEbA PRIzE FOR hUMAN RiGhTS PROTECTiON iN EUROPE T
he Stanisław Kutrzeba Prize was instituted in June 2002 by Professor Franciszek Ziejka, Rector of the Jagiellonian University; Professor Peter Hommelhoff, Rector of Heidelberg University; and Professor Rüdiger Wolfrum, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. The Prize was founded to foster academic cooperation between Poland and Germany and it is awarded to a young associate or graduate of the Jagiellonian University for scholarship and publication on human rights protection in Europe. The award amounts to €12,500, for a year’s research scholarship at the Max Planck Institute and a week’s internship
at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The Rector of Heidelberg University awards the Stanisław Kutrzeba Prize annually on 6th November, the anniversary of Sonderaktion Krakau, the Jagiellonian University’s Memorial Day. Thanks to the efforts of Professor Hommelhoff, who holds an honorary doctorate from the Jagiellonian University, in 2002–2014 the funds for the scholarship were bestowed by the Founders of the Prize, Heidelberg University and its Honorary Senator, Dr. Manfred Lautenschläger. In 2002–2014 Professor Kazimierz Lankosz, head of the Department of International Public Law at the Jagiellonian
Winners of the Stanisław Kutrzeba Prize 2003 – Dr. Maja Grzymkowska, a lawyer in the European Commission Team for the Biomedical Convention 2004 – Dr. Marcin Marcinko, adjunct in the Department of International Public Law at the Jagiellonian University 2005 –Dr. Piotr Szwedo, adjunct in the Department of International Public Law at the Jagiellonian University 2006 – Dr. Wojciech Burek, adjunct in the Institute of European Studies at the Jagiellonian University 2007 – Dr. Patrycja Pogodzińska, attorney and lawyer in the Council of Europe Department of Human Rights and AntiDiscrimination, Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) 2008 – Agata Skóra, LL. M., attorney, Harvard Human Rights Fellow at UNAKRT alma mater No. 178 76 2009 – Dr. Marta Prucnal, adjunct at the Ignatianum Jesuit University, Kraków
Konrad K. Pollesch
Memorial ceremony for the 63rd anniversary of Sonderaktion Krakau, with Prof. Wolski, one of the arrestees, in the foreground of the photo
University, the initiator of the Prize, was chairman of the committee for the competition held at the Jagiellonian University. Stanisław Kutrzeba (1876–1946), the Patron of the Prize, was a Polish historian of law, a professor and rector of the Jagiellonian University, a member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, and had participated in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. In 1939 he was deported to Sachsenhausen under Sonderaktion Krakau. On his return from the concentration camp in 1942 he organised secret teaching in Kraków. Aleksandra Romanowska RPM
2010 – the Prize was not awarded 2011 – Maria Stożek, M.LL., who is completing her doctoral dissertation (on international policy on crime) in the Chair of Criminology at the Jagiellonian University, and is working at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg on a project on freedom of assembly 2012 – Kamil Szubart, M. LL. 2013 – Dr. Barbara Stępień, who obtained her doctor’s degree from the Faculty of Law and Administration at the Jagiellonian University in March 2015 following her return from her scholarship at Heidelberg, and has recently completed an internship with the European Commission 2014 – Dr. Przemysław Tacik, a doctoral student of the Department of International Public Law at the Jagiellonian University, who has been on a scholarship in Heidelberg since February 2015
http://www.uni-heidelberg.de
2003
Memorial ceremony on the 64th anniversary of Sonderaktion Krakau, with members of arrestees’ families attending; Collegium Novum, 6th November 2003
Konrad K. Pollesch
Honorary guard in front of the Sonderaktion Krakau memorial tablet; Collegium Novum, 6th November 2003
Konrad K. Pollesch
Konrad K. Pollesch
Prof. Franciszek Ziejka, Rector of the Jagiellonian University; and Prof. Peter Hommelhoff, Rector of Heidelberg University, present the first Stanisław Kutrzeba Prize to Dr. Maja Grzymkowska
6th November is the Jagiellonian University’s Memorial Day, when we remember all of our University’s deceased professors, associates, and students. On 6th November 2003 Rector Ziejka and representatives of the Jagiellonian University laid wreaths on professors’ graves in the Rakowicki Cemetery. The ceremony was attended by Prof. Peter Hommelhoff, Rector of Heidelberg University (third right) alma mater No. 178
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On 6th November 2009 the academic community of the Jagiellonian University commemorated the 70th anniversary of Sonderaktion Krakau. The Rector, Prof. Karol Musioł, presided over the memorial ceremony, which was attended by family members of the arrestees, members of the Ne Cedat Academia Association and veterans’ institutions, representatives of the municipal and voivodeship authorities, members of the diplomatic corps, and commanding officers of the military units garrisoned in Kraków
Anna Wojnar
Anna Wojnar
2009 Undersecretary of State Andrzej Duda reads out the letter from President Lech Kaczyński
n 20th–22nd November 2009 a large group of Jagiellonian University academics and students and family members of the scholars arrested on 6th November 1939 attended an important international symposium held on the site of the former concentration camp at Sachsenhausen. The three-day conference on the oppression of the Polish and Czech intelligentsia by the German occupying authorities during the Second World War was organised by the Stiftung Brandenburgische Gedenkstätten (Brandenburg Foundation for Memorial
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Sites) in co-operation with the Jagiellonian University; the Charles University of Prague; the Polish Academy of Sciences Centre for Historical Studies, Berlin; and the Osteuropainstitut at the Freies Universität, Berlin. On 21st November a special exhibition was opened on the Polish and Czech intelligentsia who were prisoners of Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps at the beginning of the War. It was organised by the Jagiellonian University and the Stiftung Brandenburgische Ge-
On behalf of the Jagiellonian University community Rector Musioł laid a floral tribute on the site of the professors’ blocks in Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Wreaths were also laid in front of the memorial tablets of the professors and all the Polish victims of Sachsenhausen
Jerzy Sawicz
O
Jerzy Sawicz
ThE 2009 ViSiT TO SAChSENhAUSEN
2014 The Rector’s address
Photo Anna Wojnar
Prof. Jan Wiktor Tkaczyński, Chairman of the Committee for the Care of the Graves of Jagiellonian University Professors, delivers the address during the memorial ceremony
The 11th Stanisław Kutrzeba Prize was awarded at the memorial ceremony on the 75th anniversary of Sonderaktion Krakau to Dr Przemysław Tacik of the JU Department of International Public Law (on the left). The Prize was presented by Prof. Wojciech Nowak, Rector of the Jagiellonian University, and Prof. Kazimierz Lankosz Following the tradition, wreaths were laid in Collegium Novum in front of three memorial tablets commemorating the professors of Lwów University murdered by the Germans, the victims of Sonderaktion Krakau, and the victims of the Katyn Massacre
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ThE ALMA MATER READERS’ CLUb Dear Readers, The Jagiellonian University magazine Alma Mater, which has been coming out since 1996, is intended to present the life of the academic community of Poland’s oldest university. Thanks to the joint efforts of its authors, editors, and co-workers, thanks to the friendly response and feedback from our Readers and the commitment of the University’s authorities, in the 19 years we have managed to create an open forum for the exchange of information and opinion. The magazine has gradually increased its frequency of publication – from a quarterly through a bimonthly, to a monthly now. We are offering membership of the Alma Mater Readers’ Club to all interested in regularly receiving the latest issue of Alma Mater. You can become a member by making a donation (the amount is up to you) for postage and packaging, to the account of the Jagiellonian University. Every member of the Club will receive a free copy of new editions of Alma Mater. The funds collected thanks to our Readers’ generosity will be allocated for the costs of distribution and printing.
If you decide to join, please pay your donation into the University’s bank account: Uniwersytet Jagielloński, PEKAO SA 87124047221111000048544672 fill in the following declaration and send it to our editorial office: Name and surname ...................................................................................................................................................... Address........................................................................................................................................................................ Telephone number – e-mail ........................................................................................................................................... Are you a Jagiellonian University graduate? Yes / No. If you are, please state your faculty, field of study, and year of graduation…………………… I hereby declare that I shall pay a donation in the amount of ….. into the bank account of the Jagiellonian University in 2015. Please enrol me in the Alma Mater Readers’ Club and send me a regular copy of the Jagiellonian University’s magazine Alma Mater.I consent / do not consent (delete as appropriate) to the publication of my name, surname, and place of residence in the list of Club members published in Alma Mater. 80
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Honorary guard in front of the Freedom Oak outside Collegium Novum, where soil has been deposited from Sachsenhausen, Dachau, and Katyn – sites where Cracovian scholars were murdered Photo by Anna Wojnar
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