P (symbol)

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Polish-forced-workers' Zivilarbeiter badge Polenabzeichen.jpg
Polish-forced-workers' Zivilarbeiter badge

The "P" symbol [1] or "P" badge [2] was introduced on 8 March 1940 by the Nazi Germany General Government with relation to the requirement that Polish workers ( Zivilarbeiter ) used during World War II as forced laborers in Germany (following the German invasion and occupation of Poland in 1939) display a visible symbol marking their ethnic origin. The symbol was introduced with the intent to be used as a cloth patch, which indeed was the most common form, but also reproduced on documents (through stamps) and posters. The badge was humiliating, [2] [3] and like the similar Jewish symbol, can be seen as a badge of shame. [4]

General Government German-occupied zone in Poland in World War II

The General Government, also referred to as the General Governorate for the occupied Polish Region, was a German zone of occupation established after the joint invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 at the onset of World War II. The newly occupied Second Polish Republic was split into three zones: the General Government in its centre, Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany in the west, and Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union in the east. The territory was expanded substantially in 1941 to include the new District of Galicia.

Poles people from Poland

The Poles, commonly referred to as the Polish people, are a nation and West Slavic ethnic group native to Poland in Central Europe who share a common ancestry, culture, history, and are native speakers of the Polish language. The population of self-declared Poles in Poland is estimated at 37,394,000 out of an overall population of 38,538,000, of whom 36,522,000 declared Polish alone.

Zivilarbeiter

Zivilarbeiter refers primarily to ethnic Polish residents from the General Government, used during World War II as forced laborers in the Third Reich. The residents of occupied Poland were conscripted on the basis of the so-called Polish decrees (Polenerlasse), and were subject to discriminatory regulation.

Contents

Design and usage

The design was introduced in the Polish decrees (laws concerning Polish workers in Germany) of 8 March 1940. [2] The symbol was a diamond with sides of five centimeters. The border (about half a centimetre wide) and the letter P (two and a half centimetres tall) were violet, while the inside of the symbol was yellow. [5] [3] The letter "P" badge was to be worn on the right breast of every garment worn. Those who did not obey the rules were subject to a fine of up to 150 Reichsmarks and arrested with a possible penalty of six weeks' detention.[ citation needed ]

Polish decrees

Polish decrees, Polish directives or decrees on Poles were the decrees of the Nazi Germany government announced on 8 March 1940 during World War II to regulate the working and living conditions of the Polish workers (Zivilarbeiter) used during World War II as forced laborers in Germany. The regulation intentionally supported and even created anti-Polish racism and discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity and racial background.

The choice of color and shape might have been chosen to avoid any association with national symbols of Poland. [3] It was the first official, public badge-like mark intended for identification of individuals based on their racial or ethnic origin (or other social characteristics) introduced in the Third Reich, preceding the better-known "Jewish yellow star" badge introduced a year later, in September 1941. [2]

National symbols of Poland are the symbols that are used in Poland to represent what is unique about the nation, reflecting different aspects of its cultural life and history. They intend to unite people by creating visual, verbal, or iconic representations of the national people, values, goals, or history. These symbols are often rallied around as part of celebrations of patriotism or nationalism and are designed to be inclusive and representative of all the people of the national community.

Yellow badges, also referred to as Jewish badges, are badges that Jews were ordered to wear in public during certain periods by the ruling Christians and Muslims. The badges served to mark the wearer as a religious or ethnic outsider, and often served as a badge of shame.

In January 1945 the Central Office for Reich Security proposed a new design for a Polish badge, a yellow ear of corn on a red and white label, but it was never implemented. [3]

Examples of usage

See also

Related Research Articles

Electrical resistivity and its converse, electrical conductivity, is a fundamental property of a material that quantifies how strongly it resists or conducts the flow of electric current. A low resistivity indicates a material that readily allows the flow of electric current. Resistivity is commonly represented by the Greek letter ρ (rho). The SI unit of electrical resistivity is the ohm-metre (Ω⋅m). For example, if a 1 m × 1 m × 1 m solid cube of material has sheet contacts on two opposite faces, and the resistance between these contacts is 1 Ω, then the resistivity of the material is 1 Ω⋅m.

DE, de, or dE may refer to:

Rho is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 100. It is derived from Phoenician letter res . Its uppercase form uses the same glyph, Ρ, as the distinct Latin letter P; the two letters have different Unicode encodings.

C is the third letter in the Latin alphabet.

E is the fifth letter of the Latin alphabet.

D is the fourth letter of the Latin alphabet.

Z is the 26th and last letter of the Latin alphabet.

I is the ninth letter of the Latin alphabet.

R is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet.

W is the twenty-third letter of the Latin alphabet.

T is the twentieth letter of the Latin alphabet.

N is the fourteenth letter of the Latin alphabet.

J is the tenth letter of the Latin alphabet.

B is the second letter of the Latin alphabet.

A is the first letter of the Latin and English alphabet.

F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet.

G is the seventh letter of the Latin alphabet.

H is the eighth letter of the Latin alphabet.

O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet.

Y is the twenty-fifth letter of the Latin alphabet.

References

  1. ↑ Friedlander, Henry; Milton, Sybil (1989). Archives of the Holocaust: an international collection of selected documents. Garland. p. 725. ISBN   978-0-8240-5483-0.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Ulrich Herbert (1997). Hitler's Foreign Workers: Enforced Foreign Labor in Germany Under the Third Reich. Cambridge University Press. pp. 8, 72, 321. ISBN   978-0-521-47000-1.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "The letter „P"". Porta Polonica. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  4. ↑ D'Ancona, Jacob (2003). The City Of Light. New York: Citadel. pp. 23–24. ISBN   0-8065-2463-4. But the wearing of a badge or outward sign — whose effect, intended or otherwise, successful or not, was to shame and to make vulnerable as well as to distinguish the wearer…
  5. ↑ Studia ślas̨kie (in Polish). 1966. p. 282.

Further reading

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