Around 6 million Polish citizens perished during World War II: about one fifth of the entire pre-war population of Poland. [1] Most of them were civilian victims of the war crimes and the crimes against humanity which Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union committed during their occupation of Poland. Approximately half of them were Polish Jews who were killed in The Holocaust. Statistics for Polish casualties during World War II are divergent and contradictory. This article provides a summary of the estimates of Poland's human losses in the war as well as a summary of the causes of them.
According to the Polish government's official report on war damages which was published in 1947, the total number of Poland's war dead was 6,028,000; 3.0 million ethnic Poles and 3.0 million Jews, excluding the losses of Polish citizens who were members of the Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnic groups. When the communist system collapsed, this figure was disputed by the Polish historian Czesław Łuczak who estimated that the total number of losses was 6.0 million; 3.0 million Jews, 2.0 million ethnic Poles, and 1.0 million Polish citizens who were members of the other ethnic groups whose losses were not included in the 1947 report on war damages. [2] [3] In 2009 the Polish government-affiliated Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) published the study "Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami"(Poland 1939-1945. Human Losses and Victims of Repression Under the Two Occupations) that estimated Poland's war dead at between 5.6 and 5.8 million Poles and Jews, including 150,000 during the Soviet occupation. [4] Poland's losses by geographic area include about 3.5 million within the borders of present-day Poland, and about two million in the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. [5] Contemporary Russian sources include Poland's losses in the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union with Soviet war dead. [6]
Most Polish citizens who perished in the war were civilian victims of the war crimes and crimes against humanity during the occupation by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) estimates total deaths under the German occupation at 5,470,000 to 5,670,000 Jews and Poles, [7] 2,770,000 Poles, [8] 2.7 to 2.9 million Polish Jews [9] According to IPN research there were also 150,000 victims of Soviet repression. [10]
Approximately three million Polish Jews were victims of the Holocaust. In 2009 the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) put the total of Jewish deaths at 2.7 to 2.9 million. [11] Polish researchers estimate that 1,860,000 Polish Jews were murdered in the Nazi death camps, the remainder perished inside the Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland, aboard Holocaust trains, and in mass shooting actions. [12] The Nazi extermination camp overall death toll is estimated at 2,830,000; including 1,860,000 Polish Jews: 490,000 killed at Belzec; 60,000 at Sobibor; 800,000 at Treblinka; 150,000 at Chełmno; 300,000 at Auschwitz; and 60,000 at Majdanek. An additional 660,000 Jews from other countries, were transported to Auschwitz and murdered. [13] Over a million Jews deported from Western countries to camps and ghettos set up in occupied Poland perished in the Holocaust. [14] [15] [16] The Nazi death camps located in Poland are sometimes incorrectly described as Polish death camps.
According to the figures published by the Polish government in exile in 1941 the ethnic Polish population was 24,388,000 at the beginning of the war in September 1939. [17] The IPN puts the death toll of ethnic Poles under the German occupation at 2,770,000 [4] and 150,000 due to Soviet repression [4]
The main causes of these losses are as follows.
During the occupation many Non-Jewish ethnic Poles were killed in mass executions, including an estimated 37,000 Poles [24] at the Pawiak prison complex run by the Gestapo. Polish researchers of the Institute of National Remembrance have estimate about roughly 800,000 ethnic Polish victims during the German occupation including 400,000 in prisons, 148,000 killed in executions and 240,000 deaths among those deported to concentration camps, [25] including 70-75,000 [26] at Auschwitz. During the occupation, communities were held collectively responsible for Polish attacks against German troops and mass executions were conducted in reprisal. [27] [28] Many mass executions took place outside prisons and camps such as the Mass murders in Piaśnica. Psychiatric patients were executed in Action T4. Farmers were murdered during pacifications of villages.
Non-Jewish ethnic Poles in large cities were targeted by the łapanka policy which the German occupiers utilized to indiscriminately round up civilians off the street to be sent as forced laborers to Germany. In Warsaw, between 1942 and 1944, there were approximately 400 daily victims of łapankas. Poles in rural areas and small towns were also conscripted for forced labor by the German occupiers. According to research by the Institute of National Remembrance between 1939 and 1945, 1,897,000 [29] Polish citizens were taken to Germany as forced laborers under inhuman conditions, which resulted in many deaths. However, Czesław Łuczak put the number of Poles deported to Germany at 2,826,500 [30] Although Germany also used forced laborers from all over Europe, Slavs (and especially Poles and Russians) who were viewed as racially inferior, were subjected to intensified discriminatory measures. They were forced to wear identifying purple tags with "P"s sewn to their clothing, subjected to a curfew, and banned from public transportation. While the treatment of factory workers or farm hands often varied depending on the individual employer, most Polish laborers were compelled to work longer hours for lower wages than Western Europeans. In many cities, they were forced to live in segregated barracks behind barbed wire. Social relations with Germans outside work were forbidden, and sexual relations ("racial defilement") were considered a capital crime punishable by death.
Prior to the war the area which became the General Government was not self sufficient in agricultural production and was a net importer of food from other regions of Poland. [31] Despite this food deficit the German occupiers confiscated 27% of the agricultural output in the General Government, thus reducing the food available for the civilian population. [32] This Nazi policy caused a humanitarian crisis in Poland’s urban areas. By 1940, between 20 and 25% of the population within the Government General depended on outside relief aid. [33] Richard C. Lukas points out “To be sure, the Poles would have starved to death if they had to depend on the food rationed to them." [34] To supplement the meager rations allocated by the Germans, Poles depended on the black market in order to survive. During the war 80% of the population’s needs were met by the black market. [35] During the war there was an increase in infectious diseases caused by the general malnutrition among the Polish population. In 1940 the tuberculosis rate among Poles, not including Jews, was 420 per 100,000 compared to 136 per 100,000 prior to the war. [36] During the occupation the natural death rate in the General Government increased to 1.7% per annum compared to the prewar level of 1.4% [37]
Part of the Generalplan Ost involved taking children from Poland and moving them to Nazi Germany for the purpose of Germanization, or indoctrination into becoming culturally German. The aim of the project was to acquire and "Germanize" children with purportedly Aryan traits who were considered by Nazi officials to be descendants of German settlers in Poland. The Institute of National Remembrance cited a source published in the People's Republic of Poland in 1960 that put the number of children kidnapped in Poland at 200,000 of whom only 30,000 were eventually returned to Poland, the others remained in post war Germany. [38]
In the aftermath of the September 1939 German and Soviet invasion of Poland, the territory of Poland was divided between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (USSR). The Soviet occupied territories of Poland, with total population of 13.0 million, was subjected to a reign of terror. According to research published in 2009 by the Institute of National Remembrance about 1.0 million Polish citizens from all ethnic groups were arrested, conscripted or deported by the Soviet occupiers from 1939 to 1941; including about 200,000 Polish military personnel held as prisoners of war; 100,000 Polish citizens were arrested and imprisoned by the Soviets, including civic officials, military personnel and other "enemies of the people" like the clergy and Polish educators; 475,000 Poles who were considered "enemies of the people" were deported to remote regions of the USSR; 76,000 Polish citizens were conscripted into the Soviet Armed forces and 200,000 were conscripted as forced laborers in the interior of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet forces returned to Poland in 1944-1945 there was a new wave of repression of Polish citizens from all ethnic groups including 188,000 deported, 50,000 conscripted as forced labor and 50,000 arrested. [39]
The Institute of National Remembrance puts the confirmed death toll due to the Soviet occupation at 150,000 persons including 22,000 murdered Polish military officers and government officials in the Katyn massacre. They pointed out that Czesław Łuczak estimated the total population loss at 500,000 ethnic Poles in the Soviet occupied regions. [4]
Andrzej Paczkowski puts the number of Polish deaths due to Soviet repression at 90,000–100,000 of the 1.0 million persons deported and 30,000 executed by the Soviets. [40]
According to Zbigniew S. Siemaszko the total of those deported was 1,646,000 of whom 1,450,000 were residents and refugees (excluding POWs). [41]
According to Franciszek Proch the total of those deported was 1,800,000 of whom 1,050,000 perished. [42]
An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 [43] [44] [45] ethnic Poles were killed in an ethnic cleansing operation carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) beginning in March 1943 and lasting until the end of 1944 in the Nazi occupied Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. [4] The Institute of National Remembrance maintains that 7,500 ethnic Ukrainians were also killed during this interethnic conflict [27] [46]
The figure of 5.6 to 5.8 million war dead estimated by the IPN was for only the Jewish and ethnic Polish population. They did not provide figures for the death toll of Polish citizens from the other ethnic minorities. [47]
According to the figures published by the Polish government in exile in 1941 there were about 7.0 million Polish citizens from ethnic minorities at the beginning of the war in September 1939, mostly Ukrainians, Belarusians, Polishchuks and Lithuanians living in the eastern regions of Poland annexed by the USSR. [48] The IPN did not estimate the death toll of Polish citizens from these ethnic minorities. The IPN maintains that accurate figures for these losses are not available because of border changes and population transfers, according to their figures 308,000 Polish citizens from the ethnic minorities were deported into the interior of the Soviet Union and were conscripted into the Soviet armed forces. During the German occupation Polish citizens from ethnic minorities were deported to Germany for forced labor. [27] [46]
In prewar Poland about 800,000 persons were identified as ethnic Germans. [48] According to the IPN 5,437 ethnic Germans were killed in the 1939 military campaign. The IPN also puts the number of Polish citizens conscripted into the German armed forces at 250,000 of whom 60,000 were killed in action. Tens of thousands of ethnic Germans were killed during the Nazi evacuation from Poland in 1944 and 1945, and as a result of repression NKVD and Red Army or died in post war internment camps. [27] During the war the Nazi occupiers instituted the Volksliste in the Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany to register ethnic Germans in Poland. Many Polish citizens were pressured to sign the Volksliste in order to avoid Nazi reprisals. About 1 million persons were on Volksliste groups 1 and 2 that included Polish citizens of German descent; Volksliste groups 3 and 4 included 1.7 Polish citizens that were subject to future Germanisation. [49] In addition 61,000 . [17] ethnic Germans were living in the General Government. During the war 522,149 ethnic Germans from other nations were settled in Poland by the Third Reich. [27] By 1950 670,000 ethnic Germans from prewar Poland had fled or were expelled and about 40,000 remained in Poland; about 200,000 Polish citizens who were on Volksliste groups 1 and 2 during the war were rehabilitated as Polish citizens. [50] [51]
In 1947 the communist dominated government in Poland estimated war losses at 6.0 million ethnic Poles and Jews, they did not include the losses of Polish citizens from other minorities - Ukrainians and Belarusians. [52] In 1951 the Polish government made a reassessment of war losses that put actual losses at 5.1 million ethnic Poles and Jews; this study was to remain secret until the communist government collapsed. [52] In a 2009 study by the Polish government affiliated Institute of National Remembrance the total deaths of ethnic Poles and Jews were estimated at 5.6 to 5.8 million persons including 150,000 in Soviet captivity. [27]
The Polish government estimate of war dead in 1947 was based on the results of the 1931 Polish census using the criterion of language spoken to breakout the various ethnic groups. [53] The classification of the ethnic groups in Poland during the Second Polish Republic is a disputed topic, Tadeusz Piotrowski called the 1931 Polish census "unreliable", noting that it had underestimated the number of non-Poles [54] The official figures for nationality from the 1931 Polish census based on the mother tongue put the percentage of ethnic Poles at 68.9%, Jews 8.6% and other minority groups 22.5%., Tadeusz Piotrowski maintains that the adjusted census figures(taking religious affiliation into account) put the percentage of ethnic Poles at 64.7%, Jews 9.8% and other minority groups 25.5% of Poland's population. [55] Based on the analysis by Tadeusz Piotrowski roughly 1.0 million Ukrainians and Belarusians and 400,000 Polish speaking Jews were misclassified as Poles in the official figures for the 1939 population. [56] Polish demographer Piotr Eberhardt maintains that it is commonly agreed that the criterion of declared language to classify ethnic groups led to an overestimation of the number of Poles in pre-war Poland. He notes that in general, the numbers declaring a particular language do not mesh with the numbers declaring the corresponding nationality. Members of ethnic minority groups believe that the language criterion led to an overestimation of Poles. [57]
In April 1947 the Polish government Bureau of War Damages (BOW) published an analysis of Poland's war losses. This study was prepared for a conference on war reparations from Germany. Their figure of 6,028,000 Polish war dead has been cited in historical literature since then. [58] [59] [60]
Total Population of ethnic Poles and Polish Jews (only) in 1939 A. | 27,007,000 | |
Causes of human losses (% of total) | % | |
---|---|---|
Direct war operations B. | 644,000 | 10.7% |
Murdered in the extermination camps, executions, liquidation of ghettos | 3,577,000 | 59.3% |
Prisons, concentration camps, epidemics, extenuation, bad treatment | 1,286,000 | 21.3% |
Outside the camps : because of extenuation, wounds, injuries, beatings, hard labour | 521,000 | 8.7% |
Total number of war losses C. | 6,028,000 | 100.0% |
Notes provided in the report: A. Population of 27,007,000 includes only ethnic Poles & Jews; Polish citizens of national minorities (Ukrainians, Belarusians) and Germans are not included. [62]
B. Figure of 644,000 deaths caused by direct war operations includes 123,000 military casualties. [61]
Criticism of 1947 Report of Polish Bureau of War Damages
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The Polish government Ministry of Finance in 1951 prepared a study to investigate and detail Poland's war losses in order to document claims for war reparations from Germany. [66] This study was to remain secret and not published until after the collapse of communism in Poland. [66] The Ministry of Finance estimated actual losses at 5,085,000 persons, 943,000 less than the Polish government Bureau of War Damages(BOW) report of 1947. According to Ministry of Finance figures losses were 5,085,000 persons (1,706,700 Poles and 3,378,000) Jews [67]
According to Assessments and Estimates: an Outline by Mateusz Gniazdowski: [66] "This discrepancy was explained by demographers who maintained that the (BOW) included the "missing" category in the total population loss figure, based on the statistics of the end of 1945, while many people believed to have been dead either returned to the country, or remained abroad as emigres. It was not until 1950 that the war – or war related – population migrations were over, in demographic terms." [66]
Cause of death (Poles & Jews) | Number | % |
---|---|---|
Acts of War | 550,000 | 10.7% |
Murdered intentionally | 3,000,700 | 57.3% |
Victims of prisons and concentration camps | 1,083,000 | 21.3% |
Victims of forced labor | 274,000 | 5.4% |
Exhaustion | 168,000 | 3.3% |
Total | 5,075,700 | 100.0% |
Source: Wojciech Materski and Tomasz Szarota. Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami. Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) Warszawa 2009 ISBN 978-83-7629-067-6 Page 15 (There was no explanation given for the difference of 9,300 between this schedule and the total losses of 5,085,000 persons in the description of the Ministry of Finance Report, see above) |
In 1987 the Polish Academy of Science journal Studia Demograficzne published an article by Kazimierz Piesowicz that analyzed the demographic balance from Poland from 1939-1950.
Description | Total | Poles | Jews | Germans | Others (Ukrainians /Belarusians) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Population 1939 (by Nationality) A. | 35,000,000 | 24,300,000 | 3,200,000 | 800,000 | 6,700,000 |
Natural Increase 1939–1945 B. | 1,300,000 | 1,000,000 | 300,000 | ||
Total Human Losses C. | (6,000,000) | (3,100,000) | (2,800,000) | (100,000) | |
War Emigration D. | (1,500,000) | (500,000) | (200,000) | (600,000) | (200,000) |
Border Changes USSR E. | (6,700,000) | (700,000) | (6,000,000) | ||
Population gain Recovered Territories F. | 1,100,000 | 1,100,000 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Re-Immigration 1946–50 G. | 200,000 | 200,000 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Deportations to USSR 1944-1947 H. | (500,000) | 0 | 0 | (500,000) | |
Natural Increase 1946–1950 I. | 2,100,000 | 2,100,000 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Population 1950 J. | 25,000,000 | 24,400,000 | 200,000 | 200,000 | 200,000 |
Note: The number in parentheses indicates a negative amount (a negative balance) Legend:
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Franciszek Proch was a Polish lawyer and journalist. During the war he was imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp. In the post war era he resided in Germany and the United States. [71] Proch published Poland's Way of the Cross in 1987 in which he estimated Poland's war dead. [72] The estimates of Franciszek Proch were cited by Tadeusz Piotrowski in his book Poland's Holocaust [73]
Description | Population (Poles&Jews) | Military Losses | Civilian Losses (Non-Jewish) | Civilian Losses (Jewish) | Total Losses | % Population |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Poland | 28,400,000 | |||||
Under German Occupation | 295,000 | 2,345,000 | 2,400,000 | 5,040,000 | 17.7% | |
Under Soviet Occupation | 65,000 | 885,000 | 100,000 | 1,050,000 | 3.7% | |
Total Losses | 360,000 | 3,320,000 | 2,500,000 | 6,090,000 | 21.4% | |
Source of figures: Franciszek Proch, Poland's Way of the Cross, New York 1987 Pages 143-144 Details provided by Franciszek Proch:
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Czesław Łuczak was a Polish historian, and Rector of the Adam Mickiewicz University from 1965 to 1972, from 1969 to 1981 and from 1987 to 1991; director the University's Institute of History. He was a member of the Polish United Workers' Party in communist Poland.
Łuczak authored Polska i Polacy w drugiej wojnie światowej (Poland and Poles in the Second World War). In a section on the demographic losses he presented estimated losses with some brief observations. The figures are Łuczak's estimates. [75]
Estimated total losses by Czesław Łuczak | Number of casualties |
---|---|
During German Occupation of Poland | 5,100,000 |
Direct War Operations (not including Warsaw Uprising) | 450,000 |
Subtotal | 5,500,000 |
Outside Polish Territory | 500,000 |
Other Countries | 2,000 |
Total | 6,000,000 |
Sourced from: Wojciech Materski and Tomasz Szarota. Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami. [76]
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Czesław Łuczak also authored an article in the Polish academic journal Dzieje Najnowsze Rocznik, titled Szanse i trudnosci bilansu demograficznego Polski w latach 1939–1945 (Possibilities and Difficulties of the Demographic Balance in Poland 1939-1945), pages 9–14:
Estimated losses by Czesław Łuczak | Number of casualties by ethnic group |
---|---|
Ethnic Polish Victims During German Occupation | 1,500,000 |
Ethnic Polish victims in Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union | 500,000 |
Jewish Victims During German Occupation | 2,900,000 |
Losses of Other Ethnic Groups | 1,000,000 |
Total | 5,900,000 to 6,000,000 |
Source: Wojciech Materski and Tomasz Szarota. Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami. [76]
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Thaddeus Piotrowski is a Polish-American sociologist. He is a Professor of Sociology in the Social Science Division of the University of New Hampshire at Manchester. Piotrowski's assessment in 1998 of Polish war losses is that "Jewish wartime losses in Poland are estimated to be in the 2.7-2.9 million range. (Many Polish Jews found refuge in the Soviet Union and other countries.) Ethnic Polish losses are currently estimated in the range of 2 million. (The number is probably higher if we add all those who died at the hands of the Ukrainian Nationalists.)" [1]
Comparative Poland's War Dead estimated by Tadeusz Piotrowski in 2005 presented on the Project in Posterum website, [77]
Description | Total population | War Dead |
---|---|---|
Ethnic Poles | 22,700,000 | 2,000,000 |
Jews | 3,400,000 | 3,100,000 |
Other Minorities | 9,000,000 | 500,000 |
Total | 35,100,000 | 5,600,000 |
Causes of Poland's War Dead estimated by Tadeusz Piotrowski in 2005 on Project in Posterum website, [77]
Causes of War Dead | Estimated number |
---|---|
German Occupation | 5,100,000 |
Soviet Occupation | 350,000 |
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia | 100,000 |
Total | 5,600,000 |
An analysis of Poland's war losses by Kazimierz Bajer was published in the journal of the veterans of the Armia Krajowa. Bajer calculated the estimated population losses of the 12 million ethnic Poles over the age of 15 who were capable of resistance during the German and Soviet occupation. [78] Bajer's figures were used by Polish government affiliated Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) to estimate the war dead of the ethnic Polish population. [79]
Calculation of Population Capable of Resistance | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total Population September 1939 A. | 35,339,000 | |||||
Less population Not Ethnic Polish B. | 10,951,000 | |||||
Ethnic Polish Population C. | 24,388,000 | |||||
Less losses 1939 Campaign D. | 849,000 | |||||
Less population Not Capable of Resistance E. | 11,526,000 | |||||
Population Capable of Resistance-October 1939 | 12,013,000 | |||||
Source of figures: Bajer, Kazimierz Zakres udziału Polaków w walce o niepodległość na obszarze państwa polskiego w latach 1939–1945, "Zeszyty Historyczne Stowarzyszenia Żołnierzy Armii Krajowej", (Kraków) 1996 Pages 10–13 A. Population of 35.339 million includes about 240,000 in Polish annexed Trans-Olza area around Český Těšín. [17] B. Population not ethnic Polish includes 2,916,000 Jews. [17] C. Ethnic Polish population includes 435,000 Polish speaking Jews. [17] D. Population Losses 1939 Campaign- Bajer estimated that 69% of the 1,230,000 human losses in Sept. 1939 were Poles. (Total 849,000: Killed 296,000; Prisoners of War 449,000; emigrated from Poland (Sept./Oct 1939) 104,000). [80] The IPN put the 1939 war dead at 360,000. [39] E. Population Not Capable of Resistance(100% ages 1–14; 50% ages 15–19; 30% women 20-39; 100% over 70 years and 632,000 disabled) [81] |
Losses of Ethnic Polish Population Capable of Resistance | |
---|---|
Population Capable of Resistance Oct 1939 | 12,013,000 |
Less war Dead 1944–1945 C. | 170,000 |
Add return of Wounded soldiers | 70,000 |
Less deported to USSR | 663,000 |
Less conscripted in Soviet Armed Forces | 76,000 |
Less conscripted in German Armed Forces | 200,000 |
Less conscripted for Work USSR | 250,000 |
Less Forced Labor in Germany | 1,897,000 |
Less entered on Volksliste D. | 815,000 |
Less arrested in USSR | 150,000 |
Less prisoners in Concentration Camps | 138,000 |
Less murdered A./B. | 506,000 |
Less deaths In Prisons & Camps A./B. | 1,146,000 |
Less deaths Outside of Prisons & Camps A./B. | 473,000 |
Less murdered in Eastern Regions B. | 100,000 |
Less invalids | 530,000 |
Subtotal of net losses | 7,044,000 |
Total population Capable of Resistance-May 1945 | 4,969,000 |
Source of figures: Bajer, Kazimierz Zakres udziału Polaków w walce o niepodległość na obszarze państwa polskiego w latach 1939–1945, "Zeszyty Historyczne Stowarzyszenia Żołnierzy Armii Krajowej", (Kraków) 1996 Page 14
A. Bajer uses the 1947 Bureau of War Damages figures as the base to compute his estimate of ethnic Polish war dead. [82]
B. Figure included by IPN in total ethnic Polish war dead of 2,770,000 [83]
C. The IPN put the war dead in 1944/45 at 183,000. [83]
D. According to Bajer's calculations the number of Polish citizens on the Volksliste was 2,224,000. (200,000 were conscripted into the German Armed Forces, 937,000 were ethnic Germans, 272,000 were Poles involved in the Polish resistance and 815,000 were not involved in the resistance movement.) [82]
The Polish government affiliated Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in 2009 estimated total war dead at between 5,620,000 and 5,820,000 persons. They did not provide a detailed population balance showing how the figures were derived. They did however breakout the figures of the total war dead. [4] [46]
Description | Human Losses |
---|---|
Ethnic Poles Deaths -German Occupation | 2,770,000 |
Polish Jews | 2,700,000 to 2,900,000 |
Victims of Soviet Repression | 150,000 |
Total War Dead | 5,620,000 to 5,820,000 |
Source: Wojciech Materski and Tomasz Szarota. Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami. Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Warszawa 2009, ISBN 978-83-7629-067-6. Page 9 |
Losses of Ethnic Poles during German occupation per year. [84]
Description Losses | 1939/40 | 1940/41 | 1941/42 | 1942/43 | 1943/44 | 1944/45 | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Direct War Losses | 360,000 | 183,000 | 543,000 | ||||
Murdered | 75,000 | 100,000 | 116,000 | 133,000 | 82,000 | 506,000 | |
Deaths In Prisons & Camps | 69,000 | 210,000 | 220,000 | 266,000 | 381,000 | 1,146,000 | |
Deaths Outside of Prisons & Camps | 42,000 | 71,000 | 142,000 | 218,000 | 473,000 | ||
Murdered in Eastern Regions | 100,000 | 100,000 | |||||
Deaths other countries | 2,000 | ||||||
Total | 504,000 | 352,000 | 407,000 | 541,000 | 681,000 | 270,000 | 2,770,000 |
Source: Wojciech Materski and Tomasz Szarota. Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami. Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Warszawa 2009, ISBN 978-83-7629-067-6. Page 30
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The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum believes that "The Nazi terror was, in scholar Norman Davies's words, "much fiercer and more protracted in Poland than anywhere in Europe." Reliable statistics for the total number of Poles who died as a result of Nazi German policies do not exist. Many other Poles were victims of the 1939-1941 Soviet occupation of eastern Poland and the deportations of Poles to Central Asia and Siberia. Records are incomplete, and after the war, Soviet control of Poland and the concealment of Soviet archives impeded independent scholarship for 50 years. The changing borders and the ethnic composition of Poland as well as the vast movements of populations both during and after the war also complicated the task of calculating losses In the past, many estimates of losses were based on a Polish report dated 1947 in which reparations were requested from the Germans; this often cited document tallied population losses of 6 million for all Polish "nationals" (Poles, Jews, and other minorities). Subtracting 3 million Polish Jewish victims, the report claimed 3 million non-Jewish victims of the Nazi terror, including civilian and military casualties of war. According to the USHMM, "Documentation remains fragmentary, but today scholars of independent Poland believe that 1.8 to 1.9 million Polish civilians (non-Jews) were victims of German Occupation policies and the war." [91]
Poland lost a total of about 140,000 regular soldiers killed and missing. The Polish resistance movement lost an additional 100,000 fighters during the war. [63]
The official Historical Journal of the Polish military has published statistics on Polish military casualties. The following schedule details these losses. [92] [93] The Polish contribution to World War II included the Polish Armed Forces in the West, and the 1st and 2nd Polish Army fighting under Soviet command.
Description | Killed | Wounded | Missing | Prisoners of War | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Campaign Poland 1939 | 95-97,000 | 130,000 | 650,000 | 876,000 | |
Free Polish Forces | 33,256 | 42,666 | 8,548 | 29,385 | 113,855 |
Warsaw Uprising (Resistance forces) | 18,000 | 25,000 | 60,443 | ||
Total | 146,256 to 148,256 | 197,666 | 8,548 | 697,500 | 1,050,298 |
Sources:
Wojciech Materski and Tomasz Szarota. Polska 1939–1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami. Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Warszawa 2009, ISBN 978-83-7629-067-6. Page 20
T. Panecki, Wysiłek zbrojny Polski w II wojnie światowej, pl:Wojskowy Przegląd Historyczny 1995, nr 1-2, s. 13,18.
Estimated figures for World War II casualties are divergent and contradictory. The authors of the Oxford Companion to World War II maintain that "casualty statistics are notoriously unreliable". [96] The following is a list of published statistics for Polish casualties in World War II.
The Jedwabne pogrom was a massacre of Polish Jews in the town of Jedwabne, German-occupied Poland, on 10 July 1941, during World War II and the early stages of the Holocaust. Estimates of the number of victims vary from 300 to 1,600, including women, children, and elderly, many of whom were locked in a barn and burned alive.
World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. An estimated total of 70–85 million people perished, or about 3% of the estimated global population of 2.3 billion in 1940. Deaths directly caused by the war are estimated at 50–56 million, with an additional estimated 19–28 million deaths from war-related disease and famine. Civilian deaths totaled 50–55 million. Military deaths from all causes totaled 21–25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war. More than half of the total number of casualties are accounted for by the dead of the Republic of China and of the Soviet Union. The following tables give a detailed country-by-country count of human losses. Statistics on the number of military wounded are included whenever available.
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939, was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, and one day after the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union had approved the pact. One of the aims of the invasion was to divide Polish territory at the end of the operation; Poland was to cease to exist as a country and all Poles were to be exterminated. The Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty. The invasion is also known in Poland as the September campaign or 1939 defensive war and known in Germany as the Poland campaign.
The Poles come from different West Slavic tribes living on territories belonging later to Poland in the early Middle Ages.
Seventeen days after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War, the Soviet Union entered the eastern regions of Poland and annexed territories totalling 201,015 square kilometres (77,612 sq mi) with a population of 13,299,000. Inhabitants besides ethnic Poles included Belarusian and Ukrainian major population groups, and also Czechs, Lithuanians, Jews, and other minority groups.
Around six million Polish citizens are estimated to have perished during World War II. Most were civilians killed by the actions of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Lithuanian Security Police, as well as the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its offshoots.
The Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were carried out in German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), with the support of parts of the local Ukrainian population, against the Polish minority in Volhynia, Eastern Galicia, parts of Polesia, and the Lublin region from 1943 to 1945.
Józef Kostrzewski was a Polish archaeologist.
Polonophobia, also referred to as anti-Polonism or anti-Polish sentiment are terms for negative attitudes, prejudices, and actions against Poles as an ethnic group, Poland as their country, and their culture. These include ethnic prejudice against Poles and persons of Polish descent, other forms of discrimination, and mistreatment of Poles and the Polish diaspora.
Pacification actions were one of many punitive measures designed by Nazi Germany to inflict terror on the civilian population of occupied Polish villages and towns with the use of military and police force. They were an integral part of the war of aggression against the Polish nation waged by Germany since September 1, 1939. The projected goal of pacification operations was to prevent and suppress the Polish resistance movement in World War II nevertheless, among the victims were children as young as 1.5 years old, women, fathers attempting to save their families, farmers rushing to rescue livestock from burning buildings, patients, victims already wounded, and hostages of many ethnicities including Poles and Jews.
Crimes against the Polish nation committed by Nazi Germany and Axis collaborationist forces during the invasion of Poland, along with auxiliary battalions during the subsequent occupation of Poland in World War II, included the genocide of millions of Polish people, especially the systematic extermination of Jewish Poles. These mass killings were enacted by the Nazis with further plans that were justified by their racial theories, which regarded Poles and other Slavs, and especially Jews, as racially inferior Untermenschen.
Religion in Poland is rapidly declining, although historically it had been one of the most Catholic countries in the world.
The Wąsosz pogrom was the World War II mass murder of Jewish residents of Wąsosz in German-occupied Poland, on 5 July 1941. The massacre was carried out by local Polish residents without participation of Germans.
Anti-Jewish violence in Poland from 1944 to 1946 preceded and followed the end of World War II in Europe and influenced the postwar history of the Jews and Polish-Jewish relations. It occurred amid a period of violence and anarchy across the country caused by lawlessness and anti-communist resistance against the Soviet-backed communist takeover of Poland. The estimated number of Jewish victims varies, ranging up to 2,000. In 2021, Julian Kwiek published the first scientific register of incidents and victims of anti-Jewish violence in Poland from 1944 to 1947; according to Kwiek's calculations, the number of victims was 1,074 to 1,121. Jews constituted between two and three percent of the total number of victims of postwar violence in the country, including Polish Jews who managed to escape the Holocaust in territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, and returned after the border changes imposed by the Allies at the Yalta Conference. Incidents ranged from individual attacks to pogroms.
In the aftermath of the German and Soviet invasion of Poland, which took place in September 1939, the territory of Poland was divided between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The Soviets had ceased to recognise the Polish state at the start of the invasion. Since 1939 German and Soviet officials coordinated their Poland-related policies and repressive actions. For nearly two years following the invasion, the two occupiers continued to discuss bilateral plans for dealing with the Polish resistance during Gestapo-NKVD Conferences until Germany's Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union, in June 1941.
The bilateral relations between Poland and Germany have been marked by an extensive and complicated history. Currently, the relations between the two countries are friendly, with the two being allies within NATO and the European Union.
The Commission for Polish Relief (CPR), also known unofficially as Comporel or the Hoover Commission, was initiated in late 1939 by former US President Herbert Hoover, following the German and Soviet occupation of Poland. The Commission provided relief to Nazi occupied territories of Poland until December 1941.
Following the Soviet invasion of Poland at the onset of World War II, in accordance with the Nazi–Soviet Pact against Poland, the Soviet Union acquired more than half of the territory of the Second Polish Republic or about 201,000 square kilometres (78,000 sq mi) inhabited by more than 13,200,000 people. Within months, in order to de-Polonize annexed lands, the Soviet NKVD rounded up and deported between 320,000 and 1 million Polish nationals to the eastern parts of the USSR, the Urals, and Siberia. There were four waves of deportations of entire families with children, women, and elderly people aboard freight trains from 1940 until 1941. The second wave of deportations by the Soviet occupational forces across the Kresy macroregion, affected 300,000 to 330,000 Poles, sent primarily to Kazakhstan.
The flight and forced displacement of Poles from all territories east of the Second Polish Republic (Kresy) pertains to the dramatic decrease of Polish presence on the territory of the post-war Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century. The greatest migrations took place in waves between the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and in the aftermath of World War II in Europe.
The occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II (1939–1945) began with the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, and it was formally concluded with the defeat of Germany by the Allies in May 1945. Throughout the entire course of the occupation, the territory of Poland was divided between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (USSR), both of which intended to eradicate Poland's culture and subjugate its people. In the summer-autumn of 1941, the lands which were annexed by the Soviets were overrun by Germany in the course of the initially successful German attack on the USSR. After a few years of fighting, the Red Army drove the German forces out of the USSR and crossed into Poland from the rest of Central and Eastern Europe.
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