A brief history of Poland during WWI & WWI

1. Professor Charlotte West Seattle University History 121 February 1, 2011 A brief history of Poland during WWI & WWI

2. Key dates – WWI and aftermath 1914-1918 Poland, partitioned between the German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, is at the center of the eastern front during WWI 11 November 1918 Poland becomes independent with the end of WWI, during which approx 1 million Poles died 1918-1921 Wars with Ukraine and Soviet Union over boundary disputes 1921–1939 The Treaty of Versailles acknowledges Poland as an independent state but leaves some of its borders unsettled

3. The eastern front in 1915

4. 1932 Germany signs a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union January 30, 1933 Hitler sworn in as Chancellor of Germany 1934 Germany signs a non-aggression pact with Poland to prevent a French-Polish military alliance 1935-37 German rearmament May 1938 German annexation of Austria September 1938 Allies cede to Germany's demand for the incorporation of parts of Czechoslovakia March 1939 Germans dismember Czechoslovakia; Britain and France support Poland in response (look at Poland as a bargaining chip between the two sides)‏ Key dates in the interwar period

5. August 23, 1939 Hitler and Stalin sign a non-aggression pact, known as the the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, partitioning Poland into German and Russian "spheres of influence" September 1, 1939 Germany invades Poland, sparking WWII; Blitzkreig September 3, 1939 Britain and France declare war on Germany September 17, 1939 Soviet Union invades eastern Poland September 27, 1939 Warsaw surrenders to Germany The start of WWII

6. “In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narew, Vistula, and San. The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish state and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.” Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact August 23, 1939 German Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop (left), Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and his Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov (right) sign the pact in the Kremlin on August 23, 1939.

7. A map of the divisions in the secret Nazi-Soviet protocol, signed by Stalin Redrawing the Polish map

8. 1940 Nazis begin to concentrate 3 million Polish Jews in ghettos in major cities. In Warsaw, 300,000–400,000 Jews were confined in a 3 sq radius. June 1940-Jan. 1945 The largest Nazi concentration camp is established at Auschwitz. Over the course of the war, a series of three main camps and many sub-camps were created. The relative sizes of the three camps (order of magnitude figures for winter 1943/44): I:    18,000 inmates II:   50,000 inmates (in late 1944: 90,000)‏ III: 13,000 inmates 51 Auschwitz branch camps: 50,000 inmates 1941 SS authorities begin to construct gas chambers; establishment of extermination camps at Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. Establishment of camps

9. “Smuggling began at the very moment that the Jewish area of residence was established; its inhabitants were forced to live on 180 grams of bread a day, 220 grams of sugar a month, 1 kg. of jam and 1 kg. of honey, etc. It was calculated that the officially supplied rations did not cover even 10 percent of the normal requirements. If one had wanted really to restrict oneself to the official rations then the entire population of the ghetto would have had to die of hunger in a very short time....” Life in the Warsaw Ghetto Source: Life in the Warsaw Ghetto, Emanuel Ringelblum quoted in Yad Vashem Documents on the Holocaust, pp 228-229

10. “I came to one of the four cremo buildings. It looked so like a big bakery...To such a place finished my father, my sisters, my brothers, so many.” (Maus II, p 230-231)‏ Vladek Spiegelman on gas chambers

11. Map of Nazi concentration and extermination camps during WWII

12. June 1941 Germany invades Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, breaking the non-aggression pact signed two years earlier July 23 - September 21, 1942 Mass deportations from Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka. Adam Czerniaków, head of the Jewish Council (Judenrat), commits suicide with cyanide. January 18 - May 16, 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising, the largest single revolt by Jews during the Holocaust. A total of 56,065 Jews were captured by the Germans during the uprising, and around 6,000 were killed during the destruction of the buildings in the ghetto. June 11, 1943 Himmler orders liquidation of all Jewish ghettos in occupied Poland Key dates 1941-1943

13. “Do not help the [Nazi] agents. The Gestapo’s dastardly people will get their just desserts. Jews in your masses, the hour is near. You must be prepared to resist, not to give yourselves up like sheep to slaughter. Not even one Jew must go to the train. People who cannot resist actively must offer passive resistance, that is, by hiding. We have now received information from Lvov that the Jewish Police there itself carried out the deportation of 3,000 Jews. Such things will not happen again in Warsaw. The killing of Lejkin proves it. Now our slogan must be: Let everyone be ready to die like a man!” January 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - A Call to Resistance

14. “The Jews have actually succeeded in putting the ghetto in a condition to defend itself. Some very hard battles are taking place there, which have gone so far that the Jewish top leadership publishes daily military reports. Of course this jest will probably not last long. But it shows what one can expect of the Jews if they have arms. Unfortunately they also have some good German weapons in part, particularly machine-guns. Heaven only knows how they got hold of them.” Goebbels' diary entry, May 1, 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – The German Reaction Photo from Jurgen Stroop's May 1943 report to Himmler and one of the best-known pictures of World War II. The original German caption reads: "Forcibly pulled out of dug-outs". Source: Documents on the Holocaust, Selected Sources on the Destruction of the Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland and the Soviet Union, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1981, Document no. 148

15. August 1 - October 2, 1944 Warsaw uprising by Polish Underground Home Army January 1945 Red Army enters Warsaw February 1945 Russia, the United States, and Great Britian meet at the Yalta Conference and Poland is to remain under Soviet influence until 1989 1947 Debut of Wanda Jakubowska's Polish feature film, The Last Stage, depicting her experiences in Auschwitz. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcJCmltJtFY)‏ Key dates 1944-47

16. Artistic portrayals of life in the ghetto Moshe Rynecki (1881-1943)‏ In 1943, Rynecki was deported to Majdanek, where he died. “Forced Labor”, 1939. Depicting life in the Warsaw ghetto.

17. Artistic portrayals of life in the ghetto Moshe Rynecki (1881-1943)‏ “Refugees”, 1939.

18. Artistic portrayals of life in the ghetto Yitzhok Brauner (1887-1944), Lodz ghetto. “Self-portrait.”

19. Artistic portrayals of life in the ghetto Roman Kramsztyk (1885-1942), Warsaw ghetto. “Old Jew with Children.”

20. Life in the camps Felix Nussbaum, 1944. Auschwitz. “Threesome.”

21. Life in the camps Felix Nussbaum, 1944. Auschwitz. “In the Camp.”

22. The Last Stage (1947)‏ “The camp’s reality was human skeletons, piles of dead bodies, lice, rats, and various disgusting diseases. On the screen this reality would certainly cause dread and repulsion. It was necessary to eliminate those elements which, although authentic and typical, were unbearable for the post-war viewer.” - Wanda Jakubowska Poster designed by Tadeusz Trepkowski (1914-1954), who was one of the original graphic designers commissioned after World War II by Film Polski and Central Wynajmu Filmow (state-run film producers and distributors) to design film posters.

23. Peace posters Tadeusz Trepkowski, 1952. “No”. Warsaw was one of the most severely damaged cities in Europe after WWII. Some estimates claim that 80% of buildings in the city sustained some kind of damage.

24. Warsaw

25. The Last Stage (1947)‏

26. We were in Auschwitz, 1946 • One of the earliest first-hand accounts of life in Auschitz. • Written by Janusz Nel Siedlecki, Krystyn Olszewski, and Tadeusz Borowski, who were all survivors. • Largely attributed to the enouragement of Anatol Girs, a graphic artist and publisher who Borowski met in 1945 while both were imprisoned in Dachau • Part of the edition was bound with the actual clothing of concentration camp prisoners.Another copy is bound in leather that once was the coat of an SS officer. Barbed wire is embedded into the front and back covers. • The red triangle denotes, in the classification system used at Auschwitz and elsewhere, a “political” prisoner, (meaning almost certainly a Polish national); the number 6643 was the actual camp number of Janusz Siedlecki.

27. We were in Auschwitz, 1946

28. Children's art in Theresienstadt • Many Jewish artists were deported to camp-ghetto Theresientstadt (Terezin) in Czechoslovakia • Freidl Dicker-Brandeis was a Viennese artists who was deported there and she held secret art classes for children. Her goal was to “rouse the desire of artistic work”. • She was moved to Auschwitz in September 1944 (where she died), but before she left she managed to save two suitcases with 4,500 drawings by her students. • Only around 100 of the 15,000 children who were transported to Theresienstadt survived

29. Children's art in Theresienstadt "Bread on the Hearses" by Helga Weissova, a child imprisoned in Theresienstadt "Bread on the Hearses" by Helga Weissova, a child imprisoned in Theresienstadt. Drawing with brush and watercolors. Caption with the artwork reads: "Everything was transported on old hearses—luggage, bread and elderly persons. 'Jugendfürsorge' (Welfare for the Young) is written on this hearse. But coffins were transported flatbed carts." December 1941. Source: http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/archive/drawing-imprisoned-child/

30. Children's art in Theresienstadt Children's drawing, "Guard With Stick" (collage) by Sonja Spitzova Sonja Spitzova was born on February 17, 1931, and deported to Theresienstadt from Prague on December 10, 1941. She was sent to Auschwitz on October 6, 1944, where she died. Source: http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/archive/spitzova-drawing-terezin/

31. I never saw another butterfly...