Written by zachor_foundation on May 7, 2014
On January 26, 1940, Adam Czerniakow, head of the Warsaw Ghetto Judenrat, was summoned to the police station and told that unless the community remitted 100,000 zlotys by the next day because of the beating of a Volksdeutsche (ethnic German), 100 Jews would be shot to death. Czerniakow described the event in his diary: “I appealed to the Gestapo for an annulment of the fine, then, for permission to pay for it in installments, and finally for the release of
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Written by zachor_foundation on May 7, 2014
According to data in the possession of the Polish government-in-exile, in early 1940 the Soviet Union held as many as 15,000 Polish prisoners of war, of whom 8,300 were officers. Taken prisoner by the Red Army in the second half of September 1939, they were interned in three camps: Kozelsk, Starobelsk, and Ostaszkow. Late that year, there were reports that the three camps had been disbanded. In 1941 and 1942, the Polish government-in-exile repeatedly asked the Soviet Union for information
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Written by zachor_foundation on May 7, 2014
German forces invaded Denmark and Norway by sea, by land, and by aerial bombardment. Some 10,000 German soldiers hidden in vessels disguised as merchant ships occupied the coasts of Oslo, Bergen, Kristiansund, Trondheim, and Narvik. Paratroopers captured the airports of Oslo and Stavanger. Although the onslaught took the Norwegians by total surprise, they inflicted heavy losses on the German navy. In Denmark, the invader met with almost no resistance. Explaining its action, Germany argued that, according to documents in its
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