Life in German-Occupied Poland (Uncensored Version)

TL;DR

Nazi Germany systematically destroyed Polish culture, forced millions into labor and ghettos, and killed over 5.6 million Polish citizens during the occupation.

Key Points

• 1.The Nazis immediately targeted Polish intellectuals and elites for elimination. Five SS Einsatzgruppen units, armed with a list of 61,000 names, murdered over 16,000 people in the first months; by mid-1940, over 100,000 Polish intellectuals had been massacred.
• 2.Cultural erasure was systematic and total. Schools, museums, theaters, libraries, and newspapers were shut down; radio receivers were confiscated, books burned, Polish music banned, and monuments stolen or destroyed to break the population's will to resist.
• 3.Jews and other minorities were confined to over 300 overcrowded ghettos. Warsaw's Jewish population, 30% of the city, was crammed into a ghetto covering only 5% of its area; a children's camp on Piamas Wova Street imprisoned 1,600 children, with only 900 surviving.
• 4.Forced labor under the Bainst system enslaved millions, with death as the penalty for refusal. Initially targeting Poles over 18, the minimum age dropped to 14 (12 for Jews); by 1943, evading labor conscription was punishable by death, and entire villages were burned for failing quotas.
• 5.The Polish Underground State grew to 300,000 members and operated secret courts and military operations. The Home Army carried out guerrilla attacks and assassinations, while the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 saw a few hundred fighters kill dozens of SS soldiers before the ghetto was razed, killing 13,000.
• 6.The 1944 Warsaw Uprising ended in catastrophic defeat, and 3 million of Poland's 3.5 million Jews were killed. Over 150,000 civilians died in the uprising; the Soviets watched from across the Vistula without intervening; the Germans expelled 700,000 survivors and leveled the city, leaving Poland with 20% of its population dead.