Past Genocide: Nazi Crimes in Occupied Poland

Writer : Jose Flores, Grade 11

“Genocide is not just a murderous madness; it is, more deeply, a politics that promises a utopia beyond politics - one people, one land, one truth, the end of difference. Since genocide is a form of political utopia, it remains an enduring temptation in any multiethnic and multicultural society in crisis.” – Michael Ignatieff. This controversial quote shows readers the mentality of those tempted to create a world of their own often through horrific means. During World War II the Germans performed some atrocious deeds, the most infamous being the Holocaust, though there were further atrocities committed by the Germans, and one of them was called The Polish Genocide. The Nazis were driven by the idea that Poles were racially inferior and the Nazis wanted the liquidation and destruction of the Polish nation. The Nazis also wanted the Polish land to be German and part of Lebensraum and to only have the Aryan race in that area.

In the occupation of Poland not only where Jewish-Poles executed but also ethnic Poles. Germany committed multiple war crimes during the occupation of Poland, including “murdering prisoners of war and civilians, mass killings of men, women and children, genocide in camps, slave exploitation, displacements and pacifications, [and] demolishing and burning cities, villages and residential areas….” The Germans committed secret executions without any legal procedures, they murdered mentally ill and elderly people and deported Poles by force. The Nazis had a different way to get rid of Polish people, they displaced them throughout the world, with no home and land, the Poles would lose their identity and thus extinguishing Poland in its entirety.

The Nazis kidnapped Polish children (at least 200,000 of them) and they tested them to see if they had “desired” traits and if they could be subjected to Germanization, if they didn’t have these traits they would be murdered in medical experiments, in concentration camps or sent to slave labor, at the end of the war many of the kidnapped children found by the allies had been utterly convinced that they were German. The other Polish people were sent to slave labor and a lot of them died there. The genocide claimed 5.470 million to 5.670 million Polish people (both ethnic Poles and Jewish-Poles). The event was truly a tragedy.