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History of Poland
Table of Contents
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I. INTRODUCTION
II. HISTORY OF POLAND, P. 3
III./ HISTORY OF MINNESOTA, P. 9
IV. LUDWIKOWSKI, P. 28
V. BURKE AND CHORZEWSKI, P. 30
VI. ANDREW MARSHALL, P. 34
VII. JOHN MARSHALL, SR., P. 40
VIII. JOHN MARSHALL, JR., P. 4
IX. CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS, P. 49
X. INDUSTRIES AND TECHNOLOGY, P. 55
. INTRODUCTION
II. History of Poland
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Slavic (the term comes from the Greek) tribes inhabited areas in the Vistula River basin as
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early as the second millennium B.C. These tribes migrated in many directions...and eventually
formed differentiated groupings generally referred to as Eastern, Western and Southern Slavs .
. . . Among the largest and best organized of these tribes was the Polanie . . . . generally
considered to have taken their name from the word for "field" or "plain" which had been applied
to them by the Greek geographer, Ptolemy. (The Land and People of Poland)

40,000 B.C. The boomerang is invented in what is present day Poland (NPR, Dec 15, 1994)

962 Miesco I becomes the first King of Poland, during a period of constant fighting with
Czech, German and Russian neighbors.

Poland accepted Christianity and a bishopric was created at Poznan. Gnesen?

c.1000 Boleslaus I, the Brave. Standing army of 20M knights and a tax system to support
it. Expanded and solidified the borders to include access to the Baltic, Glacier in the east
and Silesia in the west and Slovak. Coleslaw was crowned in 1025.

Peasant revolt and anarchy.

Boleslaus II, the Bold, restored the borders and established Krakow his capitol.

Earliest Land Records

1120 Boleslaus II, the Wry-Mouthed, restored the borders and expanded access to the
Baltic. He left the kingdom to his four sons, a la Charlemagne, with one in charge; feuding
and fighting resulted for 200 years. Further division among family heirs contributed to the
problems.

Earliest Monastery records

1226 "Drang nach Osten" (Pressure towards the East) of the Teutonic Knights" or Knights
of the Cross as they also were called in later times. This lasted for two centuries; caused
the unification of Poland and Lithuania in a defense agreement and final unity and defeat of
the Knights.

1241 The Tatar invasion of the hordes of Ghengis Khan. Stopped only by his death.
From that terrible year onward, ever renewed defensive fights against the Tartars, and in
course of time, also the Turks, became a constant feature of Polish history; the
battleground of the steppes in the Ukraine is the school of Polish chivalry; the "tartar
dance" as it was called, is the training of the nations youth, the dignity of a bulwark of
Christian civilization and the chief object of national honor and ambition. Dyboski p. 20

Court and Municipal records begin

1333-70 Casimir III, the Great brought peace for a while, but at the expense of signing
away a great deal of his lands to the Czechs and the Knights. He did gain E. Glacier from
Russia and a dream of access to the Black Sea "became the crowning ideal of all Polish
imperial aspirations. Codified the laws 1347 and set up a Court system in 1356.
Established the University of Krakow in 1364. Made it legally possible for peasants to sever
their ties with their oppressive landlords. Enacted measures in support of the old and
feeble and women and children. Endowed the towns and protected them from the "lawless
country gentry." Fostered and protected local manufacturing and trade. Dyboski p. 43
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
1346-50 The Black Death (Plague) is brought to Europe. It did not hit Poland as heavily as
other countries. In some places well over half of the population died from plague.
Transmitted by fleas carried by rats, it arrived with the Mongol invasion.
"At the psychological and cultural level European reactions to the Black Death were obvious
and varied. In face of intense and immediate crisis, when an outbreak of plague implanted
fear of imminent death in an entire community, ordinary routines and customary restraints
regularly broke down. In time, rituals arose to discharge anxiety in socially acceptable
ways; but in the fourteenth century itself, local panic often provoked bizarre behavior.
The first important effort at ritualizing responses to the plague took extreme and ugly
forms. In Germany and some adjacent parts of Europe companies of Flagellants aimed at
propitiating God's wrath by beating each other bloody and attacking Jews, who were
commonly accused of spreading the pestilence. The Flagellants disdained all established
authorities of church and state and, if accounts are to be believed, their rituals were well
nigh suicidal for the participants.
Attacks on German-Jewish communities inspired by Flagellants and others probably
accelerated an eastward shift of centers of Jewish population in Europe. Poland escaped
the first round of plague almost entirely, and though popular rioting against Jews occurred
there too, royal authorities welcomed German Jews for the urban skills they brought into
the country.
Scholars have suggested that the rise of vernacular tongues as a medium for serious
writing and the decay of Latin among the educated men of Western Europe was hastened
by the die-off of clerics and teachers who knew enough Latin to keep that ancient tongue
alive.
When the plague was raging, a person might be in full health one day and die miserably
within twenty-four hours. This utterly discredited any merely human effort to explain the
mysteries of the world. The confidence in rational theology could not survive such
experiences.
The inadequacy of established ecclesiastical rituals and administrative measures to cope
with the unexampled emergency of the plague had pervasively unsettling effects. Many
priests and monks died; often their successors were less well trained and faced more
quizzical if not openly antagonistic flocks. Anti-clericalism was of course not new, but it
became more open and widespread, and provided one of the elements contributing to
Luther's later success.
In contrast to the rigidities that beset the church, city governments responded rather
quickly to the challenges presented by devastating disease. Magistrates learned how to
cope at the practical level, organizing burials, safeguarding food deliveries, setting up
quarantines, hiring doctors, and establishing other regulations for public and private
behavior in time of plague. This ability made the centuries between 1350 and 1550 a sort
of golden age for European city-states. (McNeill, pp. 160-5)

Second oldest University in Europe is founded at Krakow

1374 Casimir had no male heirs and was succeeded by Lewis of Hungary who had no
interest in Poland and left it to his officials. In exchange for loyalty, he granted the barons
reductions in taxes and duties to the State and guaranteed them that appointments would
come from within their class. Thus was the foundation laid for government by the gentry
and a weak central government and constant disputes over royal succession. Dyboski
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
1386 Lewis' daughter, 13 year old Hedwig, marries Prince Jagelon of Lithuania and thus
begins the steps towards greatness and union. Lithuania in turn spurns Orthodoxy and
becomes Roman Catholic and ultimately, Polish in language and culture. (Dyboski)

1410 Defeat of the Knights of the Cross (Teutonic Knights) at Gruenwald (Tannenberg)
who were the greatest military power of their day. For the next two hundred years, Poland
would grow and consolidate until it became the biggest kingdom in Europe and second
only to France in Population.

1413 The Union Treaty between Poland and the lands of Lithuania and Ruthenia began
with the words: "This Union, being the outcome not of hatred, but of love . . . ." (Dark Side
of the Moon, p. 24).
From an oligarchy of the small class of nobles, Poland was transformed into a
parliamentary government with the support of the large masses of country gentry. Free
election of the King by the nobility and the gentry, later to become the chief cause of many
of its disasters, is the foundation of the Polish Parliament, called the Sejm. It first met in
Piotrkon. Government became mired in local and provincial issues. Each time the king
wanted to tax or raise and army, he had to make more concessions, often at the expense of
the towns and the peasants. Gdansk recovered, Teutonic Knights kept East Prussia but
swear allegiance to Polish king. (Dyboski)

Access secured to the Baltic and the Knights become vassals to the Poles.

Copernicus studies at Crakow

1492 Columbus sails the ocean blue.

Catholic and Protestant parish records begin

1505 Parliament made into a two chambered body, WITH THE LOWER HOUSE
REQUIRING UNANIMOUS CONSENT for the passage of a bill. [Sounds like the time of the
Plebeian Tribunes of Ancient Rome when any one of 14 elected Tribunes could stop any or
all government activity for any reason whatsoever]]

1515 Austria, Germany and Russia, at an early Congress of Vienna, force Sigismund II
and Poland to renounce their claims to the thrones of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Turks
take Romania. Polish Renaissance begins.

1533 Ivan the Terrible [a more accurate translation would be “Ivan, the Awe-Inspiring”]

1543 Copernicus writes De Revolutionibus, his treatise which postulated that the earth
revolves around the sun rather than the other way round.

1548 Sigismund II, Protestantism reaches peak, haven for Jews & Protestants

1560 Under the reign of Sigismund II, Hohenzollerns take E. Prussia and the Swedes
begin to have territorial ambitions.

1564 As the Reformation rages throughout western Europe, Parliament demands a Polish
Church with a Polish Language but the realities of being bordered by Protestant Prussia on
the West and Orthodox Russia on the East, keeps the Poles allied with Rome.

1569 Final and complete union with Lithuania. (Union of Lublin)
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
1573 The Sjem passed the Act of the Warsaw Confederation, guaranteeing freedom to all;
the first act of broad religious tolerance in Europe. The Sjem also adopted principle of
having the nobility elect the King. This led to lots of foreign interference (lobbyists with
money), especially because any one member could "disapprove" any action by the Sjem.

1577 King Stephan Bathory takes Danzig. The was the point of the greatest extent of
Polish territory – from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. An army of nobles and townsmen
defeat Russia.

Sigismund III, a Swede, shifts the capitol to Warsaw, closer to home. He is more interested
in courting and giving concessions to Protestant Sweden than an alliance with the
Hapsburgs of expanding Austria. Impeachment and revolution put down. Dyboski

1596 The Uniat Church is created by Rome to free the Eastern Orthodox in Poland from
Russia. Eastern rituals and traditions were allowed as long as the allegiance was to Rome.

1607 Jamestown Colony, Virginia Around 1608, Captain John Smith recruited Polish
immigrants, skilled in the collection and manufacture of pine resins, to work as indentured
laborers in Jamestown. In 1619, before an election of the Virginia Assembly, the new
governor declared that only men of English descent would be eligible to vote. The Polish
laborers, who by that time had completed their terms of indenture, protested by not
working. The governing body quickly resolved the dispute by declaring the Poles free
inhabitants and therefore also eligible to vote.

1620 Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts

Thirty Years War The major powers fought each other on German soil for control of the
Baltic and for sectarian issues. Poland tried to stay neutral. As a result, Germany
remained fragmented into very many small units of government for over 200 years
(Bismarck united the German state after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871) and missed out
on the colonial and economic benefits which accrued to the newly emerging nation states of
England, France and Spain. This gave the Germans an inferiority complex which was no
small factor in the rise of the Nazi's. (Megapolitics, Roots of the Nazi Mind).

1648-1660 In the Ukraine, then part of Poland, Bohdan Chmielnicki led a Cossack revolt
against their Polish/Lithuanian republican rulers who were attempting to convert them to
Greek Catholicism and converting their independent status to that of serfdom. Huge
human losses including 120,000 Jews murdered and starved by the Cossacks, the largest
massacre in Jewish history to that time. Tatars murdered an entire captured Polish
division and received ransom for that deed from the Cossacks. There were additional huge
losses of life and property in all of the area of the uprising.
The Muscovy Army driving from the north and the Tatars from the south moved on were
stopped, politically, by an attack by the Swedes coming from the Baltic Sea, also with
demands on the very weak Poland. The Russians, fearing Swedish domination of the Baltic,
halted their attack, as did the Turkish led Tatars.
(Pogonowski, pp. 121-26)
Pogrom in Poznan and Elsewhere
"It was at this hour of utmost need that it became manifest where the salvation of the
people lay: those who wrought it came not from the aristocracy above, but he masses below.
Poland's greatest military leader of the time, Stephen Czarniecki, who had risen from the
ranks of the poor country gentry, heroically held the older capital, Krakow, in the South,
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against a Swedish siege; the townsmen of Lwow in the East bravely endured another siege
from the Russians and Cossacks; a priest of humble origin, Kordecki, organized the
successful defense of a third besieged place, Czestochowa, the center of Polish religious
traditions in the West of the kingdom.
"Finally, the peasantry, though kept in serfdom, rose against the invaders both in the
mountains of the Southwest and in the forests of the Northeast, as well as on the German
and the Russian border.
"The older religion as a symbol of national culture and national tradition gathered round its
standard both gentry and peasantry against the Swedish Lutherans, who wantonly
desecrated Roman Catholic churches, and remorselessly pillaged hearths and homes.
"A national confederation was formed in the Southern mountains, the King returned among
his subjects, and in the heroic Eastern town of Lwow solemnly dedicated himself and his
nation to the Virgin Mary as the "Queen of the Polish Crown" and the Divine protectress of
her people. This outburst of religious fervor and regained national unity marked the
turning point in a struggle which dragged on for long years yet, but ended in deliverance.
Polish diplomacy succeeded in forming an alliance with the Austrian Hapsburgs against the
Swedes, and, what is more, the Polish sword vanquished the invading Transylvanians."
[Dyboski, p. 112]
One of the battles which Stephan Czarniecki fought against the Swedes occurred near the
tiny village of Trzebak in the Parish of Lodz, just south of the city of Poznan. Trzebak is the
village of the Borowiak family about whom this narrative is being written.

1683 King John III Sobieski and his 20,000 Polish cavalry forces charged across the
Carpathian Mountains and led the Austrians in defeating the Turks, who had surrounded
and laid siege to Vienna. Had they not, much of Western Europe today would very probably
be Moslem and History would have been radically changed from what we now know.

1697 August II, Elector of Saxony. Rule by oligarchy of nobles, leading to disorder

1700 Cossack rising led by Bodan Chmielnicki leaves Poland in ruins

1733, October 10 France declares war on Austria over the question of Polish succession.

1764 Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, last King of Poland.

1772 First Partition by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Russia was attempting to take all of
Poland, but Prussian and Austria- Hungary forced her to settle for less. All were opposed to
the republican [democratic] tendencies which were held by many of the Poles]. A total of
one third of the territory and 4,000,000 of the population was divided among the three
powers. Something unprecedented in history. First Public Library in Europe Founded.

1780 Sjem passed law requiring publishers to donate 1 copy of each book to library.

1788 Four Year Sejm, known as the Great Parliament

1791 Landowner rebellion against the Constitution of the Third of May. This constitution,
which gave burghers representation in the Sejm and protected the peasants was the first
constitution in Europe and the second in the world (after the U.S.) As many as 150,000
Polish nobles were eligible to vote in the Sejm, but as a practical matter, voting was
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controlled by 300 or so leading families.

1793 Second Partition. Laws of the Four Year Sejm abolished

1794 Kosciusko Insurrection. Thaddaeus Kosciusko, trained in Frances and hero of the
American Revolutionary War, proclaimed a general mobilization of all men fit to bear arms,
including the peasants. Until that time, only the gentry had been defenders of the country.
But taking a lesson from the American and Polish Constitutions, Kosciusko gave a way for
the peasant and serf to establish their own equal rights by force of arms. Armed only with
the scythes from their farms, thousands rallied to the colors, much as they did in France
for Bonaparte, who had created the first truly national army. Their valor, shown in
attacking Russian artillery and capturing its guns, was won by Kosciusko at Racl~awice.
Although not important strategically, the event is still celebrated as the baptism by blood of
the backbone of Poland, its peasants.
In gratitude, the peasants were granted freedom of movement, freeing them from their
landlords and protecting them from arbitrary evictions from their own lands. But Prussia
and Austria joined the fray and within a year the short-lived rebellion was over. (Dyboski, p.
152)


1794, October 10 Russian General Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov crushes the rebel
Polish army at Maciejowice, Poland.
1795 Third Partition. Poland ceases to exist.
Partitions of Poland did not have to happen. They were caused by parasitic growth at
Poland's expense, of the Hohenzollerns of Berlin, who were the initiators of the crime of
partitions. Without their initiative and provocations, Poland would have survived
undivided, under Russian domination, until the Napoleonic campaigns. Then, in 1807 or
1812, Poland could have declared in favor of France in war against Russia and thus, regain
Polish independence.
Annihilation of Poland had no precedent in modern European history. She was the only
major European state which was a republic in an era of absolutism. Foreign subversion obstructed all attempts of reform. The immediate cause of the destruction of Poland
was not the anarchy but the struggle against it and passage of reforms which could have
rebuilt the power position of Poland. The event robbed Poland of a normal progress during
the 19th century. (Pogonowski, p. )

1797 Polish Legion (prisoners and deserters from the Austrian Army) fights under
Bonaparte in Italy and Egypt.

1801 Napoleon sends the much of the Polish Legion to Haiti to defend French interest
against rebellious blacks. Most died of warfare or yellow fever but many joined the rebels
and remained there, intermarried and are still there today. Napoleon, exasperated, said (in
French one supposes), "To Hell with the New World" and ended up selling Louisiana to
President Jefferson for $.03 per acre in 1803. Actually, if he had sold, he would have had it
taken from him by England.

1807 Napoleon creates the Grand Duchy of Warsaw which included the Province of
Poznan as a military outpost of Imperial France in the East. The Duchy is eliminated after
Napoleon’s defeat. Polish Legion sent to Spain to assist in that adventure.
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
1807 Serfdom Ends in Prussian Poland but it takes 15 years to implement land reform
procedures. The peasants must give 1/4 of their land to their landlord, in return, they own
their property. About 30% of lands are from 6-40 acres, another 40% are from 40-400
acres. Prussia considered Poland to be their granary and did not encourage
industrialization. As there were more than 1,000,000 landless workers after the reforms,
those who did not work on land migrated west to work in German industries.

1808 Civil registry and notarial records begin

1812, December 12 Napoleon passes through Poznan on his retreat from Moscow, leaving
his defeated army behind. He had hoped that the Poles would rise to support him and help
him defeat the Russians. While the mass rising never occurred, mostly because he would
not commit to an independent Poland, Prince Joseph Poniatowski, heir to the defunct Polish
throne, did lead Polish troops in support of Napoleon.
He commanded a French and Polish Corps and was a valued general and adviser. He
ultimately was made a Marshal of the French Empire, but drowned a few days later in
1813, when Napoleon destroyed river crossings which were needed for Poniatowski and his
men to escape a Prussian attack. I guess the Poles were right about Napoleon, as well as
the Russians, Austrians and Prussians.
The obituary of Victoria Kushura, aunt (? ? ?) of Cordelia Ludwikowska Marshall, stated
that she would often talk of Napoleon and Prince Poniatowski, heir of the last Polish king,
during her later years before she died in Duluth at the age of 106 years in 1909. She would
have been 9 years old in 1812, making those memories highly likely. Napoleon’s
adventures in Poland and Russia must have been big news in its day, even among the
non-nobility.

1815 The Congress of Vienna, a "peace conference" called by the victorious allies of
Prussia, Russia, Austria-Hungary and England after the final defeat of Napoleon, creates a
new Congress Kingdom of Warsaw with its own parliament but still under the domination of
Russia and the Grand Duchy of Posen which was controlled by Prussia. Krakow, the
ancient capital of Poland, remained a "free city" under inter-allied control.
Whatever the equity of the new boundaries, the Congress did create a Europe which had
almost 100 years of peace (excepting the short conflicts between Prussia and AustriaHungary and Prussia and France and England & France ganging up on Russia in the
Crimean War.

1821-23 Serfdom is finally ended in Prussian Poland and in Krakow by the Polish
Parliament. (Dyboski)

1831 Rebellion failed in Warsaw. The Polish language was then banned in offices,
churches and schools and the Prussians solidified their control over the Polish lands and
peoples. In the Russian sector, Russian was introduced as the language of the schools and
of civil administration; thousands were deported to Siberia and points east; Orthodoxy was
given a special status and the Russian Governor in Warsaw became the ruler of the area.
"The real capital of Poland for the next quarter of a century lay in Paris, where a galaxy of
Polish statesmen and soldiers, writers and scholars, journalists and artists, was gathered in
exile. (Dyboski p. 174)

1846 Rebellion in Poznan & Prussia

1848 Revolt quashed. Poles were driven off their farms and replaced by German colonists.
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Polish schools and churches were turned into arsenals, barracks and offices for the
Prussian government. TRZEBAK

1848 Serfdom ends in Austrian Poland (Glacier). Democratic revolutions in Poznan &
Prussia and all over continental Europe, in fact.
"During a short period of enthusiastic demonstrations of fraternity, it seemed as if a new
era of friendship was to follow the ages of hostility between the Germans and the Poles.
Emigrants were flocking homeward from the distant West, a provisory Polish Government at
Poznan demanded a Polish army and a Polish civil administration for Prussian Poland, and
dreams were entertained of a Poland rebuilt through the joint agency of Prussia and Austria
against Russia.
"But the military adventures failed, just as had an armed Polish volunteer force, organized
in Prussian Poland had been compelled by superior Prussian military to disarm and
disperse" [Dyboski, p. 183]
In May 1848, the tiny village of Trzebak, located in the parish of Lodz, just south of the city
of Poznan, home of the Borowiaks, one of the families of this story, was the center of an
insurrectionist group which captured a company of Prussian infantry and went so far as to
declare Polish independence. [Kij]

1854 First Polish settlement in the United States, in Panna Maria, Texas.

1863 Rebellion against the Tsar's order for universal military conscription. Thousands
were condemned to forced labor in coal mines or the gallows. Serfdom was abolished in
Poland in 1864 when the Polish insurrectionary government was in its death throes. But
huge taxes were imposed on the gentry, the purchase of land was rendered impossible by
special decrees, cities were stripped of their relics and collections and the Polish language
was banished from all public use. Catholic properties were transferred to Orthodox
ownership, Russian monasteries were established and Catholic ones were confiscated and
the clergy paid by the State; the administrative affairs of the Church in Poland were severed
from direct connection with Rome and placed under a special authority sitting in St.
Petersburg.
Uniat Catholics, who held allegiance to Rome while using an Orthodox liturgy, suffered
whipping, physical torture, military force, massacre and other means to pry them from their
faith. (Dyboski, p. 206)
"At the same time, the gentry, as a class, is shattered by the insurrectionary disaster,
and many of its young men, having lost their fathers' lands by confiscation, go to swell
the ranks of the professional classes in the towns. The free peasant class . . .
instinctively and irresistibly gropes its way . . . towards economic, and in due time
towards political power. . . . After 1863 the gentry can no more be called a dominating
factor in Polish national life, though many leading men are still descended from it."
(Dyboski, p. 202)
The practical effect of the abolishment of serfdom was to not just to give the peasants
their land but to allow them the use of their "landlords” pastures and woods. The
conflicts which resulted were encouraged by the Russian "Peasant Commissioners."

1865 Ironically, the religious and cultural persecution of the Prussians under the guise of
giving the Poles a German education, had the unforeseen consequence of educating them as
to other possibilities, specifically, the possibility of emigration, which was being promoted
by steamship companies, by foreign governments and by those who had already emigrated
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and were writing back to invite their friends and relatives to join them.
The general causes of Polish immigration were :
a. Overpopulation of the village by farmers
b b. Small land holdings, primitive agricultural methods and meager productivity
of the soil.
c. Insufficient industrial development
d. Low wages
e. Excessive taxation
f. Alcoholism and petty litigation's
g. Land hunger and the difficulty to satisfy it at home
h. Emigration propaganda carried on by agents of steamship companies,
governments, corporations and by lucky emigrants
i. Linguistic and religious persecution resulting from Bismarck's "Kultur-kampf
policy
j. The contagious influence of German emigration.
(The Land and People of Poland)

1866 European Cholera epidemic

1867 Elections in Poznan

1870 Franco Prussian War. France with a military reputation dating back to the Crimean
War but with an army which had not modernized since that time, started it, opposed to the
marriage of a German princess to a Spanish prince, sure of a quick victory. The Prussians,
confident because of their recent victory over the Austro-Hungarian Empire, an alliance
with the Bavarians and other south Germans, and a mobilization plan, were not
disappointed with the opportunity. But within a few weeks, due to the fact that it was able
to mobilize, transport and provision its forces using the German railroad network, the
Prussian Army had captured Emperor Napoleon III and his forces at Sedan on the
French-German border. The Prussian forces then moved on and laid a siege on Paris for
over four months, forcing the Parisians to eat dogs, cats, rats, horses and even circus
elephants. Bismarck, at the urging of many, arranges for King Wilhelm of Prussia to
assume the title "Emperor of Germany” in a ceremony at the Palace of Versailles and
Germany is finally united under him as Kaiser Wilhelm I. In March of 1871, the Army of
the Loire, the last French Army from the south was wiped out and the City of Paris quickly
surrendered, its last hope having been vanquished. (Paris Babylon)
The Franco Prussian War was the last war in which major command of troops in the field
and in action was held by members of the royal families of both sides. As a prize, the
Germans got the Alsace-Lorraine coal mining and industrial region of France and 200
million Francs.
The French remembered this 50 or so years later after World War I when they exacted huge
punitive reparations on the Germans of Kaiser Wilhelm II at the end of a conflict which did
not have such a decisive victory. The Germans, also with long memories under Adolf Hitler,
remembered this in 1940 when the Blitzkrieg of the Wehrmacht captured France in six
weeks in World War II and the subsequent surrender ceremonies were held in the very
same rail car as that which was used in WWI.
1871 March 18 Paris Commune
1874 Duluth Poles in Gnesen Township write to the Archbishop of the Poznan/Gnieznow
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Archdio
History of Poland
Born in 1822, He studied philosophy & theology in Rome, and since 1856
Home Prelate of the Pope [a very high position, rarely given to anyone but
the Pope's family members!]. Then he served for a while as the Apostolic
Delegate to New Grenada in America.
In 1858 back in Europe, he was consecrated as a bishop, and made the
Pope's Legate in Brussels. In 1866 he became the Archbishop of Gniezno
[in the XIX century the dioceses of Gniezno & Poznan were ruled by one
Archbishop, with the Title of Polish Primate].
In the beginning he kept good relations to the Prussian Government and
even suppressed any political [i.e. anti-Prussian, pro-independent Poland]
propaganda in the churches which caused the defeat of Polish party in
the Prussian elections in 1867 - this turned the Poles against their
Archbishop.
The Kultur-kampf started by the Prussian Govt. after the war with
France (1872)changed the Archbishop's position against Prussia. He
began to defend the right of Poles to teach religion in Polish, stood
against so-called May Bills [In May 1873 - these Bills limited the rights of
the Catholic Church and its Orders of Priests and religious] . Even the
reprisals didn't change his attitude - the Prussians imposed penalties on
him & even imprisoned him in 1874 in Ostrow.
Being still imprisoned he was made Cardinal in 1875. In 1876 he was
released & expelled to Austria & he went to Rome. From there he ruled
his diocese because the Prussians didn't accept any successor proposed
by the Pope until 1885.
In Rome he kept some high posts in the Curia: he has been Secretary of
the Memorials since 1883, then Secretary of the Brevia and Chancellor of
the Orders since 1885, then Prefect of the Propaganda Congregation
since 1892. He died in 1902. (Lukasz Bielecki, May 31, 1996 from a
Polish Catholic Encyclopedia)

1885 Bismarck deports 50,000 Polish dissidents and institutes harsh measures in
carrying out his Kultur-kampf (his "culture war" eliminating all traces of Polish culture in

1886 A 100,000,000 Mark fund was created for the purpose of assisting German settlers
in the purchase of Polish land, the corner stone of all further German policy against the
Poles. The fund was increased to 500,000,000 Marks after 1900. Poles were forbidden to
build on land which they owned. In fact, many lived in wagons to circumvent these
anti-Polish regulations. (Dyboski p. 229)

1890 Catholic priests under the leadership of Father Michael Wawrzyniak established
Peasant Cooperative Societies to put savings into banks which provided credit for the
enlargement and improvement of farms and strengthen the middle class of the towns.
Some co-op banks were even able to get deposits from German banks who found a better
return from Polish peasants than from their local farmers. (Dyboski, p. 227)

1906 Half of the school children in Prussian Poland go on strike for a year to protest the
teaching of religion in the German language in their schools. Many parents were fined and
imprisoned but the children did not give in. In addition, their parents had been prohibited
from attending public meetings where any language other than German was spoken.
(Dyboski, p. 230-1)
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occupie
Our Polish Heritage

1914 World War I begins (check your encyclopedia).

1915 Turks kill 1,200,000 Armenians in the 20th Century's inaugural incident of mass
slaughter.

1918 History Books write that World War I ended on November 11, 1918 (the 11th day of
the 11th month at the 11th minute of the 11th hour). But that did not mean that the
fighting stopped. One of the effects of the War was the demise of the German, Russian and
Austro-Hungarian Empires and their break-up into individual states and the establishment
of new borders.
Russia, having settled early with Germany at the Peace of Brest-Litovsk where they
surrendered,, was not present at the Allied Peace Conference. Consequently, the Allies
settled the matter of the location of the Polish border with "defeated" Germany. It was up to
the newly recreated government of Poland to settle the location of its borders with the new
Soviet Union.
Poland was involved in six military encounters during that period 1918-21: with Ukraine,
with Germany in the Poznan area, also in the Silesian area, with Lithuania over the Vilno
area, with Czechoslovakia over a Moravian industrial area, and with the newly formed
Soviet Union over the eastern borders.
1918 World War I Casualties (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Killed/Died
Wounded
Prisoners/Missing
Total
Russia
U.K.
France
U.S.
Others
1,700.000
908,371
1,357,800
116,516
1,059,944
4,950,000
2,090,212
4,266,000
204,002
1,290,492
2,500,000
191,652
537,000
4,500
887,938
9,150,000
3,190,235
6,160,800
323,013
3,240,379
Total All
5,142,631
12,800,706
4,121,090
22,064,427
Allies
Central Powers
Germany
Austria
Others
1,773,700
1,200,000
412,500
4,216,058
3,620,000
552,390
1,152,800
2,200,000
277,029
7,142,553
7,020,000
1,241,921
Total All
3,386,200
8,388,448
3,629,829
15,404,474
Grand Total
8,528,831
21,189154
7,750,919

37,468,904
It is often forgotten that the damage to life and property on the Eastern Front was almost as
great in 1914-18 as in 1939-45. Yet, with some two millon Polish conscripts serving in the
armies of Russia, Germany, and Austria at any one time, and with the greatest battles
raging in the heart of the Polish provinces . . . it was inevitable that Polish casualties were
high. Polish military casualties topped the million mark, including 450,000 dead. Civilian
casualties were much higher. Galicia was declared a disaster area in the first months of
the fighting. When the Russian Army withdrew in 1915 behind its screen of “scorched
earth”, it drove almost one million people from their homes. The horrors of the refugee
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History of Poland
problem were compounded by a typhoid epidemic, and in 1918 by the arrival of the world
pandemic of influenza. All in all calculations based on the territory of the inter-war
Republic reveal that a population of 30.9 million in 1914 had fallen by 4.6 million by 1919
– a decrease of 14.9 per cent. (Davies, p. 112)

1919 The Treaty of Versailles, at the end of World War I, created Poland as a country
again, but with borders vastly different from the historical ones. The Czar had promised
independence for the Poles at the beginning of the war to gain their support, so the
international community felt authorized to take Russian Poland away from the new Soviet
Union. It was a futile attempt to keep Poland weak so as to serve as a buffer between
Germany and Russia. The Polish Corridor which separated "Eastern Prussia" from the
major portion of Germany and was a very sore point in the relationship between the two
countries was Poland's only access to the Baltic.
The new Poland, about three-fourths the area of France had a population of about thirty
million and was about two-thirds the size of the Poland which existed in the seventeenth
century at the height of its power.

1920 War with Russia over Eastern Frontier. As the defeated German occupying forces
lay down their arms (they actually had signed a Peace Treaty with the Russians), a vacuum
was created in Eastern Europe which led to skirmishes between the Poles (who had not
been independent since the 18th Century, and the Bolshevik's (who had taken power in
1917), who were still fighting Tsarist forces resisting their takeover of the Russian Empire.
The Poles, under Pisuldski, attempted to capture many of the larger Ukrainian and
Byelorussian cities whose inhabitants were largely Polish in ethnicity. They captured Kiev
and claimed eastern Glacier (which was largely Ukrainian and which is would now be
southern Poland) from Russia. The new Polish state showing up out of this power vacuum
had six currencies, four languages, several railroad gauges and three legal codes. The
Allied Powers at Versailles negotiating the future look of Europe were not pleased.
Having defeated the Tsarist forces, the Red Army concentrated its forces and attacked,
pushing the Poles back to the outskirts of Warsaw. Although their defense was stiffening,
there were no resources for an effective attack. Then, a mathematics professor broke the
Red Army's communications code, discovered a large gap between their attacking forces and
laid the way open for a Polish counter-attack., striking at their flanks, capturing 100,000
prisoners and driving the rest back towards the Soviet border. This attack, led by cavalry
forces, was the last great European cavalry battle. The effect was to keep Poland as a buffer
between Russia and Germany and to keep the Red Army attacking the latter during the
'20's when it was quite weak and not able to withstand any attacks, its army having been
eliminated by the Treaty of Versailles.
This was the same role the Poles played in 1682 when they defeated the Turkish forces
outside the gates of Vienna. The final Russian-Polish border was 150 miles east of where it
was at the beginning of the conflict. This was a humiliating defeat for the Bolshevik's
which they would remember in 1939 [Katyn]

1930's Stalin kills between three and eight million Ukrainians in his attempt to
collectivize their lands. The Twentieth Centuries third incident of mass killings.

1930's The Rape of Nanking

September 1, 1939 German Invasion. The Poles figured that their Allies, France and
England, would come immediately to their rescue and would tie up Germany on a Second
Front in the West. They didn't. (Surprise! Surprise !) In fact, to stave off war, they caused
the Poles to delay their mobilization so that 1/3 of the Polish forces were not ready on
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Our Polish Heritage
September 1. German casualties: 50,000. Polish: 200,000 and 600,000 prisoners lost.
Two million Poles were conscripted for German slave labor camps.

September 18, 1939 Russian Invasion (two or so weeks after the Nazi invasion). Stalin,
still irritated by the Polish victory in the 1920 war and desirous of a buffer between
Germany and himself, signed a secret pact with Hitler giving him one-third of Poland and
attacked Poland from the rear. 230,000 Polish prisoners taken. Later, over two million
additional Polish leaders and intellectuals were transported to Siberia.

1939 The 112,000 Poles who escaped through Hungary brought with them (well, a few did)
a copy of the high level Enigma coding machine, its specifications, cards and updating
procedures, which enabled the Allies to crack the German codes and was probably the
principal reason that the Allies won the War. The Poles had cracked the Enigma codes in
1932, but it didn't help them with the German onslaught. So it just goes to show that you
can read all the military messages you want, but if you don't have the forces to take
advantage of the intelligence learned, it won't give you much more than intellectual
satisfaction.

April, May, 1940 Over 20,000 Polish Officers were executed by Russians and buried in
mass graves (actually at three different sites, but Katyn is the one most well known). They
were transported to the execution site in railroad cars which had one person cells so that
they could be taken one at a time to a large open pit, forced to kneel, and shot precisely in
the back of the head (to keep the blood spillage to a minimum). This was a time-tested and
proven NKVD (later, the KGB, tactic used with Soviet "enemies"). This was an attempt to
liquidate the Polish "establishment" to make ready the Soviet occupation after their
hoped-for victory. (Katyn)

April, 1940 A Polish Brigade lands in Norway with the English in an attempt to drive the
Germans out of Scandinavia and secure Swedish iron ore mines. All were later evacuated
and returned to England. Three divisions of Polish Infantry (recruited from escapees and
those living abroad) fought with the French in their one month war. One division escaped
to Switzerland and was interned there for the war. About 20,000 made it to England.

1940-1943 750,000 Polish peasants were expelled from West Prussia to make way for
Germans transferred from the Baltic States.

1940-42. In the Battle of Britain, Hitler's air war against England in preparation for an
invasion, Polish fliers provided 10% of the pilots in the Royal Air Force. Most of them had
escaped the Nazis by fleeing to the south through Romania and Bulgaria and then worked
their way to England. They were responsible for shooting down or damaging 25% of the
Luftwaffe attackers. Without this major Polish participation, England's Air Force would
have been shot out of the air and the island would have been invaded. For Sure!

1939-45 Polish Home Army. Hundreds of thousands of German troops (400 battalions)
were tied up in suppressing the 500,000 members of the Polish Resistance. Few know it
but the German Army in Poland was forced to rely upon horse drawn transport for logistical
support. Their motorized equipment was needed on the Eastern, Western and Southern
fronts. It worked for them because the Poles had no transport. But the Home Army was
still able to derail 1,400 trains, destroying 700 locomotives and 20,000 railroad cars among
other things.
The role of the horse in WWII has been greatly underplayed. Most film of Nazi troops show
the awesome power of the Blitzkrieg. But actually, tanks and trucks were given only to the
SS (Shutz Stafel – Body Guard) and the best Infantry Divisions. Hundreds of thousands of
horses died for the Fatherland and the second wave of assault and occupation forces. But
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History of Poland
the Nazi propaganda machine chose not to show that sacrifice to their taxpayers.

1942 Polish troops, which had been released from Russia by Stalin (he didn't want to (or
couldn't) to feed them), made their way via Iran to North Africa and fought against Rommel
with Montgomery at Tobruk. Many of them were reorganized as a Division and served in
Italy. While many others "softened it up", it was the Polish troops who were finally able to
storm and take Monte Cassino, the monastery occupied by the Germans which served as
the last barrier to the allied occupation of Rome.
Three divisions of Polish troops fought with the Free French and 20,000 made it to England
where they formed an independent force under General Sikorski. Initially posted to
Scotland, the forceful Sikorski forced the Allies to accept the Polish aid and made the Poles
an integral part of the Allied forces to the point where they became a valuable (though quite
small) part of the allied effort.
Sikorski's Death - - mightily suspicious
A few ships of the Polish Navy including destroyers and submarines had escaped through the
Baltic in 1939 and were brought into service in England. Some participated in the sinking of
the battleship Bismarck enterprise and they were all included in the D-Day operations. The
Polish merchant marine lost 16 of its vessels convoying supplies from North America.
On D-Day, no Polish ground units invaded with the Allies. But thousands of Polish infantry
under English command did take part and contributed their share to the effort. Of course, the
Polish Air Force, augmented by hundreds of pilots trained in Canada and by new planes, were
part of the almost planes flying that day.
Six weeks after D-Day a Polish Infantry Division and an Airborne Brigade under overall
Canadian command landed at Normandy and played a valuable role for the Allies. They closed
the circle which allowed the capture of one half of the retreating Nazi troops as Patton began
his breakout (the Germans were terrified of fighting the Poles for fear of revenge for what they
had done to Poland). The Polish parachute brigade jumped into Holland with American and
British units at Arnhem (memorialized in the movie "A Bridge Too Far").
In the East, another Polish Army fought under Soviet command and participated in the capture
and occupation of Berlin in 1945.

1939-44 Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising started on April l 1943. But the roughly 3,000 poorly armed
Jewish fighters, although partially helped by the Poles, did not stand a chance and, in spite of
their heroism, the tiny Uprising was soon crushed by the Nazi forces. With a loss of some 200
troops killed, missing in action or wounded, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was brought to an
end. And the Ghetto was liquidated at Treblinka
The background and scale of the Warsaw (Polish) Uprising, which took place more than a year
later, were totally different. The Polish wartime Resistance was mostly subordinated to the
London-based émigré government led by Sikorski and his successors which, as of April 25,
1943, had no diplomatic relations with the USSR., which had been broken off by them because
of the Katyn massacre.
As a result, when the Red Army entered Poland in pursuit of the Germans, the "London Poles"
faced an agonizing dilemma. Engaged in a fight against Nazi Germany, they were at the same
time not happy to see Soviet "liberators" even though they loyally fought hand in-hand with
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Chapter 4 - 15
Our Polish Heritage
them whenever possible. According to the "Tempest Plan," these Poles began a series of
uprisings just behind the Nazi front lines. The idea was to present the advancing Soviets with
accomplished facts; namely, with a free Poland liberated on its own. Several such uprisings
against the Germans were launched. Unfortunately, the advancing Soviets, at first grateful for
all the help rendered to them, disarmed these Poles and either sent them deep into the USSR or
simply killed them.
The Warsaw Uprising had not even been planned at all. But suddenly, when the Soviet tanks
appeared near Warsaw -- one week earlier, the Polish communist government was created -the decision to launch the Uprising was made. Yet the poorly armed Poles failed to liberate
Warsaw, especially because the Red Army retreated eastward. As a result, an unequal
63-day-long fight began.
Some 50,000 Polish fighters, low on ammunition and only lightly armed, faced Germans and
their satellites, mostly front-line and SS troops, who were armed with tanks, heavy artillery and
bombers (and horses). That is how the battle, the biggest ever fought by any Resistance during
WW II was fought. When it was over, its toll was horrifying. Some 150,000 Polish civilians were
killed, many brutally murdered, together with between 16,000 and 18,000 Polish troops.
Another 25,000 were wounded. The German toll was 26,000 troops killed, missing in action or
wounded. The city was heavily destroyed and what was left of it dynamited on Hitler's orders.

1939-1945 Concentration Camps
The system of over 8,500 German camps composed of the main concentration camps and their
branches played the main role in the Nazi program of extermination. Most of them were
located in Poland because that is where the vast majority of the Jews were. After the
introduction of Cyclon B, gas chambers were installed in the major concentration camps. The
other camps were classified as Punitive-investigative, hard labor, special prison camps for
youth and children, transit camps, and ghettos converted into concentration camps. In the
prisoner of war camps, 3,400,000 Soviet men perished, as did thousands of Italians, Poles,
Yugoslavs, English, Frenchmen, and others.
During the War, all the German camps held a total over of 18,000,000 people of whom
11,000,000 were killed, including 3,500,000 Polish citizens out of 5,000,000 processed. Most
of these were Jews and Gypsies
Next to the Jews, the Poles were the most oppressed of all nations and were doomed to gradual
extermination in accordance with the Nazi Eastern Plan." (Korbonski, "The Polish Underground
State")
During World War II, Poland lost 6,028,000 people or 22% of its population, the highest percent
of any country in Europe; 644,000 were killed in combat and the rest in prisons, death camps,
executions, and annihilation of ghettos; nearly half of the victims were Jews (the pre-war
Jewish population of Poland was a bit over 3,000,000, about 10% of the Polish population);
almost all of the gypsies were exterminated; 40% of university professors were killed; 27
universities and institutes were destroyed as well as 50% of all schools and libraries.
In 1939, Poland contained 80% of the world's Jews (about 10% of its population). Although
their life was not devoid of anti -semitism (in part because many chose not to assimilate with
the Poles), it was largely better than elsewhere. There definitely was antagonism and some
strife in the 1930's, due in part to the world-wide economic depression and an anti-Semitic
Polish government. But schools were permitted as early as the 15th Century, and they did
have representation in the Sejm.
But Poland was the haven for the Jews of Europe. Most of them came from deportations from
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History of Poland
Western Europe or from Russia:
1076
1290
1306
1492
1496
1510
1742
First Crusade resulted in deportation from the Rhineland
England deported its Jews
France
Spain (The Spanish Inquisition)
Portugal
Provence, Naples, Milan
Those areas under Hapsburg rule
The Soviets are thought to have lost as many as 20,000,000 people to the war, many by their
own government's hands.
Total American WWII deaths (including those in car accidents, etc.) was about 400,000. The
English lost much less than that, although they did suffer considerable property damage due to
bombing.
It is often asked why so little help was extended to Polish Jewry in the hour of its distress. The
question can only be put by people with no conception of the circumstances in occupied
Poland, which bore little relation to the relatively genteel condition of occupied Denmark,
France or Holland. The antagonisms between Christians and Jews, which undoubtedly existed
in Poland, were largely irrelevant. The Jews had been segregated since the winter of 1939-40,
since when all normal intercommunal contact had been lost. The Polish population at large
lived under the formal threat of instant execution for the entire family of anyone found
sheltering, feeding, or helping Jews. In this light, it is as pointless to ask why the Poles did
little to help the Jews as to enquire why the Jews did nothing to assist the Poles. (Davies, p. 72)
DEATHS IN CAMPS IN POLAND
(Many of the Jews were slaughtered in Russia by the Special Action Units which moved in right
behind the Nazi Army and shot, cremated, tortured and gassed their victims. The camps came
later.)
Auschwitz/Birkenau
Belzec
Colmerhoff
Sobibor
Treblinka
Maidanek
Dora
Plaschau
3,500,000
600,000
360,000
250,000
750,000
1944 The Warsaw Uprising
Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski was leader of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, or AK) in
1943-1944 and he issued the order to begin the Uprising at 5 p.m. Tuesday, August 1, 1844.
At its height the AK was 400,000 strong - the biggest resistance movement in occupied Europe.
The Red Army was so close to Warsaw by late July 1944 that people in the capital could hear
its guns booming. By 1 August, advance Soviet units were in Radzymin, barely eight miles
away and the suburb of Praga on the east bank of the Vistula.
On July 29, Moscow Radio broadcast to Warsaw urging the Home Army to revolt against the
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Our Polish Heritage
Nazis with the bulletin: "For Warsaw, which did not yield but fought on, the hour of action has
arrived." Soviet leader Josef Stalin then denounced the uprising leaders and halted his
advancing armies. He also prevented the allies from using Soviet airfields for airlifting supplies
to the embattled resistance fighters in the city.
The outcome of the unequal battle between the Wehrmacht and the lightly equipped AK was
never in doubt when the first four days of fighting failed to secure the airport, the railway
station or the bridges over the Vistula.
By late August, AK units were trapped in three districts of Warsaw - the city center, the Old
Town to the north and Mokotow to the south. On the night of 1 September, 4,000 fighters were
forced to evacuate the Old Town and crept into the sewer system, taking their wounded with
them. The Nazis poured poison gas into manholes after them.
The Nazis responded savagely to the uprising, bombing the city from the air and pounding it
with heavy artillery. Over 90% of the buildings in the city were leveled and between 120,000
and 200,000 Polish soldiers and civilians were killed. The exact number will never be known.
While the Nazis carried out a house-to- house slaughter, Russian soldiers sat across the
Vistula River, watching and waiting while their Slavic brethern were being eradicated.
By mid-September, the Soviet command, embarrassed by the international outcry, hurled in
several thousand Polish troops drawn from hastily trained men across the Vistula. Virtually all
were killed or captured in the Czerniakow area along the river. When Soviet troops finally
entered the capital on January 17, 1945, few buildings were still standing and the city was
virtually uninhabited.
August 20, 1944
Falaise Gap, France - While the Nazi Armies were retreating from
Normandy, the Polish Division (which had escaped via Romania and the Middle East) was
instrumental in keeping the Gap tight. "The Germans attacked with all of the fury they could
bring to bear, fueled by their desperation to escape. Others were trying to surrender, many of
them successfully . . . . One morning a Polish Captain brought in some 200 additional POW's,
to turn over to the Americans.
Polish Captain: "Here are your prisoners."
American: "I don't want them."
Polish Captain: "But I must leave them with you. Those are my orders."
American: "I still don't want them. Get them out of here."
Polish Captain: "But I must still leave them with you."
American: "Well, you were supposed to have 1,500 prisoners. Where are they?"
Polish Captain: "They are dead. We shot them. These are all that are left."
American: "Then why don't you shoot these too? (pause) No, you can't do that."
Polish Captain: "Oh, yes we can. They shot my countrymen." Then he took the American by
the arm and escorted him away from the others. Then he said, "Captain, we can't shoot them.
We are out of ammunition." (Ambrose, Citizen Soldier, p. 105)

December, 1944 During the Battle of the Bulge, at one point, General Patton was forced to
turn to pack horses to supply the front line. (Ambrose, Citizen Soldier, p. 411).

1944-45 Allied Betrayal. In a desire to keep their war-time allies happy, it was decided at
the Yalta great powers conference that Poland would be occupied by Russia after the War
was over. Any Polish talk of atrocities done by the Soviets after they attacked Poland from
the rear after Hitler's invasion in 1939 was considered to be detrimental to the Allied cause
and hurt badly the Polish clout in London. This was extended even to the point where
Polish forces were not allowed to march in the Victory parade in London after the war was
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Chapter 4 - 18
History of Poland
over, even though they had lost over 600,000 battle casualties, had saved England in the
Battle of Britain, and had taken Monte Cassino. Most importantly, the Poles had provided
the deciphering machine (Enigma) which gave the Allies much advance warning as to Nazi
intentions by allowing them to read German diplomatic, military and submarine messages.

The Results of World War II as they Affected Poland (Poland, A Historical Atlas)
The loss of over six million Polish Citizens from a total population in 1939 of thirty-five million
represented a casualty rate of 18 per cent, compared with 0.2 per cent in the USA, 0.9% in
Great Britain, 2.5 per cent in Japan, 7.4 per cent in Germany, 11.1 percent in Yugoslavia, and
11.2 per cent in the USSR. Poland became the killilng ground of Europe, the new Golgotha .
(Davies, p. 64)
The Germans deported 200,000 children to Germany to be adopted by German parents.
Apparently many alive today do not know that this is their heritage. 1,000,000 were moved
from annexed areas to the "general protectorate." 1,000,000 Jews were sent to concentration
camps, and, for virtually all of them, death. 1.000,000 Poles were sent to slave labor camps in
Germany, and, for many of them, death. 150,000 were executed without even being sent to a
camp.
The Russians arrested 200,000 and sentenced them to labor in Siberia, and likely death.
150,000 were drafted into the Soviet Army and 140,000 into Soviet industries. 900,000 were
deported to Siberia. Of 1,700,000 deported in the first year of occupation, 900,000 of them
were dead within two years.
40% of Poland's national wealth was destroyed.

World War II Casualties (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Killed/Died
Wounded
Prison/
Missing
Civilian
Deaths
Total
Allies
Soviet Union 11,000,000
Poland
123,178
China*
1,310,224
England
264,443
France
213,324
Yugoslavia
305,000
United States
292,131**
Others
259,872
Total
236,606
1,752,951
277,077
400,000
425,000
671,801
403,032
420,760
115,248
213,919
139,709
37,805
7,000,000
18,000,000
5,675,000
5,800,000
*
*
92,673
357,000
350,000
563,000
1,200,000
1,505,000
6,000***
298,000
916,000
1,176,000
13,768,172
4,166,467
927,441
15,239,673
27,699,000
3,500,000
1,300,000
834,232
5,000,000
4,000,000
116,000
3,400,000
810,000
620,000
780,000
672,000
654,941
4,200,000
1,972,000
1,489,000
9,116,000
4,830,000
2,106,941
7,661,000
Axis
Germany
Japan
Others
Total
5,634,232
Grand Total
19,402,404
13,282,467 5,757,441
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Chapter 4 - 19
17,346,614 35.360,000
Our Polish Heritage
*These numbers are incomplete and will never be known. Note that the number of
civilian deaths nearly equaled that of the combatants.
**In addition, 115,187 Americans died from non-battle causes (training & traffic accidents, etc.)
***5,638 of these deaths were from the Merchant Marine.
Zbigniew Brzezinski calculates that 85,000,000 have died in the twentieth century because of
war. The Indians claim that 2,000,000 starved in Bengal in WWII because the British
withheld war transport from the emergency food people. Millions died of starvation in the
famine in China during WWII

1945 Poland recreated after WWII with her borders pushed west to give Russia more
"breathing space" at the Potsdam Conference. Millions of Germans and Poles were forcibly
repatriated to reflect the new borders.

World War II Population Transfers
1936-39
1938-40
1940-41
1939-40
1940-41
1939-43
1945-47
1945
1947-48
1945-47
1945-46
1945-60
1945-60
1956
500,000 Poles from the Ukraine by Stalin
1,500,000 Poles from the Ukraine by Stalin
600,000 Poles from Lithuania by Stalin
500,000 Poles from W. Prussia & Wartheland to GG
750,000 Baltic Germans to West Prussia
1,500,000 Poles to Germany
3,500,000 Germans from Poland to Germany
500,000 Germans from Breslau & Silesia by Nazis
750,000 Ukrainians to N. Poland or USSR
1,500,000 Poles back from Ukraine, Byelorussia, Lith
500,000 Poles back from Germany
5,000,000 Estimated Resettlement in USSR
4,400,000 Estimated Resettlement Within Poland
250,000 Poles back from USSR

Almost every city – except for the fortunate Crakow – had to be rebuilt from the wartime
rubble; corpses had to be buried; streets re-paved; power stations reconnected; transport
restarted. Some five million Germans and a lesser number of Ukrainians had to be
screened collected and expelled from the country in accordance with the Potsdam
agreement. Similar numbers of refugees, repatriates, and internal migrants – including a
quarter of a million Polish Jews on their way to Palestine – crowded the roads and railway
stations. The Western Territories, newly annexed from Germany, had to be provided with a
skeleton administration, and completely repopulated largely by Poles from the provinces
annexed by the Soviet Union. All the country’s industries had to be reorganized in
accordance with the nationalization Law of January 1946. Over one million peasants had
to be installed in new farms. And to cap it off, there was a Civil War going on, much like at
the end of World War I when Poland had to fight for its borders . (Davies, p. 4)

Remnants of the Polish Home Army, the right-wing National Armed Forces and the
Ukrainian Insurrectionary Army fought a Civil War in the new Poland which didn’t end
until 1948. The Russians won.

June, 1956 Uprising, also in Germany, Hungary -- 53 workers died in the city of Poznan
fighting for “Bread and Freedom” in the Krushchevian thaw following the death of Stalin.

1968 Uprising, also in Czechoslovakia
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Chapter 4 - 20
History of Poland

1970 Uprising

1976 Uprising

1978, October 18 -- Cardinal Karol Wojtyla becomes Pope John Paul II

1980 Solidarity Movement

1989 Solidarity Government

1990 Fall of Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain

1997 Poland (and Hungary and the Czech Republic) are formally invited to make an
application to join NATO

March 12, 1999 Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic become members of NATO.
Russia just acquiesces quietly.
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Chapter 4 - 21