A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.
On Sept. 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, an event regarded as the start of World War II.
But what came next, the German occupation of Poland, was exceptionally brutal.
Adolf Hitler’s Nazis considered Poles to be racially inferior. So when Germany amassed troops near their shared border, Poland and the rest of its allies were aggressive in resistance.
Here are the Deseret News headlines of that week:
Aug. 30-31: “Peace efforts appear to be fruitless.” “Poles mobilizing on a large scale,” with a summary of crisis responses from London, Washington, Berlin, Warsaw, Rome and Tokyo. Initially, the U.S. declared neutrality.
Sept. 1: “War rages on Polish Front; Bombers rain death.” “Allies send final warning.”
Sept. 2: “Britain takes war stand; Chamberlain sees ‘only one answer.’”
In the weeks following the German attack on Poland, German SS, police, and military units shot thousands of Polish civilians, including many members of the Polish nobility, clergy and intelligentsia. Per historians, in the spring of 1940, the German occupation authorities launched AB-Aktion, a plan to systematically eliminate Poles considered to be members of the “leadership class.”
The aim was to remove those Poles seen as most capable of organizing resistance to German rule and to terrorize the Polish population into submission. The Germans shot thousands of teachers, priests and other intellectuals in mass killings.
Nazi officials sent thousands more to the newly built Auschwitz concentration camp, to Stutthof, and to other concentration camps in Germany where non-Jewish Poles constituted the majority of inmates until March 1942.
Hitler intended to “Germanize” Poland by replacing the Polish population with German colonists. As many as 100,000 Polish civilians, including 30,000 children, were sent for “Germanization.”
Per the Holocaust Encyclopedia, it is estimated that the Germans killed between 1.8 and 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians during World War II. In addition, the Germans murdered at least 3 million Jewish citizens of Poland.
Here are some stories from Deseret News archives on those first years of World War II and how the nation of Poland was affected:
“This week in history: Nazis stage fake attack at the start of WWII”
“Father of Polish Utahn killed by Soviets in WWII”
“Polish Holocaust hero dies at age 98″
“Holocaust survivors return to Poland”
“Secret Soviet pact with Nazi Germany found on microfilm”
“Rare 3D film shows Warsaw devastated after WWII”
“Nazi’s son returns art that his family looted in Poland”
As a side note, the recent movie “Escape From Germany,” a thriller about the evacuation of Latter-day Saint missionaries from northern Germany in 1939 before the Nazis’ invasion of Poland, offers a sense of some of the emotions in Europe at the time.
“How a spiritual prompting contributed to the ‘Escape From Germany’”