Book to the Memory of the Poles Expelled from the Zamość Region
| The Museum’s newest publication (in Polish) is devoted to the memory of the Poles whom the Nazis expelled from the Zamość region. It concentrates on the fate of the people deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. There is a general introduction on the aims of the deportation and the way it was carried out. Tables with information on over 1,000 deportees list their names, dates and places of birth, occupations, and subsequent fates. The book also includes photographs, documents, and an appendix containing recollections by survivors.
The author, Helena Kubica, is on the staff of the Historical Research Department at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The book is published in cooperation with the National Remembrance Institute.
The Expulsion of Polish Civilians from the Zamość Region
The tragedy that befell the population of the Zamość region during the Nazi occupation was connected with the Third Reich’s plans for the germanization of the Polish eastern lands, which the Nazis regarded as “German living space” (Lebensraum). This policy was reflected in the General Plan East (Generalplan Ost) and envisioned the germanization, expulsion, and physical extermination of some 50 million Slavs (Poles, Russians, Belorussians, Ukrainians, and others) over a period of 20 to 30 years. German settlers would colonize extensive tracts of Central and Eastern Europe, beginning in Poland.
The Nazis decided to begin the germanization in the “Lublin District,” of which the area traditionally known as the Zamość region was a part. Next, the Germans intended to colonize more Polish territory and create a “German bulwark” along the Bug river, extending northwards to the Baltic countries. To the south of the Zamość region, this “German bulwark” would run all the way to Transylvania, in Romania.
The majority of the Jews living in the Zamość region had already been murdered in “Operation Reinhardt,” mostly at the Bełżec death camp. The Poles living in the area were to be sent away to forced labor, with those classified as unfit being deported to the concentration camps, where they could quickly be eliminated. The Germans assigned 140,000 Poles for deportation.
The expulsion operation began in November 1942 and went on until the following March. By then about 110,000 people had been deported from 297 villages, with 1,301 being deported to Auschwitz, where 80% of them died. A range of factors, including the steadily deteriorating German position on the eastern front after the defeat at Stalingrad and the strengthening resistance movement in the Zamość region, led to the cessation of the deportation campaign in the second half of 1943. |
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