Częstochowa massacre
Encyclopedia
The Częstochowa massacre, also known as Bloody Monday, which took place on September 4, 1939, was a mass murder of Polish and Jewish civilians carried out by the German
Wehrmacht
forces, on the 4th day of World War II
in the Polish city of Częstochowa
.
) that had been stationed there had withdrawn the previous day. Most able bodied men also left the city together with the Polish army. The Wehrmacht 10th Army’s 42 Infantry Regiment “Bayreuth” entered the city early in the afternoon. Their guns were not loaded as the Wehrmacht command was more concerned with incidents of "friendly fire
" caused by nervousness on the part of German soldiers (these had broken out numerous times before, often leading to massacre
s of civilians who were blamed for the shooting) than with any potential threat from the Polish army or civilians.
German soldiers’ diaries
from that day and official army reports note that the remaining civilian population of the city acted peacefully and did not obstruct the German army in any way. The rest of September 3 passed without any incidents and some searches of houses and businesses turned up no weapons.
" in two different incidents; one in the courtyard of a Technical School where the 42nd Regiment was stationed and one involving a prisoner
column guarded by the 97th Regiment. The German soldiers claimed to have been shot at from one of the houses near where they were stationed.
However, information from individual reports and testimony of German soldiers, states that none of the German soldiers were able to describe the supposed attackers. A search of houses that took place after the massacre failed to turn up any weapons or even any "suspicious persons". According to German historian
Jochen Böhler
the most likely version is that the shootings were caused by panicking or nervous German soldiers who then used the imagined or invented "Polish partisans" as an excuse for their rash actions and the massacre that followed. According to a Polish eye witness of the event, who had been arrested and was part of a column of Polish prisoners under German guard, German soldiers opened up fire from machine guns on the prisoners’ column which caused panic and as a result the German guards escorting the column began shooting wildly. In this shooting about 200 Polish and Jewish individuals died.
The second part of the massacre took place, in a different part of the city, after all the wild shooting had stopped. According to the testimony of Helena Szpilman before the Jewish Historical Committee, German soldiers rounded up Polish and Jewish civilians from their homes and forced them to march to the Magnacki Square, in front of the town's cathedral
. There they were all forced to lie face down on the ground and told that anyone who moved would be shot. In all there were several thousand individuals including elderly, children and women. Lt. Col. Ube, who was in charge of the Wehrmacht units carrying out the massacre (and who was the author of the report to regimental command who blamed the shooting on "Polish partisans") estimated that around 10,000 people had been collected in the square. Similar estimates of the number of people rounded up are given by eye witnesses and survivors.
After separating the men from the women, the men were searched and any found with a shaving razor
or a pocket knife
were shot on the spot. The remaining men were told to enter the church, but as they began moving to do so German soldiers opened up fire on them from machine guns and hand-held weapons. According to the testimony of Henoch Diamant, who was wounded in the shooting, several hundred people were killed on the spot and about 400 were wounded as a result. The unfolding of the massacre in front of the cathedral was captured in narrative form by a German photographer, from the initial round up, to the Poles and Jews awaiting their fate, to photos of corpses strewn across the city's streets and the cathedral square. This collection of photos was acquired by an American soldier from a captured German machine gunner near the end of the war.
According to the official report written by Lt. Col. Ube in course of "punishment action for partisan activity" 3 women and 96 men had been killed. However, a general exhumation made in the spring of 1940 by a German mayor of Czestochowa unearthed 227 corpses, including many of women and children, which could be traced back to the massacre. There were also several smaller scale massacres carried out at various points in the city, including of patients at a military hospital which was run by the Red Cross.
According to the Center for Documentation of Częstochowa History, at least 600 people were killed in the city overall on that day. Some estimates of victims put the number at more than 1,000; 990 ethnic Poles and 110 Jews (more than 40,000 Jews were later murdered after the liquidation of the Częstochowa Ghetto
).
, although on a smaller scale. Once again, unknown shots were fired at the regiment (again most likely due to friendly fire) which caused nervous soldiers to begin shooting wildly. “They blindly shot up the houses”, according to eyewitnesses, and then ordered all men of the village to gather in an open field. There, those that complied with the order were executed. In all 72 victims of the Kajetanowice massacre were identified (one-third of the village's inhabitants), including an infant, five little children, fourteen teenagers, twelve women and six elderly persons. One of the soldiers involved in the action told eye witness Wiktoria Czech that he knew the villagers were innocent but that the regiment had received orders to kill all civilians. Another soldier commented that "Poles should be murdered when they’re still in the crib". Subsequently, the entire village was burned to the ground.
The "losses" of the German units of the 42nd regiment in Kajetanowice consisted of two dead horses, both most likely shot by friendly fire. The official report of the unit stated that the massacre and burning of the village was carried out as revenge for the shooting of two German horses.
Former soldiers of the unit also admitted that in the search that followed they did not find any weapons, or for that matter, able bodied men, only a few women with children and some elderly persons. Former soldier Hans M. stated "I never saw any partisans in Częstochowa with my own eyes".
In regard to the second massacre near the cathedral, former Wehrmacht soldier Fritz S. in an initial statement claimed that after the wild shooting stopped he was ordered to politely ask the civilians to leave their houses and gather in a church. However, Fritz S. voluntarily returned to the investigators several days later and changed his statement. He stated that the order was to forcible remove civilians form their homes and line them up face down on the ground. He added that "I want to emphasize that I never politely asked any civilians to leave their homes. In fact, we threw them out".
The massacre was also investigated by the Jewish Historical Committee and Czestochowa's government. In 2009, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
found mass graves near the Stradom railway station containing about 2000 corpses, although it is unclear at this stage if the bodies are related to this massacre or to later killings by the Nazis. Also in 2009, the diaries of Bolesław Kurkowski were discovered. Kurkowski witnessed the massacres and later took part in the 1940 exhumation of some of the bodies, as a forced laborer (the existence of the diaries had been known beforehand from several available fragments).
On the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, September 2009, the German public broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg
was planning to shoot a documentary
film on the subject of the massacre in Częstochowa, since the war atrocities of the Wehrmacht were not widely known in Germany (in contrast to war atrocities of the SS and those committed after Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union
).
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
forces, on the 4th day of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in the Polish city of Częstochowa
Czestochowa
Częstochowa is a city in south Poland on the Warta River with 240,027 inhabitants . It has been situated in the Silesian Voivodeship since 1999, and was previously the capital of Częstochowa Voivodeship...
.
Background
The Polish city of Częstochowa was taken over by the German Army, after the German invasion of Poland, on September 3 without a fight, as the Polish Army units (7th Infantry Division of Army "Kraków"Kraków Army
Kraków Army was one of the Polish armies to take part in the Polish Defensive War of 1939. It was officially created on March 23, 1939 as the main pivot of Polish defence. It was commanded by Gen...
) that had been stationed there had withdrawn the previous day. Most able bodied men also left the city together with the Polish army. The Wehrmacht 10th Army’s 42 Infantry Regiment “Bayreuth” entered the city early in the afternoon. Their guns were not loaded as the Wehrmacht command was more concerned with incidents of "friendly fire
Friendly fire
Friendly fire is inadvertent firing towards one's own or otherwise friendly forces while attempting to engage enemy forces, particularly where this results in injury or death. A death resulting from a negligent discharge is not considered friendly fire...
" caused by nervousness on the part of German soldiers (these had broken out numerous times before, often leading to massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
s of civilians who were blamed for the shooting) than with any potential threat from the Polish army or civilians.
German soldiers’ diaries
Diaries
As a proper noun, Diaries, the plural of diary, can refer to:*Diaries: 1971-1976, an 1981 documentary by Ed Pincus*Diaries 1969–1979: The Python Years, a 2006 book by Michael Palin...
from that day and official army reports note that the remaining civilian population of the city acted peacefully and did not obstruct the German army in any way. The rest of September 3 passed without any incidents and some searches of houses and businesses turned up no weapons.
Massacre
On the evening of the 4th of September the Regimental headquarters, located 20 km south of the city, received reports from the German units of the 42nd that they had been attacked by "Polish partisansLeśni
Leśni is one of the informal names applied to the anti-German partisan groups operating in occupied Poland during World War II. The groups were formed mostly by people who for various reasons could not operate from settlements they lived in and had to retreat to the forests...
" in two different incidents; one in the courtyard of a Technical School where the 42nd Regiment was stationed and one involving a prisoner
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
column guarded by the 97th Regiment. The German soldiers claimed to have been shot at from one of the houses near where they were stationed.
However, information from individual reports and testimony of German soldiers, states that none of the German soldiers were able to describe the supposed attackers. A search of houses that took place after the massacre failed to turn up any weapons or even any "suspicious persons". According to German historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
Jochen Böhler
Jochen Böhler
' is a German historian, specializing in the military history of World War II, the German occupation of Poland 1939-1945 and the research on the perpetrators of the Holocaust....
the most likely version is that the shootings were caused by panicking or nervous German soldiers who then used the imagined or invented "Polish partisans" as an excuse for their rash actions and the massacre that followed. According to a Polish eye witness of the event, who had been arrested and was part of a column of Polish prisoners under German guard, German soldiers opened up fire from machine guns on the prisoners’ column which caused panic and as a result the German guards escorting the column began shooting wildly. In this shooting about 200 Polish and Jewish individuals died.
The second part of the massacre took place, in a different part of the city, after all the wild shooting had stopped. According to the testimony of Helena Szpilman before the Jewish Historical Committee, German soldiers rounded up Polish and Jewish civilians from their homes and forced them to march to the Magnacki Square, in front of the town's cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
. There they were all forced to lie face down on the ground and told that anyone who moved would be shot. In all there were several thousand individuals including elderly, children and women. Lt. Col. Ube, who was in charge of the Wehrmacht units carrying out the massacre (and who was the author of the report to regimental command who blamed the shooting on "Polish partisans") estimated that around 10,000 people had been collected in the square. Similar estimates of the number of people rounded up are given by eye witnesses and survivors.
After separating the men from the women, the men were searched and any found with a shaving razor
Razor
A razor is a bladed tool primarily used in the removal of unwanted body hair through the act of shaving. Kinds of razors include straight razors, disposable razors and electric razors....
or a pocket knife
Pocket knife
A pocket knife is a folding knife with one or more blades that fit inside the handle that can still fit in a pocket. It is also known as a jackknife or jack-knife...
were shot on the spot. The remaining men were told to enter the church, but as they began moving to do so German soldiers opened up fire on them from machine guns and hand-held weapons. According to the testimony of Henoch Diamant, who was wounded in the shooting, several hundred people were killed on the spot and about 400 were wounded as a result. The unfolding of the massacre in front of the cathedral was captured in narrative form by a German photographer, from the initial round up, to the Poles and Jews awaiting their fate, to photos of corpses strewn across the city's streets and the cathedral square. This collection of photos was acquired by an American soldier from a captured German machine gunner near the end of the war.
According to the official report written by Lt. Col. Ube in course of "punishment action for partisan activity" 3 women and 96 men had been killed. However, a general exhumation made in the spring of 1940 by a German mayor of Czestochowa unearthed 227 corpses, including many of women and children, which could be traced back to the massacre. There were also several smaller scale massacres carried out at various points in the city, including of patients at a military hospital which was run by the Red Cross.
According to the Center for Documentation of Częstochowa History, at least 600 people were killed in the city overall on that day. Some estimates of victims put the number at more than 1,000; 990 ethnic Poles and 110 Jews (more than 40,000 Jews were later murdered after the liquidation of the Częstochowa Ghetto
Częstochowa Ghetto
The Częstochowa Ghetto was a Jewish ghetto set up by Nazi Germany in the city of Częstochowa in south-central Poland, for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of local Jews during the German occupation of Poland. The approximate number of people confined to the ghetto at its beginning was...
).
Afterward
One of the regiments that carried out the massacres in Częstochowa was two days later involved in a very similar incident in the Polish village of KajetanowiceKajetanowice
Kajetanowice is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Gidle, within Radomsko County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It lies approximately south of Gidle, south of Radomsko, and south of the regional capital Łódź.-References:...
, although on a smaller scale. Once again, unknown shots were fired at the regiment (again most likely due to friendly fire) which caused nervous soldiers to begin shooting wildly. “They blindly shot up the houses”, according to eyewitnesses, and then ordered all men of the village to gather in an open field. There, those that complied with the order were executed. In all 72 victims of the Kajetanowice massacre were identified (one-third of the village's inhabitants), including an infant, five little children, fourteen teenagers, twelve women and six elderly persons. One of the soldiers involved in the action told eye witness Wiktoria Czech that he knew the villagers were innocent but that the regiment had received orders to kill all civilians. Another soldier commented that "Poles should be murdered when they’re still in the crib". Subsequently, the entire village was burned to the ground.
The "losses" of the German units of the 42nd regiment in Kajetanowice consisted of two dead horses, both most likely shot by friendly fire. The official report of the unit stated that the massacre and burning of the village was carried out as revenge for the shooting of two German horses.
Post war
An investigation of the massacre was carried out in Germany in 1985 in Bayreuth, involving former soldiers of the 42nd Infantry Regiment. Most of them still claimed to have been shot at from nearby houses prior to the massacre but none could describe the supposed attackers. One former soldier even admitted that he had no idea if the supposed attackers were “soldiers, partisans or civilians”. Several former soldiers admitted that a general panic had broken out among German troops, with everyone running to get their weapons, stumbling over each other and shooting wildly. One of the officers of the regiment recalled that he had been furious at his soldiers for their complete lack of discipline.Former soldiers of the unit also admitted that in the search that followed they did not find any weapons, or for that matter, able bodied men, only a few women with children and some elderly persons. Former soldier Hans M. stated "I never saw any partisans in Częstochowa with my own eyes".
In regard to the second massacre near the cathedral, former Wehrmacht soldier Fritz S. in an initial statement claimed that after the wild shooting stopped he was ordered to politely ask the civilians to leave their houses and gather in a church. However, Fritz S. voluntarily returned to the investigators several days later and changed his statement. He stated that the order was to forcible remove civilians form their homes and line them up face down on the ground. He added that "I want to emphasize that I never politely asked any civilians to leave their homes. In fact, we threw them out".
The massacre was also investigated by the Jewish Historical Committee and Czestochowa's government. In 2009, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation is a Polish government-affiliated research institute with lustration prerogatives and prosecution powers founded by specific legislation. It specialises in the legal and historical sciences and...
found mass graves near the Stradom railway station containing about 2000 corpses, although it is unclear at this stage if the bodies are related to this massacre or to later killings by the Nazis. Also in 2009, the diaries of Bolesław Kurkowski were discovered. Kurkowski witnessed the massacres and later took part in the 1940 exhumation of some of the bodies, as a forced laborer (the existence of the diaries had been known beforehand from several available fragments).
On the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, September 2009, the German public broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg
Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg
Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg is an institution under public law for the states of Berlin and Brandenburg, situated in Berlin and Potsdam...
was planning to shoot a documentary
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
film on the subject of the massacre in Częstochowa, since the war atrocities of the Wehrmacht were not widely known in Germany (in contrast to war atrocities of the SS and those committed after Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
).
See also
- List of massacres in Poland
- Massacre in CiepielówMassacre in CiepielówMassacre in Ciepielów on 8 September 1939 was one of the largest and best documented war crimes of the Wehrmacht during its Invasion of Poland....
- War crimes of the WehrmachtWar crimes of the WehrmachtWar crimes of the Wehrmacht were those carried out by the German armed forces during World War II. While the principal perpetrators of the Holocaust amongst German armed forces were the Nazi German 'political' armies , the regular armed forces represented by the Wehrmacht committed war crimes of...