Rape during the liberation of Poland
Encyclopedia
The subject of rape during the liberation of Poland was practically absent from the Polish historiography until the dissolution of the Soviet Union
, although the documents of the era show that the problem was serious both during and after the advance of Soviet forces across Poland
against Nazi Germany
in later stages of World War II
. The lack of research for nearly half a century regarding the scope of sexual violence by Soviet males, had been magnified by the traditional taboos among their victims, who were incapable of finding "a voice that would have enabled them to talk openly" about their wartime experiences "while preserving their dignity," wrote Katherine R. Jolluck. Joanna Ostrowska and Marcin Zaremba of the Polish Academy of Sciences
wrote that rapes of the Polish
women reached a mass scale following the Winter Offensive of 1945.
Among the factors contributing to the escalation of sexual violence against women, during the liberation of Poland, was a sense of impunity on the part of individual Soviet units left to fend for themselves by their military leaders. In search of food supplies and provisions – wrote Dr Janusz Wróbel of IPN
– the marauding soldiers formed gangs ready to open fire (as in Jędrzejów
). Lifestock was being herded away. Fields cleared of grain without recompense. Polish homes looted. In a letter to his Voivode, a Łódź county starosta
warned that plunder of goods from stores and farms, was often accompanied by the rape of farmhands as in Zalesie
, Olechów
, Feliksin and Huta Szklana, not to mention other crimes, including murder-rape in Łagiewniki. The heavily armed marauders robbed cars, horse-drawn carriages, even trains. In his next letter to Polish authorities, the same starosta wrote that rape and plunder is causing the population to fear and hate the Soviet regime.
, Soviet entry into the city was accompanied by the wave of rapes of women and girls, and the widespread theft of personal property. According to Prof. Chwalba
of Jagiellonian University
, this behavior reached such a scale that the Polish communists installed in the city by the Soviet Union
, composed a letter of protest to Joseph Stalin
himself. At the Kraków Main station, Poles who tried to rescue the victims of gang rape were shot at. Meanwhile, church masses were held in expectation of the Soviet withdrawal.
Polish women in Silesia
were the target of mass rape along with their German counterparts even after the Soviet front moved much further west – wrote Ostrowska & Zaremba. In the first six months of 1945, only in Dębska Kuźnia
268 rapes were reported. In March 1945 near Racibórz
, 30 women captured at a linen factory were locked in a house in Makowo
and raped over a period of time under the threat of death. The woman who gave her testimony to the police, was being raped by four men. German and Polish women were apprehended on the streets of Katowice
, Zabrze
and Chorzów
and gang raped by drunken soldiers, usually outdoors. According to Naimark, the Red Army servicemen did not differentiate along the ethnic lines, or between victims and occupiers.
Polish and German women in Warmia
and Masuria
endured the same ordeal, wrote Ostrowska & Zaremba. In the city of Olsztyn
in March 1945, practically no woman survived without being violated by the Soviet rapists "irrespective of their age" claimed one letter from the recovered territories
. Their age was estimated at 9 years of age to 80. Sometimes, among the victims were a grandmother, a mother and a granddaughter. Women were gang raped by as many as several dozen soldiers. In a letter from Gdańsk
dated 17 April 1945, a Polish woman who acquired work around the Soviet garrison reported: "because we spoke Polish, we were in demand. However, most victims there were raped up to 15 times. I was raped 7 times. It was horrible." A letter from Gdynia
written a week later said, that the only resort for the women was to hide in the basements all day.
. Professor Jerzy Kochanowski from the Institute of 20th Century History of the University of Warsaw
, served as deputy Editor-in-chief of the historical journal Mówią Wieki in 1994-1995. He specializes in Polish-German and Polish-Russian affairs. German women were protected (at least partially) by strict instructions about their treatment during transfer, issued by the Soviet command. Meanwhile, there were no such instructions, or any instructions whatsoever about the Poles. In the County of Leszno
some "war commanders" began to claim openly that their soldiers needed to have sex. At the same time, the farms given to Poles arriving from Kresy
, were robbed of anything of value by the Red Army, especially of any agricultural equipment left behind by the Germans.
According to Ostrowska & Zaremba, the month of June 1945 was the worst. A 52-year-old victim of gang rape from Pińczów
testified that two Soviet war veterans returning from Berlin told her that they fought for Poland for three years and thus had the right to have all Polish females. In Olkusz
twelve rapes were recorded in two days. In Ostrów
county, 33. The local Militia report stated that on June 25 near Kraków a husband and child were shot dead before a woman was raped in one village and in another, a 4-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by two Soviet males. According to statistics of the Polish Ministry of Health, there was a pandemic of sexually transmitted diseases across the country, affecting around 10% of the general population. In Masuria
up to 50% of women were infected.
In East Prussia
(Prusy Wschodnie) many ethnic German women, alarmed by the Nazis, fled ahead of the Soviet offensive, leaving the Polish women to endure rapes (mostly by the Kalmyks) and witness the systematic burning of ransacked houses, for example in the town of Iława in late January 1945, under the Soviet Major Konstantinov – wrote historian Wiesław Niesiobędzki. Eye witness Gertruda Buczkowska spoke of a labor camp near Wielka Żuława employing two hundred ethnic Belarussian women. In late January 1945 Buczkowska saw their bodies in the snow while fleeing with her mother and five German women of Hamburg who joined them. The five Germans in turn, were found naked and dead in a basement of a house on ulica Rybaków street in Iława a few days later.
and Szczecin
, there is a mass movement of Polish people returning from forced labor in the Third Reich. They are the subject of constant attacks by individual soldiers as well as organized groups. Along the journey, the Poles are frequently robbed, and Polish women raped. In our response to the question posed for the Polish delegation, of whether the rapes of Polish women could be regarded as exceptional, management of the local repatriation office declares, on the basis of permanent contact with the returning Poles, that women are the target of violent aggression as a matter of course, not the opposite". Russian historian Ia.S. Drabkin suggested in his 1989 interview that it was "not the soldiers who caused most of the problems with rape in the occupation administration, but former Soviet POWs and Soviet citizens working for SVAG, who often wore uniforms" which looked exactly the same.
Sometimes, even the presence of militia could not provide adequate protection, since the militiamen were frequently disarmed. For the women, moving trains and the train stations were especially dangerous, as in Bydgoszcz or around Radom
and Legnica
. The gravely serious situation in Pomerania
was described in a report by one agent of the Delegatura Rządu na Kraj, quoted by Ostrowska & Zaremba. In some counties there were virtual "orgies of rape". The commandant of Polish militia headquarters in Trzebiatów
issued a warning to all Polish women not to walk outside without escort.
"With nearly two million Russian deserters and former POWs at large in Soviet-occupied Europe, it is no wonder that banditry on their part became a serious problem for the occupation," wrote Naimark. The number of Polish victims of rape in 1944–1947 would be hard to estimate accurately, wrote Ostrowska & Zaremba. The biggest difficulty in their estimation comes from the fact that the ethnic makeup of the victims was not always stated in Polish official reports. Generally speaking, the attitude of Soviet servicemen toward women of Slavic background was better than toward those who spoke German. According to Ostrowska & Zaremba; whether the number of purely Polish victims could have reached or even exceeded 100,000 is only a matter of guessing.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
, although the documents of the era show that the problem was serious both during and after the advance of Soviet forces across Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
against Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in later stages 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...
. The lack of research for nearly half a century regarding the scope of sexual violence by Soviet males, had been magnified by the traditional taboos among their victims, who were incapable of finding "a voice that would have enabled them to talk openly" about their wartime experiences "while preserving their dignity," wrote Katherine R. Jolluck. Joanna Ostrowska and Marcin Zaremba of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Polish Academy of Sciences
The Polish Academy of Sciences, headquartered in Warsaw, is one of two Polish institutions having the nature of an academy of sciences.-History:...
wrote that rapes of the Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
women reached a mass scale following the Winter Offensive of 1945.
Among the factors contributing to the escalation of sexual violence against women, during the liberation of Poland, was a sense of impunity on the part of individual Soviet units left to fend for themselves by their military leaders. In search of food supplies and provisions – wrote Dr Janusz Wróbel of IPN
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...
– the marauding soldiers formed gangs ready to open fire (as in Jędrzejów
Jedrzejów
Jędrzejów is a town in Poland, located in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, about 35 km southwest of Kielce. It is the capital of Jędrzejów County. It has 18,069 inhabitants ....
). Lifestock was being herded away. Fields cleared of grain without recompense. Polish homes looted. In a letter to his Voivode, a Łódź county starosta
Starosta
Starost is a title for an official or unofficial position of leadership that has been used in various contexts through most of Slavic history. It can be translated as "elder"...
warned that plunder of goods from stores and farms, was often accompanied by the rape of farmhands as in Zalesie
Zalesie
Zalesie may refer to the following places in Poland.In Greater Poland Voivodeship :*Zalesie, Gmina Krzymów*Zalesie, Gmina Ostrów Wielkopolski*Zalesie, Gmina Skulsk*Zalesie, Gostyń County*Zalesie, Jarocin County*Zalesie, Koło County...
, Olechów
Stary Olechów
Stary Olechów is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Sienno, within Lipsko County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland....
, Feliksin and Huta Szklana, not to mention other crimes, including murder-rape in Łagiewniki. The heavily armed marauders robbed cars, horse-drawn carriages, even trains. In his next letter to Polish authorities, the same starosta wrote that rape and plunder is causing the population to fear and hate the Soviet regime.
Red Army Winter Offensive of 1945
Cases of mass rape occurred in major Polish cities taken by the Red Army. In KrakówKraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, Soviet entry into the city was accompanied by the wave of rapes of women and girls, and the widespread theft of personal property. According to Prof. Chwalba
Andrzej Chwalba
Andrzej Chwalba is a Polish historian. Professor of history at the Jagiellonian University , the university's prorector of didactics , head of the Institute of Social and Religious History of Europe in 19th and 20th century, and the deacon and prodeacon of Department of History.Chwalba is a member...
of Jagiellonian University
Jagiellonian University
The Jagiellonian University was established in 1364 by Casimir III the Great in Kazimierz . It is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe and one of the oldest universities in the world....
, this behavior reached such a scale that the Polish communists installed in the city by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, composed a letter of protest to Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
himself. At the Kraków Main station, Poles who tried to rescue the victims of gang rape were shot at. Meanwhile, church masses were held in expectation of the Soviet withdrawal.
Polish women in Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
were the target of mass rape along with their German counterparts even after the Soviet front moved much further west – wrote Ostrowska & Zaremba. In the first six months of 1945, only in Dębska Kuźnia
Debska Kuznia
Dębska Kuźnia is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Chrząstowice, within Opole County, Opole Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It lies approximately east of Chrząstowice and east of the regional capital Opole....
268 rapes were reported. In March 1945 near Racibórz
Racibórz
Racibórz is a town in southern Poland with 60,218 inhabitants situated in the Silesian Voivodeship , previously in Katowice Voivodeship...
, 30 women captured at a linen factory were locked in a house in Makowo
Makowo
Mąkowo is a settlement in the administrative district of Gmina Człuchów, within Człuchów County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland.For details of the history of the region, see History of Pomerania.The settlement has a population of 19....
and raped over a period of time under the threat of death. The woman who gave her testimony to the police, was being raped by four men. German and Polish women were apprehended on the streets of Katowice
Katowice
Katowice is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, on the Kłodnica and Rawa rivers . Katowice is located in the Silesian Highlands, about north of the Silesian Beskids and about southeast of the Sudetes Mountains.It is the central district of the Upper Silesian Metropolis, with a population of 2...
, Zabrze
Zabrze
Zabrze is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. The west district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union is a metropolis with a population of around 2 million...
and Chorzów
Chorzów
Chorzów is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. Chorzów is one of the central districts of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - a metropolis with a population of 2 million...
and gang raped by drunken soldiers, usually outdoors. According to Naimark, the Red Army servicemen did not differentiate along the ethnic lines, or between victims and occupiers.
Polish and German women in Warmia
Warmia
Warmia or Ermland is a region between Pomerelia and Masuria in northeastern Poland. Together with Masuria, it forms the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship....
and Masuria
Masuria
Masuria is an area in northeastern Poland famous for its 2,000 lakes. Geographically, Masuria is part of two adjacent lakeland districts, the Masurian Lake District and the Iława Lake District...
endured the same ordeal, wrote Ostrowska & Zaremba. In the city of Olsztyn
Olsztyn
Olsztyn is a city in northeastern Poland, on the Łyna River. Olsztyn has been the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship since 1999. It was previously in the Olsztyn Voivodeship...
in March 1945, practically no woman survived without being violated by the Soviet rapists "irrespective of their age" claimed one letter from the recovered territories
Recovered Territories
Recovered or Regained Territories was an official term used by the People's Republic of Poland to describe those parts of pre-war Germany that became part of Poland after World War II...
. Their age was estimated at 9 years of age to 80. Sometimes, among the victims were a grandmother, a mother and a granddaughter. Women were gang raped by as many as several dozen soldiers. In a letter from Gdańsk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
dated 17 April 1945, a Polish woman who acquired work around the Soviet garrison reported: "because we spoke Polish, we were in demand. However, most victims there were raped up to 15 times. I was raped 7 times. It was horrible." A letter from Gdynia
Gdynia
Gdynia is a city in the Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland and an important seaport of Gdańsk Bay on the south coast of the Baltic Sea.Located in Kashubia in Eastern Pomerania, Gdynia is part of a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdańsk and suburban communities, which together...
written a week later said, that the only resort for the women was to hide in the basements all day.
The coming of spring
There is evidence, that a loophole in the Soviet directives, might have contributed to even greater number of rapes committed on Polish women by the Red Army soldiers, wrote Jerzy Kochanowski from the University of WarsawUniversity of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...
. Professor Jerzy Kochanowski from the Institute of 20th Century History of the University of Warsaw
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...
, served as deputy Editor-in-chief of the historical journal Mówią Wieki in 1994-1995. He specializes in Polish-German and Polish-Russian affairs. German women were protected (at least partially) by strict instructions about their treatment during transfer, issued by the Soviet command. Meanwhile, there were no such instructions, or any instructions whatsoever about the Poles. In the County of Leszno
Leszno
Leszno is a town in central Poland with 63,955 inhabitants . Situated in the southern part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship since 1999, it was previously the capital of the Leszno Voivodeship . The town has county status.-History:...
some "war commanders" began to claim openly that their soldiers needed to have sex. At the same time, the farms given to Poles arriving from Kresy
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...
, were robbed of anything of value by the Red Army, especially of any agricultural equipment left behind by the Germans.
According to Ostrowska & Zaremba, the month of June 1945 was the worst. A 52-year-old victim of gang rape from Pińczów
Pinczów
Pińczów is a town in Poland, in Świętokrzyskie Voivodship, about 40 km south of Kielce. It is the capital of Pińczów County. Population is 12,304 .-History:...
testified that two Soviet war veterans returning from Berlin told her that they fought for Poland for three years and thus had the right to have all Polish females. In Olkusz
Olkusz
Olkusz is a town in south Poland with 37,696 inhabitants . Situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship , previously in Katowice Voivodeship , it is the capital of Olkusz County...
twelve rapes were recorded in two days. In Ostrów
Ostrów
Ostrów is a Polish name for a river island. It appears in many Polish toponyms:* Ostrów Lubelski, a town in Lublin Voivodship * Ostrów Mazowiecka, a town in Masovian Voivodship...
county, 33. The local Militia report stated that on June 25 near Kraków a husband and child were shot dead before a woman was raped in one village and in another, a 4-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by two Soviet males. According to statistics of the Polish Ministry of Health, there was a pandemic of sexually transmitted diseases across the country, affecting around 10% of the general population. In Masuria
Masuria
Masuria is an area in northeastern Poland famous for its 2,000 lakes. Geographically, Masuria is part of two adjacent lakeland districts, the Masurian Lake District and the Iława Lake District...
up to 50% of women were infected.
In East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
(Prusy Wschodnie) many ethnic German women, alarmed by the Nazis, fled ahead of the Soviet offensive, leaving the Polish women to endure rapes (mostly by the Kalmyks) and witness the systematic burning of ransacked houses, for example in the town of Iława in late January 1945, under the Soviet Major Konstantinov – wrote historian Wiesław Niesiobędzki. Eye witness Gertruda Buczkowska spoke of a labor camp near Wielka Żuława employing two hundred ethnic Belarussian women. In late January 1945 Buczkowska saw their bodies in the snow while fleeing with her mother and five German women of Hamburg who joined them. The five Germans in turn, were found naked and dead in a basement of a house on ulica Rybaków street in Iława a few days later.
Return from the forced labour
According to Ostrowska and Zaremba, the Polish women taken to Germany for slave labor were being raped on a large scale by the Soviet soldiers as well as former POWs. In May 1945, at the conference of delegates of various repatriation offices, the final resolution stated: "through StargardStargard Szczecinski
Stargard Szczeciński is a city in northwestern Poland, with a population of 71,017 . Situated on the Ina River it is the capital of Stargard County and since 1999 has been in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship; prior to that it was in the Szczecin Voivodeship...
and Szczecin
Szczecin
Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427....
, there is a mass movement of Polish people returning from forced labor in the Third Reich. They are the subject of constant attacks by individual soldiers as well as organized groups. Along the journey, the Poles are frequently robbed, and Polish women raped. In our response to the question posed for the Polish delegation, of whether the rapes of Polish women could be regarded as exceptional, management of the local repatriation office declares, on the basis of permanent contact with the returning Poles, that women are the target of violent aggression as a matter of course, not the opposite". Russian historian Ia.S. Drabkin suggested in his 1989 interview that it was "not the soldiers who caused most of the problems with rape in the occupation administration, but former Soviet POWs and Soviet citizens working for SVAG, who often wore uniforms" which looked exactly the same.
Sometimes, even the presence of militia could not provide adequate protection, since the militiamen were frequently disarmed. For the women, moving trains and the train stations were especially dangerous, as in Bydgoszcz or around Radom
Radom
Radom is a city in central Poland with 223,397 inhabitants . It is located on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship , having previously been the capital of Radom Voivodeship ; 100 km south of Poland's capital, Warsaw.It is home to the biennial Radom Air Show, the largest and...
and Legnica
Legnica
Legnica is a town in south-western Poland, in Silesia, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the plain of Legnica, riverside: Kaczawa and Czarna Woda. Between 1 June 1975 and 31 December 1998 Legnica was the capital of the Legnica Voivodeship. It is currently the seat of the county...
. The gravely serious situation in Pomerania
Pomerania
Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...
was described in a report by one agent of the Delegatura Rządu na Kraj, quoted by Ostrowska & Zaremba. In some counties there were virtual "orgies of rape". The commandant of Polish militia headquarters in Trzebiatów
Trzebiatów
Trzebiatów is a town in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland. As of June 2007, it has 10,196 inhabitants.It was in Pomerania, Germany until 1945.Trzebiatów's Day of the Cereal is a celebration during the first week of August...
issued a warning to all Polish women not to walk outside without escort.
"With nearly two million Russian deserters and former POWs at large in Soviet-occupied Europe, it is no wonder that banditry on their part became a serious problem for the occupation," wrote Naimark. The number of Polish victims of rape in 1944–1947 would be hard to estimate accurately, wrote Ostrowska & Zaremba. The biggest difficulty in their estimation comes from the fact that the ethnic makeup of the victims was not always stated in Polish official reports. Generally speaking, the attitude of Soviet servicemen toward women of Slavic background was better than toward those who spoke German. According to Ostrowska & Zaremba; whether the number of purely Polish victims could have reached or even exceeded 100,000 is only a matter of guessing.