FEBRUARY 5 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

FEBRUARY 5

1937

Polish government announced the creation of the Central Industrial Region. (Note: The Central Industrial District (COP) was an industrial region in Poland and one of the largest economic projects of the Second Polish Republic. The project was initiated by Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, a brilliant economist, who was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Treasury.  He planned a heavy industrial center in the very center of the country to strengthen the Polish economy and reduce unemployment.  The development was scheduled to commence September 1, 1936 and be completed by July 30, 1940. But it was interrupted by the German invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939, starting World War Two. At the end of the war in 1945,  the COP project resumed and was expanded under the Soviet-controlled People's Republic of Poland.

1938

Nazi Germany passed The Law on the Profession of Auctioneer which excluded Jews from the profession.

1945

Soviet forces crossed the Oder at Brzeg, causing considerable destruction in its path.   (Note:  In accordance with the Yalta and Potsdam agreements, the area was annexed by Poland.  The town's German population was subsequently resettled , and replaced with Polish settlers from the Eastern Borderlands and Central Poland. Since 1950 the reconstructed town has been a part of the Opole Voivodeship in Poland.)

1947

Communist Boleslaw Bierut was elected President of the Polish Republic and held office from 1947 to 1952.  After the abolition of the Presidency, and the creation of the Peoples Republic of Poland, he served as Prime Minister.  He was also the first Secretary General of the ruling Polish United Workers Party from 1948 to 1956.  But he is most known and hated for his role in the outcome of many trials of Polish wartime military leaders, including General Stanislaw Tator and Brig. General Emil August Fieldorf, as well as 40 members of the Wolnosc i Niezawislosc (Freedom and Independence organization),  numerous church officials, and other opponents of the new regime - including the Hero of Auschwitz, Witold Pilecki.  They were all condemned to death during secret trials - to which Bierut signed many of those death sentences.