SEPTEMBER 2
1939
Raid on Fraustadt: Polish General Roman Abraham, commander of the Wielkopolska Cavalry Brigade. He ordered a raid on the town of Fraustadt, located in the province of Silesia (now Wschowa),in the Free State of Prussia. At 2:00 pm the raid was launched by the 55th Poznan Infrantry Regiment unit commanded by Colonel Waclaw Wiecierzynski. The Poles attacked a border guard post, capturing a large cache of weapons which they seized. Soon after Polish cannons opened fire on Geyersdorf, followed by the advance of Polish TKS tankettes supported by machine gun fire. By 4:00pm the Poles had captured the city and proceeded to Fraustadt By nightfall, the Poles were 8 kilometers into German territory, when General Abraham ordered all Polish troops to return to Leszno. Despite Polish efforts, this raid did not alter the outcome of the initial border wars during the invasion by the Germans.
Battle of Borowa Góra began. It counted among the Border Battles during the Invasion of Poland, and lasted until September 5, 1939. Polish troops manned their defensive positions during the night of September 2 to 3 in the Gory Borowskie hills (east of the town of Bełchatów, in Central Poland) Polish General Thommee ordered Colonel Czyżewski to defend a 25-kilometer line in the area of Rozprza (Lodz Voivodeship) and hold their positions for two days when a Polish counterattack would be launched. In the evening of September 3, the German 1st Panzer Division attacked Rozprza, in a battle that lasted several hours, but retreated under heavy fire from the Polish 3rd Battalion. The next morning the German 1st Panzer, joined by the 4th Panzer Divison, under cover from the Luftwaffe, launched another attack against the Polish stronghold which resulted in a Polish retreat. The battle ended in a German victory on September 6. German casualties were 650 killed, 550 wounded, and the Poles suffered 663 casualties.
The Nazi Germans established Stutthof concentration camp near the former territory of Danzig. It was the first Nazi German camp outside of Germany during World War Two and was initially used for the imprisonment of the Polish intelligentsia. The first prisoners were 150 Polish citizens who were rounded up from the streets of Danzig. A total of 100,000 inmates were imprisoned there during the course of the war, but the number was certainly higher (since many of the people exterminated where never registered by the Nazis.) Prisoners were used as forced laborers in SS-owned businesses, in local brickyards, private industrial enterprises, in agriculture, and mostly in the heavily guarded armaments factories. Over the years, the camp barracks were expanded to imprison thousands more inmates, mostly Jews. Living conditions in the camp were brutal. By 1942, many prisoners died in typhus epidemics. Those who were too weak or sick to work, were selected by the SS for extermination in the camp's small gas chamber.
1944
Warsaw Uprising: Polish insurgents courageously fought against the Nazi onslaught and held onto the Old Town since the Uprising began on August 1st, 1944. From the end of August until September 2, 1944, members of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, or AK) evacuated Warsaw's Old City district; about 2,000 Polish insurgents escaped during successive nights by descending beneath the city through street manholes,and travelled through miles of interconnected underground networks. It was a major source of communications between different parts of the Uprising. Thousands of Poles were evacuated in this way. But once the Nazi Germans regained control of the district, many Poles were captured and either shot or transported to concentration camps such as Mauthausen and Sachsenhausen.
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