AUGUST 4 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

AUGUST 4

1944

Western Allies began airdrops of munitions and other supplies to support Polish fighters during the Warsaw Uprising. Initially the air raids were carried out mostly by 1586 Polish Flight of the PAF stationed in Bari and Brindisi in Italy flying Liberators, Halifaxes and Dakotas. Later on at the insistence of the Polish Government-in-Exile they were joined by the Liberators of 2 Wing - 31 and 34 Squadrons of the SAAF based at Foggia in Southern Italy, and Halifaxes, flown by 148 and 178 Squadrons of the RAF. The drops continued until September 21, delivering a total of 104 tons of supplies.


At approximately 10:00 am, units of the SS RONA (anti-partisan formation) under the command of Bronislav Kaminski entered Warsaw's Ochota district.  The soldiers began their rampage against the civilian population near Opaczewska Street. They stormed into people's homes, forcing them to leave their valuables. Those who resisted were shot on the spot.  The Germans created Zieleniak camp as a transitional camp to hold all the citizens who had been expelled. (They were later transported to a transit camp in in Pruszków.) After the SS had looted the properties, they set the buildings on fire. Residents of 104 Grójecka Street were killed with grenades while hiding in their cellars. RONA troops stormed into Radium Institute where they shot many of the patients. Many of the victims were gang raped before they were brutally murdered.  On August 25, the SS entered the Szpital Dzieciątka Jezus (Infant Jesus Hospital) on 4 Lindleya Street where they beat and murdered the patients. They also killed the wounded in the resistance field hospital at 11/13 Langiewicza Street with grenades. Kaminski was the commander of the S.S. Sturmbrigade R.O.N.A. (also known as Kaminski Brigade and earlier as the Russian National Liberation Army.) The Radium Institute, located at 15 Wawelska Street was founded by Marie Curie. After World War II, the Institute re-opened and changed its name to "Maria Skłodowska-Curie Institute of Oncology". Approximately 10,000 people were killed during the Ochota massacre, including 1,000 people who died in the Zieleniak camp.  Many areas of Ochota were used for mass executions, some of which are now marked with memorial plaques to commemorate the victims. Among those killed were the 82-year-old painter Wiktor Mazurowski and his wife, who were murdered at 83 Filtrowa Street, the well-known dramatic actor Mariusz Maszyński and his family, as well as the architect Stefan Tomorowicz and his wife, who were killed in Pole Mokotowskie.


Anne Frank and her family had been in hiding since July 6, 1942, in a secret annex above the Opekta offices on Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. On August 4, 1944, the Nazi police led by SS Karl Silberbauer stormed the hiding place and arrested Anne Frank, her family, as well as the Franks, van Pelses and Pfeffer, taking them to the Reich headquarters where they were detained overnight and interrogated. The next day they were transferred to a detention house and two days later to Westerbork transit camp where they were forced to do hard labour.  Anne and her sister Margot were later sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They met briefly with two friends, Hanneli Goslar, and Nanette Blitz who survived the war. They described Anne as being bald, emaciated and shivering. Anne died of typhus, in February (or March) 1945. In her diary, Anne Frank documented her experiences and fears of living in hiding from the Nazis, and her thoughts and feelings about life in general.  She reached fame posthumously when her writing was published in "The Diary of Anne Frank".


Polish poet and Home army soldier killed in action:  Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, 23, was a member of Scouting Assault Groups (Harcerskie Grupy Szturmowe), and took part in many sabotage actions against the German occupation.  Baczynski's poems expressed romantic traditions and catastrophism, depicting the brutality of war. Among many of the missions was the derailment of a German military train, which caused a 26-hour delay in their transport along the strategic connection  Warsaw-Białystok.  After the Warsaw Uprising broke out, he joined the "Parasol" battalion. He was killed in action by a German sniper at approximately 4 pm of August 4, 1944, in Blank Palace (Pałac Blanka) in the Warsaw Old Town area. He was 23.


URGENT, SECRET AND PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM Mr CHURCHILL TO MARSHAL STALIN (no.311)  "At the urgent request of the Polish underground army we are dropping subject to the weather about sixty tons of equipment and ammunition into the south-western quarter of Warsaw where it is said a Polish revolt against the Germans is in fierce struggle. They also say that they appeal for Russian aid which seems very near. They are being attacked by one and a half German divisions. This may be of help to your operations."  (August 4th, 1944 )


Mission 512;  3rd Bombing of Peenemunde:  221 B-17s against Peenemünde, 110 against Anklam Airfield, and 70 against Anklam aircraft factories; they claimed 1-0-0 Luftwaffe aircraft; three B-17s were lost, one was damaged beyond repair and 94 damaged; 2 airmen were KIA, 2 WIA and 40 MIA. Escort was provided by 223 P-51s; they claimed 4-0-4 Luftwaffe aircraft on the ground; 9 P-51s were lost and 1 was damaged beyond repair; 1 pilot was KIA. Ten Peenemünde people were killed, including anti-aircraft soldiers. The big hangar had been damaged, including the office and laboratory wings. Peenemunde was the location of the secret Nazi research and test center for the V- rocket.

JULY 6 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

JULY 6

1938

Evian Conference:  Representatives from 33 nations convened at Évian-les-Bains, France, to discuss the Jewish refugee problem and the plight of the increasing numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing persecution by Nazi Germany. The conference was organized and led by President Franklin Roosevelt who anticipated that other nations would accept more Jewish refugees . Roosevelt used the conference as a way to deflect attention and criticism away from American policy for its severe quota restrictions of Jewish refugees admitted to the US.  The conference was attended by representatives from 32 countries, and 24 voluntary organizations also attended as observers, presenting plans either orally or in writing. Golda Meir, the attendee from British Mandate Palestine, was not permitted to speak or to participate in the proceedings except as an observer. Some 200 international journalists gathered at Évian to observe and report on the meeting. The conference was ultimately doomed, as delegations from the 32 participating nations refused to come to any agreement about accepting the Jewish refugees fleeing the Third Reich. Only two countries, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, increased their quotas. The result of the failure of the conference was that many of the Jews had no escape and were ultimately the target of Hitler's "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" - the Holocaust.  Two months after Évian, in September 1938, Britain and France granted Hitler the right to occupy the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and as a result 120,000 Jews became stateless. In November 1938, on Kristallnacht, a massive pogrom across the Third Reich was accompanied by the destruction of over 1,000 synagogues, massacres and the arbitrary arrest of tens of thousands of Jews. In March 1939, Hitler occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia, which now took in a further 180,000 Jews. In May 1939 the British issued the White Paper which barred Jews from entering Palestine or buying land there.  Following their occupation of Poland in late 1939 and invasion of Soviet Union in 1941, the Germans embarked on a program of systematic deportation, and murder of millions of Jews from throughout Europe.  The only way that Nazis could have accomplished this treachery was with the assistance of local authorities, military and police, who organized the identification and removal of the Jews.

1942

Anne Frank and her family went into hiding. They intentionally left their apartment in disarray to give the impression that they "left in a hurry" and Otto, her father, left a note that they were going to Switzerland. The Frank family had to walk to the their shelter,  a building which housed the Opekta office on Prinsengracht, where they hid inside a three storey space (a few of the employees in the building knew about it) A week later the van Pels family joined them, which created some friction in an already confined space, something that Anne Frank wrote about in her diary. This hiding place became known as the Achterhuis (translated as "Secret Annex" in English editions of the diary). On August 4, 1944, their Achterhuis was stormed by the SS, arrested them and interrogated them at the police headquarters where they were kept overnight. The SS treated them as if they were criminals and they were sent to a work camp to do hard labour.

1950

German Democratic Republic agreed to accept the Oder-Niesse boundary with Poland. (The Treaty of Zgorzelec (Full title The Agreement Concerning the Demarcation of the Established and the Existing Polish-German State Frontier, also known as the Treaty of Görlitz and Treaty of Zgorzelic) The agreement was signed under Soviet pressure by Otto Grotewohl, prime minister of the provisional government of the GDR (East Germany) and Polish premier Józef Cyrankiewicz. It recognized the Oder-Neisse line implemented by the 1945 Potsdam Agreement as the border between the two states. The treaty was worded as a declaration and was not initially recognized by West Germany as a legitimate international treaty.  It wasn't until 1990 when a reunified Germany recognized the Oder-Niesse boundary, in the German-Polish Border Treaty.