MARCH 30 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

MARCH 30

1938

Ethnic Poles in Czechoslovakia demanded autonomy for Polish minority.  Poles formed the largest ethnic group in Cieszyn Silesia in the 19th century, but at the beginning of the 20th century the Czech population increased rapidly thereby placing the Poles in the minority.  Initially, the Czechs and Poles collaborated on resisting Germanization, but this collaboration ceased after World War I. After the Polish-Czechoslovak War in 1920 the region of Zaolzie was incorporated into Czechoslovakia. The period between 1918 and 1920 experienced a great deal of tension and hostility.  The decision was made to hold a plebiscite to settle which country would gain Cieszyn Silesia. A state of emergency ensued in May 1920 and gave rise to mutual intimidation, acts of terror, beatings, and even killings. By July 1920 both sides renounced holding a plebiscite and entrusted the decision with the Conference of Ambassadors. The Spa Conference decided to grant 58.1% of the area of Cieszyn Silesia and 67.9% of the population to Czechoslovakia. It was this division that gave rise to the birth of the Zaolzie region. In 1938 it was annexed by Poland in the context of the Munich Agreement and in 1939 invaded by Nazi Germany.

1939

Wincenty Witos served three times as Premier of Poland, in 1920-1921, 1923 (Chjeno-Piast), and 1926. He co-founded the People's Party, and was one of the leaders opposing the Sanacja (Sanation) government. In 1926 the Witos government was overthrown by the May coup d'état led by Józef Piłsudski.  Following his imprisonment, Witos lived in exile in Czechoslovakia from 1933. He returned to Poland on March 30, 1939, only to be imprisoned again months later by the invading Nazi Germans.

1942

First trainloads of Jews from Paris arrived at Auschwitz. According to Yad Vashem, about 76,000 Jews from France were deported by train to the East, most of them from Paris, among them 11,000 children, all murdered upon arrival in Auschwitz.  Most of the deportations left France from the concentration camp of Drancy.  Deportations continued up until August 1944, even though the Allies had already begun to liberate France.  Of all the Jews deported from France to the extermination camps in the East, a total of about 2,500 survived.)

1945

The 2nd Shock Army of the 2nd Belorussian Front captured Danzig:  Soviet Commander Rokossovsky began his final offensive on March 15,  1945.  The fighting was savage, but by March 19 the Soviet spearheads had reached the heights over Zoppot, while the 4th Panzer Division had been pushed back to the outskirts of Danzig itself. By March 22, 1945, the 70th Army reached the sea, splitting the German defence.  Gdynia was taken on March 26, 1945, its defenders and many civilians retreating to the headland at Oksywie, from where they were evacuated to the Hel Peninsula.   Note: After the invasion of Poland by Germany on September 1, 1939, the Germans incorporated the Free City of Danzig into the newly formed Reichsgau of Danzig-West Prussia.  Local SS and the police cooperated with the Germans with expelling Polish authorities from in and around the city. The Polish civilian Post Office employees, who had received military training  and were armed, managed to defend the Polish Post Office for fifteen hours.  Upon their surrender, they were tried and executed. ( In 1998, the sentence was officially revoked by a German court as illegal.)  Polish military forces continued to fight in the city until September 7 and finally capitulated.  The Allies at the Yalta Conference, of February 1945, agreed that the city would become part of Poland again.

MARCH 27 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

MARCH 27 

1933

A series of protest rallies were held in numerous American cities by Jews advocating for the boycott of German products. This was in response against the Nazi German's campaign of anti-semitic violence against German Jews and boycott of Jewish businesses. Over 55,000 Jews crowded inside Madison Square Garden in New York City, with the event being broadcast worldwide. Speakers included a US Senator, a Governor, Christian Clergymen, as well as leaders of Jewish organizations and synagogues. Rallies were also held at Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia and 70 other locations.  The Anti Nazi Boycott lasted until America's entry into the war.

1939

Nazi Germany began an anti-Polish propaganda campaign against "oppression of Germans in German lands now controlled by Poles."  In German and Soviet war propaganda, Poles were mocked as inept for their military techniques in fighting the war. Nazi fake newsreels and forged pseudo-documentaries claimed that the Polish cavalry "bravely but futilely" charged German tanks in 1939, and that the Polish Air Force was wiped out on the ground on the opening day of the war. Neither story was true. It was complete fabrication by the Nazi propaganda machine. (see: Myths of the Polish September Campaign). German propaganda staged a fake Polish cavalry charge in their 1941 reel called "Geschwader Lützow". Even today, anti-Polish sentiment continues, but more frequently in derogatory stereotyping and defamation, rather than open discrimination.(Read about Polonophobia, anti-Polonism, antipolonism and anti-Polish sentiment.)

1942

The start of deportation of French Jews to Auschwitz.  Women and children were also targeted. The French police, under the control of the Nazi German authorities, carried out the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup   ( July 16 and 17, 1942) and arrested 13,000 Jews for deportation to German concentration camps. Tens of thousands had also been sent from French internment camps to the extermination camps in German occupied Poland, via Drancy. (PS:  For decades the French government declined to apologize for the role of French policemen in the roundup. On July 16, 1995, President Jacques Chirac, stated that it was time that France faced up to its past and he acknowledged the role that the state had played in the persecution of Jews and other victims of the German occupation.  According to Chirac, those responsible for the roundup were "4500 policemen and gendarmes, French, under the authority of their leaders [who] obeyed the demands of the Nazis." In 2012, President François Hollande acknowledged that the roundup was committed in "France by France". In July 2017, President Emmanuel Macron denounced France's participation in the Holocaust and the revisionism which followed in the attempt to deny France's guilt for the 1942 roundup and subsequent deportation of the Jews. "It was indeed France that organized this [roundup]", he said, French police collaborating with the Nazis. "Not a single German took part."

1945

The Germans fired their last V-2 rockets from their only remaining launch site in the Netherlands. Almost 200 civilians in England and Belgium were killed in this final attack. German scientists had been developing tests on a long-range missile since the 1930s. Their first successful trial launch was achieved on October 3, 1942, at Peenemunde research center, located off Germany's Baltic coast.  The Germans launched the V-2, a 12 ton rocket which had the capacity to carry a one ton warhead. On its first try it traveled 118 miles but had the potential to travel 200 miles. Germany's missile program was attributed to the genius of Wernher von Braun. The rockets designs comprised the V-1, a pulse jet-powered cruise missile, the V-2, a liquid fueled ballistic missile (often referred to as V1 and V2), and the V-3 cannon.  The V-2 was designed in such a way as to make it impossible to intercept. At point of launching the missile traveled a distance of six miles vertically, then gradually changed trajectory so that it assumed an arced course, and able to cut off its own fuel in accordance with the preferred range.  Then when it reached its target, the nose tipped over and the missile descended at a speed of about 4,000 miles per hour.  The missile hit the target with such force that it partially burrowed several feet into the ground, after which it exploded.  It was impossible for the allies to detect the V-2 because the launch pads used were portable.  Hitler used these weapons against France and the Netherlands, and many towns and cities in England as well as London ( the Blitz). The rockets killed approximately 18,000 people, mostly civilians, and destroyed buildings and streets to a pile of rubble.


U-722 was sunk in the North Atlantic near the Hebrides, Scotland in position 57°09′N 06°55′W, by depth charges from British frigates HMS Fitzroy, HMS Redmill and HMS Byron. All hands were lost.