AUGUST 27 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

AUGUST 27

1914

The Austrian government gave its official approval for the re-organization of the First Cadre Company (which had been established by Josef Pilsudski on August 3, 1914), and thereafter named the Polish Legions.  On August 6, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on the Russian Empire.  On the same day, the First Cadre set out for the Austro-Hungarian - Russian border and crossed into Tsarist Poland.  In full battalion strength, the First Cadre captured Kielce alongside the Second Company, led by Stanisław Tessaro (pl), and the Third Company, led by Wacław Scaevola-Wieczorkiewicz.  The objective of the First Cadre was to break through Russian lines, continue north, and capture Warsaw. They hoped to set off an uprising in Tsarist Poland against the Russian regime, but the Russians checked the First Cadre just outside Kielce on August 13 resulting in the Cadre's retreat.

1941

The Hungarian Army rounded up Jews at Kamenets-Podolsk.  The city is now located in the western Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. During WW2 it was occupied by German forces during the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.  On August 27 and 28, detachments of Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) and troops under the command of the Higher SS and Police Leader for the southern region, SS General Friedrich Jeckeln, carried out mass killings of the Jewish deportees as well as the local Jewish population. A total of 23,600 Jews were massacred.

1942

During the last 15 days in August, 53,750 Warsaw Jews were deported to Treblinka.  Treblinka was a Nazi-German death camp located in a forest north-east of Warsaw. The camp was managed by the Nazi SS and the Trawnikis, also called Hiwi guards, who were the Soviet POWs, enlisted from camps to assist the Germans. Treblinka was composed of two camps; Treblinka I, which was a forced labor camp whose inmates worked the gravel pit or cutting trees in the forest: the other was Treblinka II, the death camp.  The Germans forced a small number of Jewish men to become the Sonderkommandos, slave-labour teams who were forced to bury the victims bodies in mass graves after they had been gassed to death.  In 1943, these bodies were exhumed and cremated on large open-air pyres along with the bodies of new victims.

1947

The I.G. Farben Trial was the sixth  of 12 trials of the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (not to be confused with the Nuremberg Trials). It was also called the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials". The trial was held from August 27, 1947 to July 30, 1948. The accused had all been directors of IG Farben, a German conglomerate of chemical companies.  During World War II, the company Degesch (42.5 per cent  of which was owned by IG Farben) held the trademark of Zyklon B, the poison gas used by the Nazi Germans to exterminate Jews.  The charges included slave labor and plundering.  Of the 24 defendants, 13 were found guilty on one or the other counts, and sentenced to prison terms ranging from one and one half to eight years, including time already served; ten defendants were acquitted of all charges. Max Brüggemann (Farben's chief legal advisor) was excused from the trial and his case discontinued on September 9, 1947 due to medical reasons.

JULY 8 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

JULY 8

1947

The Hostages Trial was the seventh of 12 trials of the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (not to be confused with the Nuremberg Trials). It was also called the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials". The trial was held from July 8, 1947 to February 19, 1948. This case was also referred to as the "Southeast Case" because the defendants were Nazi German generals who commanded their troops in south-eastern Europe during the Balkans Campaign ( in Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia). The accused were charged for taking civilians as hostages, the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians and "partisans", the plundering and destruction of villages, torture of prisoners and their deportation to concentration camps. Of the 12 defendants indicted, Franz Böhme committed suicide before the arraignment, Maximilian von Weichs was excused from the trial due to alleged medical reasons. Of the remainder two were acquitted and the rest of them received sentences ranging from seven years to lifetime imprisonment. 

1980

The first strike in Poland started on July 8, 1980 in the State Aviation Works in Świdnik. Though they lacked any coordinating center, the workers were still able to spread their news through an information network.  The Workers Defence Committee, (a dissident group set up in 1976 to provide aid to victimized workers) attracted the support of many small groups of workers from industrial centers.  At the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, the firing of Anna Walentynowicz, a popular crane operator and activist, galvanized the enraged workers to take action.

1997

NATO invited Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republic to join. NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana extended the official invitation following a three-hour meeting where NATO chiefs debated how far and how fast to expand the organization..  "The day when Poland is invited to negotiations on NATO membership has a chance of going down in history as the end of the Yalta order in Europe," PAP news agency quoted Prime Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz as saying.

APRIL 19 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

APRIL 19

1938

The inhabitants of Wilno celebrated the 19th anniversary of city's liberation from the Soviets. Dar Pomorza returned to the port of Gdynia, after a 216 -day cruise.  The Dar Pomorza was a Polish full-rigged sailing ship, constructed in 1909 by Blohm & Voss to be a German training ship and named in tribute to the German Prinzess Eitel Friedrich. Following WW1, Friedrich was taken as reparations by Britain and brought to France. Eventually it was sold to the Pomerania community of Poland for 7,000 British pounds, and renamed Dar Pomorza.  Dar Pomorza won the Cutty Sark Trophy in 1980.  She is now preserved at Gdynia as a museum ship.

1943

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising:  In response to the Nazi's attempt to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto and deport the remaining Jews to Treblinka,  Jewish prisoners instigated an armed resistance from within the walls of the Ghetto.  The Jews refused to surrender. When the SS troops tried to liquidate the Ghetto, the Jews drove them back with gunfire.  Nazi police commander Jurgen Stroop then ordered the burning of the Ghetto, block by block.The aktion ended on May 16, 1943.  It was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II.  A total of 13,000 Jews died, about half of them burnt alive or suffocated.  The surviving 56,000 inhabitants were deported to Treblinka for extermination.  German casualties were not more than 300.


Dawid Moryc Apfelbaum was commander of the Jewish Military Union (Żydowski Związek Wojskowy, ŻZW), during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He was reportedly killed in the first few days of the Uprising.  (He also fought for Poland, during the German invasion of Poland, joining the troops in defence of Warsaw.) After his death he was promoted to the rank of Major in the Polish Army by the the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa,) AK command. In 2004, the mayor of Warsaw Lech Kaczyński had a square named for Apfelbaum in the city's Wola district.


Mordechai Anielewicz was the leader of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ŻOB), which led the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; the largest Jewish insurrection during the Second World War, which inspired further rebellions in ghettos and extermination camps. His character was engraved as a symbol of courage and sacrifice, and to this day his image represents Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. In July 1944, Anielewicz was posthumously awarded the Cross of Valour by the Polish Government in Exile, and in 1945 he was also awarded the Cross of Grunwald, 3rd Class by the Polish People's Army. Numerous other awards and memorials were made in his name by the State of Israel and many Jewish organizations.

1945

The Battle of the Seelow Heights ended in Soviet-Polish victory. It was a pitched battle, and one of the last assaults on large entrenched defensive positions. The Battle was fought over three days ending on  the 19th of April 1945.  The road to Berlin lay open -  90 km (56 mi) to the west. By April 23, the city was completely surrounded, and the Battle of Berlin was soon at an end. Within 2 weeks, Adolf Hitler committed suicide and the war in Europe was essentially over.  Close to one million Soviet soldiers of the 1st Belorussian Front (including 78,556 soldiers of the Polish 1st Army), commanded by Marshal Georgi Zhukov, attacked the position known as the "Gates of Berlin".  They were opposed by about 110,000 soldiers of the German 9th Army, commanded by General Theodor Busse, as part of the Army Group Vistula. The defensive line on the Seelow Heights was the last major defensive line outside Berlin.


German submarines were sunk:  U-251 was sunk by rockets from no less than eight British and Norwegian Mosquitos of 143, 235 and 248 squadrons in the Kattegat; U-548 was sunk by depth charges from the American destroyer escorts Reuben James and Buckley; (it is not certain whether U-879 or U-857 was sunk, as both were in the vicinity at the time of the Allied attack.)

1947

The Flick Trial was the fifth of 12 trials of the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (not to be confused with the Nuremberg Trials). It was also called the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials". The trial was held from April 19 to December 22, 1947 and most well-known of all the trials which tried 22 of the most important captured Nazi Germans. Among the accused were Frederich Flick and five high-ranking directors of a group of companies under his control. The charges were implementing slave labor and plundering. In addition, Flick and Otto Steinbrinck, his senior director, were both charged for their membership in what was named the "Circle of Friends of Himmler". This group was established in 1932, and consisted of many powerful German industrialists and bankers who had given about 1 million Reichsmarks to a special account of Himmler.  Flick was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment, Steinbrinck to 5 years, Weiss to 2 and a half years, and three were acquitted. 

APRIL 8 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

APRIL 8

1933

Nazi Book Burning:  On April 8, 1933, the nationwide "Action Against the Un-German Spirit" was proclaimed by the German Student Union (DSt)  propaganda office. They distributed press releases to publicize the book burning rally as a literary "cleansing by fire" and invited prominent Nazi figures to speak at the rallies.  The DSt also published the "Twelve Theses" of the Nazi Party, which they equated with the ninety-five theses published by Martin Luther in 1520. (Luther was a central figure in the Protestant Reformation, whose views ran counter to that of the Catholic Church, and ultimately was excommunicated. He subsequently burned the papal bull in protest.)  There is no comparison with the Nazis,  because Luther's action was based on a symbolic protest, whereas the Nazis willfully destroyed public property, and threatened fundamental personal freedom of speech. The Nazis chose the Wartburg Festival, on its 300th anniversary of Luther's burning of the bull, to conduct their heinous acts. The German students burned tens of thousands of books from a list they compiled covering 4,000 titles.  The DSt Twelve Theses, called for the purification of the German language and culture in response to what they perceived as a world- wide Jewish smear campaign against Germany, and the Nazi affirmation of traditional values.

1934

Nazi Germany banned the film The Rise of Catherine the Great because its star and director were Jewish. On April 8, 1934, the Nazi SA units made sure that the film was banned in Germany. The 1934 film is a British historical version of the play The Czarina by Lajos Bíró and Melchior Lengyel, about the rise to power of Catherine the Great. It was directed by Paul Czinner, and stars Elisabeth Bergner as Catherine, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., as Grand Duke Peter, Dorothy Hale as Countess Olga, and Flora Robson as Empress Elizabeth. The film recounts the events that led to the rise of Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias. The scene opens with the arrival in 1744 of Princess Sophie Auguste Frederika – whose name would be changed to ‘Catherine’ – from her father’s court of Anhalt-Zerbst (in modern Germany) to the court of the Empress Elizabeth. "Little Catherine" is to marry the Grand Duke Peter, nephew and heir presumptive of the unmarried and childless Empress Elizabeth.

1939

Stanisław Mackiewicz was released from Bereza Kartuska Prison. He was imprisoned for having criticized the ruling elite, and was jailed for 17 days.  Bereza Kartuska camp was created on June 17, 1934 by the order of President Ignacy Mościcki,  to detain people who were viewed by the Polish state as a "threat to security, peace and social order" ( without formal charges or trial for three months, hence the possibility of prolonging the detention indefinitely). Originally, the detainees were only political opponents of the Sanacja regime, most notably communists, members of far-right parties, and Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalists, but as of October 1937, "notorious" and financial criminals were also sent to the camp. Detainees were supposed to perform penal labour, and at least 13 people died during their stay. It has been described as a concentration camp.

1940

The Polish submarine ORP Orzel, under British command, torpedoed and sunk the German troop transport MS Rio de Janeiro in the Skagerrak .  At 11.15 am, just hours before the German attack on Norway would began, a submarine surfaced and was sighted off Lillesand. The Germans thought it was a German submarine, but it turned out to be the Polish submarine ORP Orzeł, serving under British command.  Orzel had the number 85 A written on the tower (signifying that it was German-built).  Orzel signalled for Rio de Janeiro to stop, and the order was followed. Then Captain Grudzinski, of the Polish Navy, ordered the Rio de Janeiro to surrender or it would be sunk. When there was no response, Orzel torpedoed the ship. As the Rio took in water and began to sink, the crew and soldiers on board jumped overboard. At 12:40 Orzel submerged and torpedoed the ship a second time.  When the torpedo hit the ammunition depot, it caused an enormous explosion.  The few German survivors told the Allied authorities that the ship was headed for Bergen.  There were horses on board, and the dead (and survivors were wearing German military uniforms, indicated that a German invasion was  imminent.

1947

The Pohl Trial was the fourth of 12 trials of the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (not to be confused with the Nuremberg Trials). It was also called the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials". The trial was held from April 8 to November 3, 1947 during which 18 SS Nazi German officers were tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  The main charge was their active participation in carrying out the "Final Solution", the systematic extermination of the Jews. The accused were employed by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, ie, the "WVHA" which ran the concentration and extermination camps in German-occupied territories. The WVHA also handled the recruitment of the SS and Waffen, and the SS-Totenkopfverbande.   Four of the accused, including Oswald Pohl, were sentenced to death by hanging. Three were acquitted. The others received sentences between 10 years and life imprisonment. However, eight months later the judges received additional material presented by the defence and the court agreed to reconvene. After several weeks of re-examination the tribunal confirmed most of the sentences, made slight reductions in some of the other sentences, and changed the death sentence of Georg Lorner into life imprisonment. 

MARCH 5 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

MARCH 5

1813

Kazimierz Stanislaus Gzowski (dob) was an engineer best known for his work on a wide variety of Canadian railways as well as work on the Welland Canal. He also served as acting Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Ontario from 1896 to 1897. Gzowski was born in Saint Petersburg to a noble Polish father, Count Stanislaw Gzowski, who was Captain in the Russian Imperial Guard. During the Polish November Uprising Kazimierz served as combat engineer in rank of podporuchik in Polish army under the command Józef Dwernicki against Russians. He emigrated to Canada in 1841.

1940

The Katyn Massacre was perpetrated by Soviet NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps. His official document was approved and signed by Stalin. Of the total number of victims, about 8,000 were Polish officers arrested and during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland;  about 6,000 were Polish police, and the remainder were Polish intelligentsia whom the Soviets referred to as "intelligence agents, gendarmes, landowners, saboteurs, factory owners, lawyers, officials, and priests" The Nazi Germans announced that they discovered mass graves in the Katyn Forest in 1943 and blamed the Soviets for the crime. Stalin denied it and blamed the Nazi Germans for the killings. When the Polish Government-in-exile asked for an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross, Stalin immediately severed diplomatic relations with Poland. It wasn't until 1990 that the Soviet government officially admitted and condemned the NKVD as the perpetrator,  whose crimes were covered up by the Soviet government for decades.

1945

The 19th Army of the Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front captured Köslin. This battle was fought against the German Wehrmacht on the eastern front as part of the East Pomeranian Strategic Offensive.  It was followed by the Danzig Offensive Operation from March 7 to 31; the Arnswalde-Kolberg Offensive Operation from March 1 to 18; and the Altdamm Offensive Operation  from March 18 to April 4, 1945. The fighting in Danzig was the most savage. According to Soviet claim,  39,000 German soldiers were killed, and 10,000 captured.

1946

Churchill's famous Iron Curtain speech was delivered at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri. It sent shock waves throughout the world. Here is an excerpt of the speech:  ".... From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone -- Greece with its immortal glories -- is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy......"  Churchill was not surprised by this outcome as he and Roosevelt were well informed of Stalin's intentions at the Yalta Conference, and other conferences of the Big Three. Their impetus for bowing to Stalin's wishes is that they needed Russia to support the war effort,  and the west disseminated a flood of propaganda to persuade the world that Stalin was just a good ole boy, and even nicknamed him "Uncle Joe".  The reality was quite different. Stalin was a dictator and a ruthless killer. Stalin instigated the Cold War and threatened the world with communist expansion that was continued for more than three decades after his death.

1947

The Judge's Trial was the third of 12 trials of the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (not to be confused with the Nuremberg Trials). It was also called the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials". The trial was held from March 5 to December 4, 1947 at which the accused were 16 Nazi German jurists and lawyers. They were charged with crimes against humanity in the implementation of Nazi German "racial purity" programs through the eugenic and racial laws. Among the defendants, 10 were found guilty, 4 received sentences for lifetime imprisonment,  6 received prison sentences of varying lengths and 4 persons were acquitted of all charges.

JANUARY 6 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

JANUARY 6

1937

A riot between Poles and Jews took place at Czyżew, during a village fair.  The report read as follows: "Many Jews were injured today in riots in Czyzew, Bialystok district. Selig Jelin, 36, and Israel Baron, 58, were seriously wounded and taken to a hospital here. Jewish shops were closed and tonight no Jews in the town were venturing out of their homes. At the hospital it was stated Jelin was suffering from a fractured skull and was not expected to live. The disorders were believed to have been an act of revenge by Nationalists because two agitators in Czyzew had been placed in a concentration camp by the Government. " 

1940

Mass executions of Poles were committed by the Nazi Germans in the city of Poznań. Poznan was located in Warthegau, a territory established by the Germans in October 1939 in the western part of Poland. It was incorporated into the Reich.  More than 70,000 ethnic Poles were murdered there, others were sent to forced labor and Concentration Camps, while other Poles were persecuted by confiscation of Polish property, meager food rations, restriction of movement, closure of schools, and a ban on Polish language and culture. Warthegau was run by Arthur Greiser the Reich Governor of the territory. He was one of the Nazis primarily responsible for organizing the Holocaust in occupied Poland and numerous other crimes against humanity. He was arrested by the Americans in 1945, tried, convicted and executed by hanging in Poland in 1946.

1943

Jews in Opoczno, Poland were told by the Nazi Germans that those with family in Palestine would be deported there. 500 Jews came out from hiding to register and were sent to Treblinka Concentration Camp where they were gassed to death.

1944

Soviet Capture Ukraine Town:  Red Army units crossed the original 1939 Polish border, advancing nearly 200 miles in 2 weeks. They captured the town of Rokitno (now located in Western Ukraine.

1948

(additional post for January 6)

The Ministries Trial was the eleventh of 12 trials of the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (not to be confused with the Nuremberg Trials). It was also called the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials". The trial was held from January 6, 1948 to April 13, 1949 and was the longest of all the trials.  It was also referred to as the Wilhelmstrasse Trial, named after the German Foreign Office at Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin. The accused were officials from various ministries of the Reich. There were various charges against them including their responsibility for countless atrocities committed against civilians throughout German-occupied countries during the war. Of the 21 defendants, two were acquitted. The others were found guilty and received prison sentences from three to 25 years,  including time served.

JANUARY 2 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

JANUARY 2

1937

Poland received French loan:  French loan was accepted by the budget commission of the Sejm. (Note: In the early 1920s, the Polish government planned the construction of the Polish Coal Trunk-Line, a rail line connecting the Polish part of Upper Silesia with Baltic Sea coast. It was one of the largest investments of the Second Polish Republic, funded by the Polish government, until 1930. With the Great Depression looming over budgetary problems, and doubts over the completion of the project, the Polish government decided upon the French-Polish Rail Association to take over construction of middle sector of the line.)

1939

Father of Polish Nationalism: Roman Dmowski, a Polish politician and statesman died. He was called the "Father of Polish Nationalism". He was a controversial figure during his career, and since his death. He truly believed that only a Polish-speaking, Roman Catholic could be a "good Pole". Dmowski was openly anti-semitic. Dmowski admired Italian fascism. In the summer of 1926 Dmowski wrote a series of articles admiring Mussolini and the Italian fascist model, and helped organize the Camp of Great Poland (OWP), a broad anti-Sanacja front modeled on Italian fascism that was known for its anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence. Later he nonetheless tried to ensure that OWM would not blindly imitate the Italian or German models.

1944

A Soviet "liberation" The 1st Ukrainian Front captured Radovel northwest of Korosten and came within 18 miles of the pre-war Polish border


Operation Tempest was launched:. It consisted of a series of Polish anti-Nazi uprisings launched during World War II by the largest resistance movement in Poland, the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK). Operation Tempest (Polish: akcja „Burza”, sometimes referred in English as Operation Storm) was a series of anti-Nazi uprisings conducted during World War II by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK), the dominant force in the Polish resistance. The Polish resistance planned on seizing control of Nazi-occupied Polish cities and regions while the German armies were preparing their their defenses against the advancing Soviet Red Army. The civil authorities of the Polish underground anticipated taking back power before the arrival of the Soviets.

1945

Allies Raided Nuremberg: RAF bombers conducted heavy raids on Nuremberg and Ludwigshafen; in both cities over 2,300 tons of bombs were dropped. Some ninety percent of Nuremberg's old medieval town center was destroyed.

1947

(additional entry for January 2)

The Milch Trial was the second of 12 trials of the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (not to be confused with the Nuremberg Trials). It was also called the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials". In this trial, held from January 2 to April 14, 1947, SS Nazi Field Marshal of the Luftwaffe Erhard Milch was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Among the charges against Milch was his involvement in the use of prisoners as slave labor in Nazi German enterprises, subjecting prisoners to fatal medical experiments, and forcing prisoners to participate in war operations in violation of the Geneva convention. On April 17, 1947, Milch was sentenced to life imprisonment at Rebdorf Prison, near Munich. However, in 1951 his sentence was commuted to 15 years of imprisonment.  Then, in June 1954 he was paroled and became a free man. He lived the rest of his life n Dusseldorf, and died in 1972.