AUGUST 10 - DAY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

AUGUST 10

1938

Destruction of Synagogue in Nuremberg: On the orders of Nazi Streicher, the Great Synagogue and the adjacent Jewish community building were torn down, under the pretext “that they were spoiling the look of the city.” The synagogue’s Jewish Stone, a remnant of a medieval synagogue that served as the base for the Holy Ark, was saved by a non-Jewish architect.  Jews had lived in Nuremberg from the 12th century, and through their trades and professions brought a period of prosperity and growth to the city. Unfortunately there were also episodes of riots, expulsions,and pogroms. The Jews were the second largest community of Nuremberg but in 1923, their plight took a turn for the worst when Julius Streicher founded the newspaper Der Sturmer, a periodical notorious for its hatred towards the Jews. (Moreover, it is important to note that the city of Nuremberg was highly regarded by the Nazi German regime as it equated the city with the glory of the Holy Roman Empire. For that reason, it became the site of massive Nazi Party rallies.)

1939

The Battle of Wizna (September 7 and September 10, 1939) was fought during the initial stages of the Invasion of Poland, as Polish forces battled against the German onslaught.  Between 350 and 720 Polish troops fiercely defended a fortified line for three days against 40,000 Germans. Though defeat was imminent the Polish defence was able to delay the encirclement of the Independent Operational Group Narew which was fighting nearby.  Eventually the German tanks broke through and eliminated the Polish bunkers. The last bunker surrendered on August 10, 1939.

1944

PERSONAL AND MOST SECRET MESSAGE FROM Mr CHURCHILL TO MARSHAL STALIN  (no.316)   "I am very much obliged to you for your telegram of August 8th about the Poles. I am very glad that you brought both sides together. Undoubtedly an advance has been made towards our common goal. I share your hope that the business will go better in future.  Another effort was made by Polish aviators last night to carry some more ammunition to Warsaw. It is claimed that this was delivered. I am so glad to learn that you are sending supplies yourself. Anything you feel able to do will be warmly appreciated by your British friends and Allies....."
(August 10, 1944)

AUGUST 9 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

AUGUST 9

1937

Top Secret Soviet NKVD Order No. 00485, called "On the liquidation of the Polish diversionist and espionage groups and POW units" (POW stood for Polish Military Organization). It was approved by Nikolai Yezhov, the Party's Central Committee Politburo and distributed to the local subdivisions of the NKVD with Yezhov's thirty-page secret letter entitled, " On Fascist-Resurrectionist, Spying, Diversional, Defeationist and Terrorist Activity of Polish Intelligence in the USSR".   The order targeted "absolutely all  Poles"  for arrest and immediate execution, to be carried out by the NKVD , in particular those Poles who were "....prisoners of war from the Polish army who after the 1920 war had remained in the Soviet Union, deserters and political émigrés from Poland [such as Polish communists admitted through prisoners' exchange], former members of the Polish Socialist Party and other anti-Soviet political parties; and the inhabitants of Polish districts in border regions....." and confirmed that "all Poles should be completely destroyed."  A secret letter from Ezhov was attached specifying various excuses to be used against the Poles, in other words, accusations were fabricated.  According to Soviet archived documents, the anti-Polish operation targeted  139,815 people, 111,071 of whom were condemned to death without trial and executed immediately afterwards.

1942

200 Jews escaped Mir Ghetto:  Mir Ghetto was located in what is now Belarus. During the first half of 1942, the younger Jews formed an underground resistance, but faced difficulty obtaining weapons. Eventually they broke out and made their way through a cornfield into the nearest woods.  Of the 200 that escaped, many had been killed by the Nazis, while others had joined the partisans to fight against German-occupation.

1944

Warsaw Radio Blyskawica:   The Polish Home Army assembled the Blyskawica long range radio transmitter on August 7, 1944 in the city centre of Warsaw. It was operational on August 9, 1944 and began making three to four daily broadcast transmissions, reporting news programmes, government reports, patriotic poems, music, and frequent appeals "to all countries in the free world" for urgent assistance (broadcast in Polish, English, German and French)  It was the only underground radio station operating regularly in German-occupied Europe. The radio program included speakers such as Jan Nowak-Jeziorański,  Zbigniew Świętochowski, Stefan Sojecki, Jeremi Przybora, and John Ward.  Ward was a British officer and war correspondent for The Times of London. He remained in Warsaw throughout the Uprising, and made daily broadcast reports (in English) of all events on the front lines.  (Editors Note:  I have posted the text of each of Wards broadcasts, in my special series "Warsaw Uprising Day by Day". Please refer to the Complete Index of Blog Posts for this series.)   The first words of the broadcast were delivered by Zbigniew Świętochowski as follows:  "Hallo, here is Błyskawica speaking! A radio transmitter of the Home Army in Warsaw, on 32.8 and 52.1 meter bands.  The spirit of Warsaw is wonderful. The women of Warsaw are wonderful.  They are everywhere, in the front line together with soldiers as nurses or liaison officers.  Even children are animated by a wonderful spirit of bravery. We greet all freedom-loving people of the world!  Polish soldiers who fight in Italy, Polish pilots and mariners."  (Radio Blyskawicz also broadcast a subversive program on a different frequency which they addressed the Wehrmacht. )

Liquidation of the Jews from Lodz Ghetto: From August 9 to 29, 1944,  about 67,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz to be exterminated.  The total number of Jews liquidated (January 1942 to August 1944) was 143,000 to 145,000.  Lodz Ghetto was the second-largest ghetto in all of German-occupied Europe after the Warsaw Ghetto.  The Nazis original plan for Ghetto was to be used as a preliminary step in a more elaborate plan to liquidate all the Jews from the province of Warthegau. But the Ghetto was transformed into a massive industrial complex, utilizing forced labor to produce war materiel for the Wehrmacht.  The Lodz Ghetto managed to survive until August 1944 because of its productivity. Within the first two years, the Ghetto incorporated another 20,000 Jews from nearby liquidated ghettos, in addition to 20,000 from the rest of German-occupied Europe.  The remaining population of the Lodz Ghetto was transported to Auschwitz and Chelmno extermination camps. It was the last ghetto to be liquidated in German-occupied Poland.


The Battle of Studzianki began in Poland. It was a tactical engagement between troops of the Soviet Red Army's 2nd Guards Tank Army employed as a cavalry mechanized group of the 1st Belorussian Front, and elements of the German 9th Army of the Army Group North Ukraine defending the area south of Warsaw. The battle was part of the Soviet Lublin–Brest Offensive and was supported by the First Polish Army, including its 1st Armoured Brigade. The Soviet and Polish forces successfully held the bridgehead the German forces suffered heavy casualties before withdrawing (at least 40 tanks, 26 guns and mortars, and 9 APCs.)

1945

U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki (the "Fat Man")  The USAAF dropped another atomic bomb, this time on Nagasaki, though the original target was the city of Kokura.  The original target had to be abandoned due to heavy cloud covering about 70% of the city.  After a delay of fifty minutes, the decision was made to drop the bomb on Nagasaki. It too was shielded by cloud cover but at the last minute there was a clearing in the clouds.  The bomb was dropped by the B-29 Superfortress named Bockscar (named after its pilot, Captain Frederick C. Bock),  who flew The Great Artiste with his crew on the mission. Bockscar was flown by Major Charles W. Sweeney and his crew, with Commander Frederick L. Ashworth from Project Alberta as the weaponeer in charge of the bomb. When the Fat Man was dropped,  following a 43-second free fall, it exploded at 11:02 local time, at an altitude of about 1,650 feet (500 m).  Casualties were approximately 35,000 to 40,000 people killed outright; many more died later from blast related and burn injuries.  A total of 60,000–80,000 deaths occurred over the long term due to the effects of radiation exposure.   At 12 noon on August 14, 1945,  Emperor Hirohito broadcast his message of surrender to the Allies.

AUGUST 8 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

AUGUST 8

1940

Romanian government passed legislation that Jews who converted to Christianity would be regarded as Jews for legal purposes, and barred from marriage with ethnic Christians; by defining Jews not based on religion this was "the first step, and a large one at that, to further racial legislation"

1944

Polish troops fought in Normandy in Operation Totalize:  It was an offensive launched by Allied troops of the First Canadian Army during the later stages of Operation Overlord, from August 8 to 9,  1944. The mission was to break through German front lines south of Caen on the eastern flank of the allied positions in Normandy and exploit success by driving south to capture the high ground north of the city of Falaise. The II Canadian Corps, consisted of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division, 51st (Highland) Infantry Division, 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division, 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade and the British 33rd Armoured Brigade as well as the 1st Polish Armoured Division.


SECRET AND PERSONAL FROM PREMIER J. V. STALIN TO THE PRIME MINISTER, Mr W. CHURCHILL (no, 315)  "I should like to inform you of my meeting with Mikolajczyk, Grabski and Romer. My talk with Mikolajczyk convinced me that he has inadequate information about the situation in Poland. At the same time I had the impression that Mikolajczyk is not against ways being found to unite the Poles.  As I do not think it proper to impose any decision on the Poles, I suggested to Mikolajczyk that he and his colleagues should meet and discuss their problems with representatives of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, first and foremost the matter of early unification of all democratic forces on liberated Polish soil. Meetings have already taken place. I have been informed of them by both parties. The National Committee delegation suggested the 1921 Constitution as a basis for the Polish Government and expressed readiness if the Mikolajczyk group acceded to the proposal, to give it four portfolios, including that of Prime Minister for Mikolajczyk. Mikolajczyk, however, could not see his way to accept. I regret to say the meetings have not yet yielded the desired results. Still, they were useful because they provided Mikolajczyk and Morawski, as well as Bierut who had just arrived from Warsaw, with the opportunity for an exchange of views and particularly for informing each other that both the Polish National Committee and Mikolajczyk are anxious to co-operate and to seek practical opportunities in that direction. That can be considered as the first stage in the relations between the Polish Committee and Mikolajczyk and his colleagues. Let us hope that things will improve."  (August 8, 1944)

1945

The Nuremberg Charter was issued, setting down the laws and procedures by which the Nuremberg Trials were to be conducted. The charter stipulated that crimes of the European Axis Powers could be tried. Three categories of crimes were defined: crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Article 8 of the charter also stated that holding an official position was not considered a defense to war crimes. Obedience to orders could only be considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determined that justice so required. The Charter was created by the European Advisory Commission under the authority of the Moscow Declaration: Statement on Atrocities, agreed upon at the Moscow Conference of 1943.  The charter was drafted by Robert H. Jackson, Robert Falco and Iona Nikitchenko of the European Advisory Commission and issued on August 8, 1945.