They were the first.
Displacement history of Gdynia was little known and
marginalized for many years. Currently only different actions are taken in
documenting the tragic fate of Gdynia. An important role in this field meets,
among others Museum of the City of Gdynia, where in 2009, including you could
see the exhibition "Gdynia 1939. The fate of the City and the People
". Time to document is less and less. Wanes witnesses and participants in
those events.
Nazi plans
Hitler's Third Reich, from its
inception sought to territorial changes that would result in separation from
the Polish Pomerania, Silesia and Greater Poland. To 31 August 1939 tried to
realize their aspirations through political, and from September 1 through armed
aggression. At first, the Germans decided to liquidate the Polish intelligentsia,
and then make the resettlement of Polish people from the Polish lands that had
previously belonged to the Prussian province. With Pomerania were to be
expelled all the Poles who came there after 1919. In this way, the plans were
to be implemented germanization these lands and settle on them a significant
number of Germans. September 21, 1939 at a conference held in Berlin, the
commander of the police operation groups SS (Einzatzgruppen) and the security
service SD (Sicherheitsdienst - SD), acting on the back of an German army
fighting in Poland, received the order to prepare proposals for the mass
deportations of Poles and Jews. Previously - September 11 – Heinrich Himmler
authorized security service (SD) to start expulsions of Polish people from the
area of Gdansk, Gdynia and Poznan. In place of the Poles planned to settle the
displaced Germans from the Baltic countries.
Banished
Planned by the Nazis shares
started in early October 1939. in Gdynia - Orlowo. The expulsion of Gdynia
associated with the intention to settle the city, important for sea defense
industry (Gdynia became a Navy base), as many Germans. By the end of October
1939 Gdynia left 50 000 people.
The announcement of 12 October
1939 SS police president Christoph Diehm Brigadefuehrer ordered:
"Due to the security command
of the Polish population's evacuation Orlowo excluding Kolibki and Little Kack
to Thursday 12 October 1939 at. 9:00.
First Population meet at 9 th
Street Orlowska in front of the Board of Civil.
The houses should be left open.
Keys must remain in the home door locks, flats and rooms. Re-entry to the
apartment after 9 : 00 am is considered sabotage.
Generally only allowed to take
hand luggage (clothes, linen, cutlery and personal valuables). All furniture
and equipment belonging to the apartment must be left in a residential area.
The destruction of homes and
their equipment shall be considered sabotage.
Who commits acts of sabotage
against the ban and who still has a weapon it will be shot. "
Inhabitants of Orlowo, totally
surprised, had 20 minutes to leave the apartment. Longer staying in the house
was considered sabotage and threatened with death. On 12 October a total of
4,000 people were displaced, including 1300 children. Some of these people were
placed in temporary barracks located in the outlying districts of Gdynia, and
some quartered in the homes of Polish families. After organizing transport were
deported to the General Government.
The Nazis tried to give the
appearance of a voluntary expulsion. On a specially designated police stations
were given numbered and signed by the President of the police tickets, which
also accounted for the border pass entitling to cross the border, it was said,
"to the home country." Gdynia inhabitants used some of these passes,
and some moved to other areas of the city, in order to protect themselves from
deportation. Familiar with the situation, the German authorities, 24 October
1939 issued "The last regulation" which called on all Poles to
voluntarily leave Gdynia. Disobedient were to be forcibly evicted.
Displaced residents gathered at
the station from the street Albert Forster Strasse (today: Sea Street) and from
there, after a review of personal, daily goods train were taken to the General
Government. In this way up to 26 October 1939 forcibly evicted from Gdynia more
than 12,000 inhabitants, and "voluntarily" left the city of about
38,000 people. Those who remained were forced to leave their homes and live on
the outskirts of the city. Further deportations were carried out in May 1940
and then in September and October 1940 carrying out mass deportations 22,000
people. No workers in German industry and the situation at the front caused the
March 16, 1941 Nazi authorities issued the decree to suspend shipments of the
General Government, in this way stopping the mass deportations of Poles in
Gdynia.
Report
The best example of a situation
in which they left Germany Gdynia people thrown from their homes can only be a
direct participant's account of those events. The relationship of the materials
published in the scientific session, issued by the Association of Displaced
Gdynia Inhabitants. The session took place on 19 December 2002 in Gdynia. Says
Helena Szwichtenberg from Gdynia:
"In our house, at the tenant
Mr. Wisniewski, lived German woman named Emma, who after the German
invasion hung the Hakenkreuz flag from our house and put the poster on the door
of the house and leaving the immediate deportation. Subsequently on 25-10-1939,
early in the morning, when I slept, broke into our apartment with two Gestapo.
With shouts of "raus" jerking us, and then thrown out of the house.
He barely let us get dressed. Brought us to the displaced columns on the Sea
Street and under the guns brought to the train station in Gdynia. The key had
to be in the apartment door. We were without any luggage, because we were not
allowed to take anything. We were cold, and hungry. It was the end of October.
My parents left their belongings whole life: psrcel of land, house and
everything in it was. Then we were thrown into a force for cattle, dirty,
windowless wagons, how many were able to thrust.
During the trip we were
constantly watched by the Gestapo in the booths at the side of the wagon. We
did not know where we were going, often leave it for siding and watched. Not
opened the door. The journey took about seven to ten days. It was very cold, we
were hungry much. He was crying and panic. There were dead bodies, especially
infants and the elderly. It was November 1939. Finally, let us out in Lublin.
There, we did not know what to do, what to do next, where to go - starvation.
We did not have anything to disguise. We have stayed at the station and
tunnels, while begging for food and cover ... We wandered on different sides of
the General Government seeking rationale, asking people for help, picking ears
of corn and frozen potatoes ... Finally, we found ourselves in the vicinity of
Sandomierz in the village Lenarczyce. In December 1943 we were arrested by the
Germans for the second time. As the internees were deported to the camp in
Czestochowa transition, where we passed the selection along with the Jews and
the people of the round-up. We assigned to forced labor for the German Otto
Grodeck demand in district Olszowka near Tczew. There as a minor I worked very
hard until the liberation ... ".
Result
It is difficult to determine,
even approximately, the number of Poles expelled from Pomerania, including
Gdynia, after the 1 September 1939. The publications of various historians this
number is determined on the 120 to 170 thousand people. It is also difficult to
find the number of displaced people from the same Gdynia. It is probably
connected with the lack of documentation in this regard. The Association of
Displaced Gdynia Inhabitants says about 100 thousand Poles were expelled from
Gdynia. Even if anyone wanted to discuss these data do not change the
fact that Gdynia were the first victims of mass expulsions used by the
Nazis against the Poles. Expulsions, which bore the hallmarks of extermination.
And as the extermination of the Polish people should be treated.
ws
Photos from the exhibition at the
Museum of the City of Gdynia.
