dated March 1944 which includes Bialystok District (top-right, light blue)
Administration After the start of
Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union in June 1941, the invading Wehrmacht soldiers murdered 379 people, 'pacified' 30 villages, burned down 640 houses and 1,385 industrial buildings in the area.
Police Battalion 309 burned about 2000 Jews in
Great Synagogue, Białystok on 27 June 1941. The first decree for the implementation of civil administration in these newly occupied territories was issued on 17 July 1941. It was announced that the Bialystok district would implement civil administration at a time to be determined. On 22 July, Hitler announced that from 1 August, Erich Koch would take over the Bialystok district and demarcate the borders of the district. It was simultaneously excluded from the operational zones of the German Army in the Soviet Union. At the same time, some small areas to the east of the 1939–1941 German-Soviet border were incorporated into the East Prussian district of Scharfenwiese (now
Ostrołęka). With this the city of Scharfenwiese henceforth held more hinterland to the east. on 15 August, he was appointed as
Chief of Civil Administration (
Chef der Zivilverwaltung) of Bialystok District. During this period, he also was the
Gauleiter of the
Gau East Prussia,
Oberpräsident of the Prussian
Province of East Prussia, and
Reichskommissar in
Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Day-to-day activities were handled by his permanent deputy head of the
Nazi Party in
Königsberg, East Prussia,
Waldemar Magunia from 15 August 1941 to 31 January 1942. He was replaced from 1 February 1942 to 27 July 1944 by
Friedrich Brix, Landrat (District Mayor) of
Tilsit. In addition, SS and security forces were under the direct command of the
SS and Police Leader (SSPF) of the District. This officer commanded all SS personnel and police in his jurisdiction, including the
Ordnungspolizei (Orpo; regular uniformed police), the
SD (
intelligence service) and the
SiPo (security police), which included the
Gestapo (
secret police). The commanders were SS-
Standartenführer Werner Fromm (January 1942 – January 1943), SS-
Brigadeführer Otto Hellwig (May 1943 – July 1944) and SS-
Oberführer Heinz Roch (July – October 1944). The SSPF reported to the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) of
Russland Mitte (Central Russia) headquartered in
Mogilev until July 1943 and thereafter in
Minsk. This was SS-
Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (May 1941 – June 1944) and then SS-
Obergruppenführer Curt von Gottberg (June – August 1944). The center of administration for the district was the Polish city of
Białystok. The area had a population of 1,383,000 inhabitants, which included 980,000 (70.9%) ethnic
Poles, 200,000 (14.5%)
Belarusians, 120,000 (8.7%)
Jews, 80,000 (5.8%)
Ukrainians, and 2,000 (0.1%) ethnic
Germans. Shortly after the front passed, engineer Czesław Chaniawko (delegated by the Belarusian pro-German circles) arrived from Warsaw to Białystok, who led to the establishment of the Belarusian National Committee. The next chairman of the committee was Teodor Ilyashevich, who later also headed the Belarusian Union (established in the first half of 1943 from the transformation of the Belarusian Committee). The committee mainly focused on Belarusian intelligentsia, and a significant part of the Orthodox clergy cooperated with it. He undertook intensive propaganda activities and in the fields of education and culture, and at the end of March 1942 he published the weekly
Nowaya Daroga (). Belarusian activists also took on a number of functions in the strictly subordinated to German administrative authorities, including becoming mayors in Białystok (Wasyl Łukaszyk), Bielsk Podlaski (Jarosław Kostycewicz) and Narewka (Piotr Kabac).
Nazi repressions Until the end of July 1941, the city of Białystok was under controlled by
Wehrmacht, it was then subordinated to the civil administration. Shortly before the handover, General
Max von Schenckendorff, commander of
Army Group Centre Rear Area ordered the
Order Police battalions, which were part of
Police Regiment Centre, to embark on pacification operations against civilians in the Białystok district. On 25 July 1941, police units commanded by Colonel Max Montua forced 183 families from the villages of
Budy,
Pogorzelce, and
Teremiski in the
Białowieża Forest. They were forcibly moved to
Pruzhany. The next day, they drove 1,240 people out of the villages around Narewka. In the following days, further populations from the towns of Leśna, Mikłaszew, Olchówka and Zabrod were made to leave. Another 1133 people were displaced to the vicinity of Zabłudów. The brutal
Police Battalion 322 burned 12 Polish and Belarusian villages, shot 42 people in the
Lacka Forest near
Waniek and more in the
Osuszek forest near the village of
Piliki. Scrambling to meet this "new threat", Gestapo headquarters formed
Kommando SS Zichenau-Schroettersburg which departed from sub-station Schröttersburg (
Płock) under the leadership of SS-
Obersturmführer Hermann Schaper (born 1911) with express mission to murder Jews, communists and the NKVD collaborators across the local villages and towns. On 3 July additional formation of
Schutzpolizei arrived in Białystok, summoned from the General Government. It was led by SS-
Hauptsturmführer Wolfgang Birkner, veteran of
Einsatzgruppe IV from the
Polish Campaign of 1939. The relief unit, called
Kommando Bialystok, was sent in by SS-
Obersturmbannfuhrer Eberhard Schöngarth on orders from the
Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), due to reports of Soviet guerrilla activity in the area with Jews being of course immediately suspected of helping them out. The first stage of the Nazi persecutions mainly involved applying collective punishment to various villages where any form of real-or-imagined threat had been identified. Terror operations were enacted to prevent assistance to independence movements but mostly to round-up and persecute local Jews. Targeted buildings were being destroyed, possessions robbed, communities mass murdered or sent to labor camps or prisons. SS-
Gruppenführer Nebe reported to Berlin on 14 November 1941 that, up to then 45,000 persons had been eliminated. including its surroundings, were transferred from the
Reichskommissariat Ostland to Bialystok. Already on 27 June 1941, a camp for
Soviet prisoners of war was established in Bialystok named Stalag 57. On 1 August 1942, it was renamed
Stalag 316. It was located in the former barracks of the
10th Lithuanian Uhlan Regiment at 70 Kawaleryjska Street. It was the first one of its kind, except for the makeshift camp that was set up in September 1939 in the building of the Secondary School No. 6. Up to twelve thousand people could stay there at one time. Prisoners were used for construction works at the nearby
"Krywlany" airport. Tens of thousands of people passed through the camp, of which approximately 3,000 were killed. After its liquidation in 1943, a transit camp was set up there for the Jewish population. Several other camps were also established: a transitional camp for people taken to forced labor into the Third Reich consisting of 3 barracks, a penal camp in Starosielce located in the triangle between the railway lines Białystok - Ełk and Białystok - Warsaw, and the "Zielona" penal camp located between Zaścianki and the Skorupa district where people were arrested for violating German regulations, such as being late for work or alcohol abuse. Following the German occupation, most Jews had been rounded up and forced into some 60
ghettos throughout the District. On 2 November 1942 Nazi SS and police forces, in a coordinated operation with help from the local gendarmerie, suddenly encircled and quarantined all the ghettos. Between November 1942 and February 1943, approximately 100,000 Jews in the District, including some 10,000 from Bialystok proper, were sent to the
Treblinka and
Auschwitz death camps. The final liquidation of the
Białystok Ghetto took place in August 1943, when the remaining 30,000 Jews there were sent to be murdered.
Resistance The
Home Army operated within the Bialystok District. Aside from attacking the occupying forces, it ran intelligence and propaganda networks and collected a
V2-rocket, parts of which were
transported to London. The
National Armed Forces branch was established in the region, with the initiative to establish the NSZ came from the
Military Organization Lizard Union. The Lizard Union envoy, 2nd Lt. Feliks Mazurek, pseudonym "Zych", began talks with representatives of the . As a result of the talks, the
National Armed Forces branch was established in the region. Initially, the ranks of this organization included the Białystok ZJ and KZ Districts, as well as small groups from the Eastern Combat Organization, the
Defenders of Poland Command, the Union for the Reconstruction of the Republic, and the Home Army. During the night of 15–16 August 1943, the
Białystok Ghetto Uprising began. This was an insurrection in Poland's
Białystok Ghetto by several hundred Polish Jews who began an armed struggle against the German troops finishing off the liquidation of the people still living in the Ghetto. This Ghetto's victims were ultimately destined for the
Treblinka extermination camp. It was organized and led by
Antyfaszystowska Organizacja Bojowa, an organisation that was part of the
Anti-Fascist Block, and was the second largest
ghetto uprising, after the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. In July 1943, the
Striking Cadre Battalions units, active in
Bezirk Bialystok, consisted of five Battalions. Altogether, there were 200 fighters, and during a number of skirmishes with the Germans (including the
Raid on Mittenheide in 1943), 138 of them were killed. These heavy losses were criticized by the headquarters of the
Home Army, who claimed that the UBK was profusely using lives of young Polish soldiers. On 17 August 1943, upon the order of General
Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski, the UBK was included into the
Home Army. Soon afterwards, all battalions were transferred to the area of
Nowogródek. On 20 October 1943, the southern border between the East Prussian district Sudauen (
Suwałki) in the Province of East Prussia and the Bialystok District was adjusted and moved back to the northern side of the
Augustów Canal. " In preparation for the
Operation Tempest, smaller groups in Białystok District also joined the Home Army, but with significant clandestine achievements to their credit, such as the Independent Poland and the Combat Organization "Wschód". After the arrest in April 1943 and subsequent execution in
Nowosiółki of W. Praga and , the activities of the
Polish People's Party and the Peasant Battalions ceased. Polish socialists had already dispersed earlier, and in general, in the
territories incorporated into the USSR in 1939, no units of the
Gwardia Ludowa and the
People's Army or the
Polish Workers' Party were formed. However, after the severe blows inflicted by the Soviet occupier, the political structures of the nationalists were partially reborn. Initially, the strongest was the
National Military Organization, but it was broken up by the NKVD in 1940, so the youth group moved to the
Military Organization Lizard Union the following year. In January 1944, the region's Home Army began participating in
Operation Tempest launching a series of uprisings throughout Białystok. In July and August 1944, the territory of Bialystok District was taken over by the
Red Army up to the Narew-Bobr line. The government seat for the Chief of Civil Administration was then moved to
Bartenstein. In January 1945, the Red Army overran the last areas of Bialystok District, namely the remaining parts of the districts
Łomża and
Grajewo, driving the Germans completely out of the territory. At the end of May 1944, the
Government Delegate for the Białystok Voivodeship, Józef Przybyszewski, a prominent activist of the National Party, arrived in Białystok. The Białystok Voivode settled in the
St. Roch rectory with Father
Adam Abramowicz, who provided him with all-round assistance. Przybyszewski, wanting to strengthen national influence in the ranks of the Home Army, led to the commencement of talks between representatives of the district commands of NOW and NSZ in 1944. The talks led to the unification of both organizations. The talks were facilitated by the situation in the National Armed Forces. The division into NSZ-ZJ and NSZ-AK also affected the District. Boleslaw Kozlowski ("Grot") and Waclaw Nestorowicz ("Kalina"), opponents of Stanislaw Nakoniecznikow ("Kilinski") sided with NSZ-NOW. The envoy of the NSZ-AK Headquarters established a new district command, appointing Captain Waclaw Nestorowicz as acting commander. Meanwhile, in Białystok, Roman Jastrzebski ("Ślepowron"), supported by supporters of Stanislaw Nakoniecznikow ("Kmicic"), took over as commander. There were therefore two district commands of NSZ. The organizational breakdown and chaos reigning in the ranks of this organization facilitated an agreement between the two national organizations, while at the same time giving the NOW activists an advantage. ==References==