This source edition on the persecution and murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany presents in a total of 16 volumes a thematically comprehensive selection of documents on the Holocaust. The work illustrates the contemporary contexts, the dynamics, and the intermediate stages of the political and social processes that led to this unprecedented mass crime. It can be used by teachers, researchers, students, and all other interested parties. The edition comprises authentic testimony by persecutors, victims, and onlookers. These testimonies are furnished with academic annotations and the vast majority of them are published here for the first time in English. Learn more about the PMJ on https://pmj-documents.org/

Executive editor: Ingo Loose; English-language edition prepared by: Elizabeth Harvey, Russell Alt-Haaker, Johannes Gamm, Georg Felix Harsch, Dorothy Mas, and Caroline Pearce This source edition on the persecution and murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany presents in a total of 16 volumes a thematically comprehensive selection of documents on the Holocaust. The work illustrates the contemporary contexts, the dynamics, and the intermediate stages of the political and social processes that led to this unprecedented mass crime. It can be used by teachers, researchers, students, and all other interested parties. The edition comprises authentic testimony by persecutors, victims, and onlookers. These testimonies are furnished with academic annotations and the vast majority of them are published here for the first time in English. Learn more about the PMJ on https://pmj-documents.org/

Executive editor: Klaus-Peter Friedrich; English-language edition prepared by: Elizabeth Harvey, Russell Alt-Haaker, Johannes Gamm, Georg Felix Harsch, Dorothy Mas, and Caroline Pearce This volume, the first of three in the series focusing on the persecution and murder of the Jews in occupied Poland, documents the developments from the attack on Poland in September 1939 up to July 1941. It covers the territories of western and northern Poland annexed to the Reich as well as the General Government. With the attack on Poland, around two million Polish Jews came under German rule. Jews were immediately subjected to stigmatization and humiliation, exposed to arbitrary acts of violence, deprived of their livelihoods, subjected to forced labour and forcibly displaced. In July 1940, a report by representatives of Polish Jews on the situation in the annexed territories of Poland sent to the US embassy in Berlin described a ‘downcast, stigmatized Jewish population’, terrorized and powerless in face of displacement, expulsions and the increasing incarceration of the Jewish population in ghettos, and it predicted that ‘the process of destruction is not yet complete’. The volume documents the drive by the occupiers systematically to confiscate the property of the Polish Jews, and the different, often chaotic and conflicting strategies for displacing Jews in the annexed territories and in the General Government. The volume shows a range of reactions by the non-Jewish population of Poland to the escalating persecution of the Polish Jews. It also shows the efforts by Jewish organizations to publicize their plight abroad, to withstand the onslaught on their communities and to manage daily life in the increasingly desperate conditions of the ghettos. Learn more about the PMJ on https://pmj-documents.org/

The first authoritative, comprehensive historical dictionary of Poland in English, this volume includes over 2,000 entries on people, events, places, and terms important to Poland's history from 966 to 1945. Entries include English and Polish language bibliographic sources. The student of Polish history seeking specific information on a person or event in medieval times, the troubled era leading to the late 18th century partitions of Poland, and the Polish nationalist struggles before 1919, reborn Poland in the interwar years, or the trauma of World War II will be amply rewarded by the accurate, concise information provided in this unique historical dictionary. Each of the alphabetically arranged entries is followed by pertinent bibliographic sources in both English and Polish languages. A list of abbreviations, a note on the Polish alphabet, and a series of historical maps precede the entries. Helpful cross-references are provided throughout the text and in the index. A general bibliography precedes the index. After five years of work, George Lerski completed the original manuscript in 1992, shortly before his untimely death. The special editing subsequently undertaken preparatory to publication has remained faithful to the original work, its concept, organization, and purpose.

This pioneering volume will interest scholars of eastern European history and Holocaust studies, as well as those with an interest in refugee and migration issues.

'Many books claim to tell an "unknown" story of the Second World War. Few of them actually do. Forgotten Bastards is a rare exception . . . This is gripping history' Duncan Weldon, Prospect A riveting story of World War II from the author of Chernobyl, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction In November 1943, with the outcome of the Second World War hanging in the balance, the Allies needed a new plan. The Americans' audacious suggestion to the Soviets was to open a second air front, with the US Air Force establishing bases in Soviet-controlled territory. Despite Stalin's obvious reservations about the presence of foreign troops in Russia, he was persuaded. Operation Baseball and then Frantic were initiated in early 1944 as B-17 Superfortresses were flown from bases in Italy to the Poltova region in today's Ukraine. Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy tells the gripping, little-known story of this encounter between American and Soviet soldiers and how their collaboration quickly fell apart, mirroring the transition from the Grand Alliance to the Cold War. Soviet secret policemen watched over the Americans, shadowing their every move. A catastrophic air raid by the Germans revealed the limitations of Soviet air defences. As their initial enthusiasm turned into disappointment, the American soldiers started calling themselves the Forgotten Bastards of Ukraine. Ultimately, no common purpose could overcome their cultural and political differences. Drawing on newly opened Russian archives as well as CIA records, Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front offers a riveting bottom-up history of one of the Second World War's most unlikely alliances.

This book examines Nazi Germany's expansion, population management and establishment of a racially stratified society within the Reichsgaue (Reich Districts) of Wartheland and Danzig-West Prussia in annexed Poland (1939-1945) through a colonial lens. The topic of the Holocaust has thus far dominated the scholarly debate on the relevance of colonialism for our understanding of the Nazi regime. However, as opposed to solely concentrating on violence to investigate whether the Holocaust can be located within wider colonial frameworks, Rachel O'Sullivan utilizes a broader approach by investigating other aspects, such as discourses and fantasies related to expansion, settlement, 'civilising missions' and Germanisation, which were also intrinsic to Nazi Germany's rule in Poland. The resettlement of the ethnic Germans-individuals of German descent who lived in Eastern Europe until the outbreak of the Second World War-forms a main focal point for this study's analysis and investigation of colonial comparisons. The ethnic German resettlement in the Reichsgaue laid the foundations for the establishment and enforcement of German society and culture, while simultaneously intensifying the efforts to control Poles and remove Jews. Through this case study, O'Sullivan explores Nazi Germany's dual usage of inclusionary policies, which attempted to culturally and linguistically integrate ethnic Germans and certain Poles into German society, and the contrasting exclusionary policies, which sought to rid annexed Poland of 'undesirable' population groups through segregation, deportation and murder. The book compares these policies - and the tactics used to implement them - to colonial and settler colonial methods of assimilation, subjugation and violence.

Along with thousands of his compatriots, Wladyslaw Anders was imprisoned by the Soviets when they attacked Poland with their German allies in 1939. They endured terrible treatment until the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 suddenly put Stalin in the Allied camp, after which they were evacuated to Iran and formed into the Polish Second Corps under Anders command.Once equipped and trained, the corps was eventually committed to the Italian campaign, notably at Monte Cassino. The author assesses Anders performance as a military commander, finding him merely adequate, but his political role was more significant and caused friction in the Allied camp. From the start he often opposed Sikorski, the Polish Prime Minister in exile and Commander in Chief of Polish armed forces in the West. Indeed, Anders was suspected of collusion in Sikorskis death in July 1943 and of later sending Polish death squads into Poland to eliminate opponents, charges that Evan McGilvray investigates. Furthermore, Anders voiced his deep mistrust of Stalin and urged a war against the Soviets after the defeat of Hitler.

In the spring of 1940, the Soviet Union carried out the mass executions of 14,500 Polish prisoners of war - army officers, police, gendarmes, and civilians - taken by the Red Army when it invaded eastern Poland in September 1939. This work details the Soviet killings, the elaborate cover-up of the crime, and the subsequent revelations.

World War II defined the 20th century and shaped many events, from the decolonization of Africa to the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall. This encyclopedia offers a focused overview of this complex and volatile era, the circumstances that led up to war, the underlying causes, its unfolding and consequences. Organized for quick and precise access More than 1300 entries by 150 experts are arranged in six sections for easy reference and consultation. All the key ideas, events, actions, weapons, individuals, and organizations that played vital roles in the war are covered, from the Axis Pact to the Arab League, from the OSS to the Africa Korps, from the Chetniks to the Jedburghs, from the battle of Kursk to Operation Mincemeat, from Bill Donovan to Otto Skorzeny, from Gestapo to SMERSH, from Georgi Zhukov to Jean Leclerc, from the 88 gun to the Norden Bombsight. Covers important neglected subjects The Encyclopedia puts special emphasis on the often-neglected operations in Eastern Europe and Russia. A key section inspects and rates all the major weapons, with handy tables for easy comparison. And in recognition of the first large-scale participation of women in the war, the volume thoroughly documents their individual and unit contributions to the Allied effort. Finally, the encyclopedia discusses battlefield realties that explain, for example, why the airborne drops at Normandy succeeded and the ones at Arnheim failed. A bibliography, glossary, maps, photographs, and weapons and data tables enhance the coverage. Also includes 16 maps.