Selected documents from files of witchcraft trials of HSonderkommando (SS cell) from 1942

Comment: "Witchcraft trials", "witch-hunt" - these are names of a wave of trials against people accused of witchcraft, contacts with devil, fortune telling, doing magic etc., which spread over whole Europe (and sometimes further). It has been estimated that 90% of the accused were women. In the course of trails sophisticated and cruel tortures were being applied. In result an accused person usually admitted to everything he had been accused of. It also happened that they were giving names of other people supposedly involved in the dealings. Most of the trails ended with sentences of death by burning on a pile, beheading - that is if an accused had not died earlier during investigation. Thousands of people fell victim of witch-hunt. The trials became more frequent in the 16th and the 17th centuries, after a papal bull against sorcery was issued by Innocent VIII in 1484 and a book Hammer for witches by two Dominicans - Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger - published in 1486/1487.

Files of witchcraft trails are a result of over nine years of work of a special SS cell, called HSonderkommando ("H" for German word "Hexe" - a witch). It was a part of VII Department of General Office of Security of the Reich. The department dealt with archive and historical research aimed at proving superiority of a German race and preserving its purity and independence through reconstruction of an OldGerman culture and removing foreign influence. Enemies of the race and the Reich were divided into three groups: enemies of the race (for example Jews), enemies of the nation (for example Poles) and politicalideological (for example the Church, freemasonry, comunists). H-Sonderkommando's research had therefore three aims: 1. Studies on witchcraft trails and collecting all proofs of its existance. Those materials were to be used by SS commander Heinrich Himmler in encounter with the Church, accused of prosecuting witches who - in Himmler's opinion - had been cultivating Old-German rituals and ceremonies. 2. Search for ancient culture and beliefs in survived files of the trials. 3. Studies on proceedings of investigation, instruments and methods of torture, which could be useful in future activity of SS. H-Sonderkommando was working in Berlin, on 102 Wilhelmstrasse, since September 1935 to January 1944. A cell was directed by dr Rudolf Levin who was leading a team of eight researches. Their main task was to collect information on persons suspected of witchcraft, on basis of available literature and sources. For each person an index card in size A-4 was prepared. The form was very comprehensive, with 57 fields to fill, but rarely they were all filled. There are questions concerning personal data, a family situation, a kind of crime, a position of the Church authorities, course of a trial and a sentence, a bibliography and archive sources concerning a trial. Completed personal index cards were put into order according to places, During a time of the cell's activity the files consisted of 33846 cards (in 3670 folders, 3622 of which have survived) which contained information on trials since the 9th century to 1940. Most of the folders (3053) concerns Germany but range of H-Sonderkommando's work covered the whole world. In the files there is information on trials in: England, Belgium, Bohemia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland, Yugoslavia, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Romania, Slovakia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary, even India, Mexico, Transylvania, the United States and Turkey. Apart from files of witchcraft trials H-Sonderkommando was also collecting extracts from archive materials (120 folders of extracts from German archives), photocopies of materials concerning trials, journals and cuttings from newspapers, illustrations [link do skanu nr 3876] (9 folders of photographic reproductions of

different publications, showing witches, instruments and scenes of torture), microfilms, and original archive materials (given also by Himmler or purchased). During the Second World War a cell was evacuated (together with files of General Office of Security of Reich). The collection was found in 1946 in Slawa Slaska and it was then that the files found their way to Archive in Poznan. (Maciej Zdunek) External description: Documents 1-3: original, in German, paper, A4; document 4: copy, in German, photocopy size 258 x 186 mm.

Announcement of German authorities concerning arrests and executions of citizens of Warsaw

Comment: On the 26th of October 1939 on a part of Polish lands which had not been incorporated into the Third Reich Germans established General Governorship with a capitol in Cracow. Warsaw, deprived of a metropolitan role, was to become a provincial town with future number of population about 130 thousand and area covering 1/20 of the previous one. It remained a residence of administration of a district which governor was throughout the occupation Ludwig Fischer.

After president Stefan Starzynski was arrested, a position of Polish major of the city was taken over by previous vice-president Julian Kulski. Polish City Board was supervised by a German starost (Stadthauptmann). Throughout the occupation German rules in Warsaw were basing on police structures and system of terror. The Nazi police and SS were a base of German system of oppression. In Warsaw the police forces were subordinate to a commnader of SS and police who had under his authority commanders of: security police (Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und SD KdS) and order police (Kommandeur der Ordungspolizei KdO). Commander of SS and police was subordinate to higher SS and police commander in Cracow and to a governor of a district. Subsequent commanders of SS and police responsible for range and forms of terror and extermination in Warsaw and the district were: SS SS SS SS SS SS SS Gruppenfhrer Paul Moder (1940-1941) Oberfhrer Arpad Wigand (1941-1942) Oberfhrer dr Ferdinand von Sammern Frankenegg (1942-19 IV 1943) Brigadefhrer Jrgen Stroop (20IV 1943-IX 1943) Brigadefhrer Franz Kutchera (X 1943-1 II 1944) Oberfhrer dr Herbert Bttcher (luty 1944) Brigadefhrer Paul Otto Geibel (3 III 1944-17 I 1945)

A commander of the security police (KdS) office consisted of 5 departments, which dealt with administration and supervision of prison buildings and organization of prisons of the security police: Pawiak, a detention on 25 Szucha St. and so-called "educational labor camp" on Gesia St. and later on Litewska St. The most numerous staff was employed at department IV - Gestapo. It was given special tasks of fighting resistance movement, applying means of repression against society and executing death plans. There were different kinds of kommandos, such as Sonderkommando SS of Hauptsturmfhrer Alfred Spilker, which in 1942-1944 was coordinating all actions against resistance movement of country scale. Department V - the criminal police (kripo) dealt with cases of evasion of registration, ID fabrication, illegal trade, failure to observe curfew. The department was also preparing technical expertises for Gestapo. Subsequent commanders of the security police were: SS Standartenfhrer dr Josef Meisinger (X1939-II 1941 SS Obersturmbannfhrer Johannes Mller (III-X 1941) SS Obersturmbannfhrer dr Ludwig Hahn (X 1941- to the end of Nazi occupation). Duties of the order police (Ordnungspolizei - Orpo) included: protection of offices and objects, traffic control, fire safety and air security, supervision of Polish police, protection of interests of German population, fighting illegal trade. Apart from the mentioned tasks the order police was taking part in round-ups, carried out executions, took part in collecting levies, it was also included in fight with resistance movement. Since first days of the occupation Warsaw became a place of arrests and executions. Death penalty could be inflicted on anyone even for petty offences against German regulations. During first period of Nazi terror (from October 1939 to autumn 1940) executions were carried out in secret, usually out of the city, in Wawer, Zielonka, Palmiry, Szwedzkie Gorki and Las Kabacki. Within the city victims were being shot in the Sejm's gardens on Wiejska St. Already since May 1940 in course of "Action A-B" German were organizing mass arrests of Polish intelligentsia. Most of the arrested, including Maciej Rataj, a former marshal of the Sejm, Mieczyslaw Niedzialkowski, editor of "Robotnik", Jan Pohoski, a vice-president of Warsaw and Janusz Kusocinski, an Olympian, were then shot in Palmiry. Others were deported to concentration camps in Sachsenhausen and Oswiecim. Since autumn 1940 to September 1942 executions were being carried out in forests around the city in Palmiry, Las Kabacki, Magdalenka and in area of ghetto. Transports to concentration camps in Oswiecim and Ravensbrck were also intensified. Between July and half of September 1942 310 thousand Jews were deported to a concentration camp in Treblinka. In next period, between October 1942 and October 1943, repressions against intelligentsia and workers. Among the arrested were Jan Piekalkiewicz, a Delegate of Government in the Country, general Stefan GrotRowecki, a AK commander, and two subsequent secretaries of KW PPR. On the 16th of October 1942 Germans carried out the first public execution in Warsaw. Round-ups and executions in forests near Warsaw and in ruins of ghetto were continued. Military actions against the occupant and assassinations attempts organized by Home Army and People's Guard became also more frequent. Another wave of terror began in October 1943 with a decree of general governor Hans Frank on "fighting attacks on German work of rebuilding GG (General Governorship)". The decree simplified procedure allowing for immediate rulings of death penalty by court-martials of the security police. From the 13th of October 1943 to the 15th of February 1944 Germans increased number of street roundups. Street megaphones were broadcasting decrees of Frank Kutschera, SS and police commander, on public execution of "hostages". Total number of executions, carried out in different points of the city, was 35. After a successful assassination attempt by AK on general Kutschera on the 2nd February 1944 Germans ended public executions and came back to secret executions in ruins of ghetto. Large transport of the arrested were also sent to concentration camps - Oswiecim, Ravensbrck, Gross-Rosen, Stutthof. According to information on Nazi posters since the 15th of October 1943 to the 31st of July 1944 3215 people were executed in Warsaw. Real number of victims was much higher, reaching at least 9500 persons secret executions were still carried out and number of people killed in public executions were higher than that given on the posters.

Aim of the posters was to intimidate Polish society. They were drawn up according to one pattern, presenting "offences" for which hostages had been sentenced to death. Most often those were assassinations attempts on a clerk, a soldier or a German policeman. There were also appeals to people of Warsaw for cooperation with the occupant and not attacking Germans anymore. Otherwise further executions of "hostages" were announced. In reality in often happened that people from lists of hostages were already dead when the posters were being hanged and names publicly announced. Contrary to the occupant's assumption public executions did not bring expected results.(Danuta Skorwider-Skiba) The State Archive in Warsaw

Proclamation of Direction of Civil Combat summoning Poles to collect materials on German crimes
Comment: In autumn 1940 or at a turn of 1940 and 1941 within Office of Information and Propaganda (BIP) of the General Command of Union of Armed Struggle (KG ZWZ) a department of civil combat was appointed which became a germ of Direction of Civil Combat. Initially its works were directed by Jerzy Makowiecki with help of Marian Gieysztor and Stanislaw Kauzik. In April 1941 direction of the department was taken over by Stefan Korbonski. Soon department of civil combat was transformed into IX Department of BIP KG ZWZ. On the 15th of April 1942 Korbonski became a commissioner of Delegate of Governmnet and Commander of AK (the Home Army) for Civil Combat, and Marian Gieysztor his deputy.

In structure of the Delegacy previous Department of Civil Combat of BIP KG ZWZ was given name Direction of Civil Combat (KWC). By KWC General Commission of Civil Combat was established, which consisted of representatives of political parties assembled at Political Negotiating Committee (PKP). There were three commissions by KWC: of youth, of women and of clergy. Already at the end of 1940 general Stefan Rowecki with cooperation of Tadeusz Kruk-Strzelecki and Stanislaw Kauzik prepared rules of civil combat, which were going as follows: "1) boycott of all actions of the occupant aimed at weakening spirit in the society and creation of atmosphere conducive for such actions, 2) boycott of all persons cooperating with the occupant and punishment for such people, 3) execution of small sabotage by putting up leaflets, boycotting all kinds of entertainment events organized by Germans, such as cinema and theatre shows etc., 4) help for victims of the occupant, displaced persons, wounded soldiers, political prisoners and their families as well as people wanted by occupation authorities". First task of KWC was propagation of rules and regulations of Civil Combat around the country - including Codex of rights and duties of a Pole, detailed bans, orders, warnings and instructions of KWC (for example an announcement summoning to collect materials on German crimes or warning Polish clerks serving Germans and taking bribes). Second task was making sure they were obeyed. To execute obedience

underground tribunals were established which were organized and administrated by KWC. Special Civil Tribunals and Judging Commissions of Civil Combat - which had character of civil courts. According to Stefan Korbonski Direction of Civil Combat was managed by a staff divided into the following departments: judicary, sabotage-subversive, radio information, armament, chemical, delegalization and registration of German crimes. On the 15th of July 1943 Direction of Civil Combat of Delegacy of Government was integrated with Direction of Conspiratorial Combat KG AK. In result Direction of Underground Combat (KWP) was established, presided by General Commander of AK. A small staff of KWP was joined by Stefan Korbonski, as a director of Social Resistance, together with the whole structure of KWC. (Tomasz Wronski) External description: Original, print, in Polish, paper, periodical (Biuletyn Informacyjny, no. 48 of the 10th December of 1942) size 213 x 159 mm, p.8. Location: State Archive in Cracow, Collection of conspiratorial press, cat. no. ST 5, p.315-316. The State Archive in Cracow

Photographs showing building of the German Migration Center in Potulice in 1941-1944

Comment: Camp in Potulice was established on the 1st of February 1941 as a collective camp for Polish families displaced from Pomerania and then sent to area of General Governorship. It was located in building of a local grange. Since autumn 1941 to beginnings of 1942 the camp was subordinate to a Stutthof camp. Over that period it was playing a role of an "educational" labor camp. At the same time a development of the camp began, which lasted until the end of 1944. Since January 1942 camp in Potulice became organizationally independent. Since the 1st of September 1942 camps of Migration Center in Smukala and Torun were subordinate to Potulice.

Most of prisoners of the camp in Potulice were members of displaced Polish families whose property was taken over by German settlers, in course of German plans of germanization of Pomerania. Initially prisoners were directed to work at large farms and factories in area of Gdansk - West Prussia. Along with development of the camp branches of industrial companies were appearing in its area. There was also a separate camp for children from the East (Ostjugendbewahrlager). On the eve of liberation on the 21st of January 1945 the camp's register included 11188 prisoners. 5339 persons were staying within the camp, including 660 children and 189 sick persons. 4552 people were working at factories in Gdansk, Gdynia, Elblag, Bydgoszcz and Pila and 1327 at farms. Total number of prisoners of the camp has been estimated at about 25 thousand. Death record included 1297 persons, including 767 children. The photographs are copies of pictures which were supposed to be burned during evacuation of Nazi authorities on the 21st of January 1945 but were saved by Kazimierz Koperski, a prisoner of Stutthof and Lebrechtdorf (Potulice) (Stanislaw Blazejewski) External description: Black and white copies of photographs, size 10 x 14 cm. Location: State Archive in Bydgoszcz, Records of Migration Center Camp in Potulice, cat. no. 98. The State Archive in Bydgoszcz

A list of victims of typhus in a camp for Gypsies in Lodz drawn up on the 7th of January 1942
Comment: Nazi quasi-scientific anthropological researches led to claiming the Gypsies, along the Jews, a threat to purity of a German race. According to racist theories this national group was by nature antisocial and criminogenic. In 1938-1939 persecutions of Romanies in the Third Reich became mores intensive. A registration duty was introduced, there were arrests and transports to concentration camps. During the Second World War, in the second half of 1941, displacement of Gypsies from Germany, Austria, and Bohemia to the east, also to camps and ghettos of occupied Poland, was begun.

Since the 4th to the 9th of November 1941 5 thousand Gypsies (Romanies and Sintis) of Burgenland - an Austrian-Hungarian borderland were deported to a separate Gypsy camp in Lodz ghetto. They were closed in 15 buildings located between nowadays streets: Westerplatte, Wojska Polskiego, Glowackiego and Sarosikawska. In each room 10 to 40 people were living. Lack of space, hunger and lack of sanitary-hygiene facilities led to outbreak and rapid spread of epidemic of typhus. In 7 weeks 719 Romanies and Sintis died. Epidemic could not be stopped by Jewish doctors from ghetto who were bringing help to the infected. For fear of further spread of the epidemic over the ghetto and particularly into Arian side, Nazi authorities decided to liquidate the camp. About 4300 prisoners who were staying alive were transported to a death camp in Chelm upon the Ner and there between the 5th and the 12th of January 1942 gased. (Piotr Strembski) External description: Original, in German, typescript size 208 x 296 mm; seal of receipt at Statistics Department of City Board in Lodz with a date-stamp 8 I 1942. Location: State Archive in Lodz, Records of city of Lodz, cat. no. 29040, p.27. The State Archive in Lodz

A card of arrest of Tadeusz Lehr-Splawinski rector of the Jagiellonian University

Comment: Entering Cracow by the Nazi troops on the 6th of September 1939 began a tragic period in history of the Jagiellonian University. The tragedy, which lasted 1961 days and nights, was result of two parallel actions - one aimed at destroying university structures and its institutes, the other, much more dangerous, at complete annihilation of university staff. It began with a trap - on the 6th of November 1939 at the Jagiellonian University SS major Bruno Mller, a commander of a special operational squad, was to present "German point of view on science and academic

education". Professors and junior members of teaching staff who gathered to listen to the lecture were brutally arrested, transported to a prison and then sent to Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camp.

Arresting Cracow scientists and academics and sending them to a death camp, unparalleled in history of the mankind, has become commonly described with a police and Gestapo term "Sonderaktion Krakau" - Special Action Cracow. The name has remained in historical memory and become strongly established in journalism and historical literature, however the actual name, recorded by Cracow Gestapo in a register of the arrested, was "Aktion gegen Universitt - Professoren" - i.e. Action against university professors. In course of "Sonderaktion Krakau" total number of 183 men were arrested, 155 of which were lecturers of the University, including its rector Tadeusz Lehr-Splawinski. (Mieczyslaw Barcik) External description: Original, in German, one paper sheet size 210 x 148 mm. Location: Archive of the Jagiellonian University, Committee for compiling history of the Jagiellonian University during the Second World War, cat. no. 25, card 25. The Archive of the Jagiellonian University

A list of children taken from a camp of the displaced at Zwierzyniec in Zamosc land

Comment: A Nazi action of displacement of Poles and settlement of Germans in area of Lublin district was officially announced by a commander of SS and the police in the district Odilo Globnick on the 15th of June 1941 during a NSDAP meeting in Zamosc. Town of Zamosc, offered by SS and the police officers to Heinrich Himmlet and named Himmlerstadt, was to be a center of a German settlement area. A displacement action was begun with a test resettlement of inhabitants of seven villages near Zamosc to a county of Hrubieszow on the 6th of November 1941. In the emptied villages a few hundred Volksdeutsch families from Radom area. In 1942 German displacement plans were concretized. Their formal expression was a decree of Himmler issued on the 12th of November 1942 regarding establishment of the first German settlement area in the General Governorship in Zamosc land. On the 27th of November 1942 planned actions of displacement of Poles from counties of Bilgoraj, Hrubieszow, Tomaszow Lubelski and Zamosc were begun, suspended in autumn of 1943. In result of the German pacification-displacement action in Zamosc land 297 villages were displaced - which meant about 110 thousand people, including over 30 thousand children. In abandoned farms over 10 thousand Germans, mostly from Bessarabia and Bukowina, were settled. In Hrubieszow 63 villages were colonized by about 7 thousand Ukrainians - according to German plans of creating a protective zone around the German area and stirring animosity between Poles and Ukrainians.

In Zamosc and Zwierzyniec Germans established transit camps for the displaced, where "selection" was made which defined their further fate - transport to concentration camps, forced labour in Germany, resettlement to different counties, and in case of children because of their "race fitness" - germanization. Some children were saved by Poles who bailed them out of transport in Warsaw and its vicinity, and then located them in Polish substitute families and orphanages. Help delivered by Polski Komitet Opiekunczy (Polish Care Committee) could bring only a little relief for prisoners of the transit camps who lived in tragic conditions. Large percentage of the victims were children. In July 1943 Jan Zamoyski submitted a memorial to governor Hans Frank regarding releasing from the Zwierzyniec camp children under 7. He also had a talk with Globnick about the matter. In result of these efforts in July and August 1943 over 400 children, exhausted and ill, from a few months to 13 years old, were took out from the Zwierzyniec camp. The Zamosc Estate Hospital was filled with little patients, 44 of which failed to be saved. Some of the survived children were taken care of by Zamosc Orphanage, about 170 came back to their parents or relatives. (Lucyna Wyszynska) External description: Original, typescript with hand-written notes, in Polish, paper, sized 230 x 305 mm, p.1-36; photography, original, sized 85 x 130 mm. Location: State Archive in Zamosc, Rada Glowna Opiekuncza Polski Komitet Opiekunczy w Zamosciu, cat. no. 103. The State Archive in Zamosc

A list of female prisoners of the Majdanek concentration camp, drawn up in March 1943
Comment: On the 20th of March 1943 a transport of 769 women and children from Witebsk in Belorus came to the concentration camp in Lublin. This number did not include children under age of 15. It was the first transport from that area, but not the last one since from January 1944 a total number of 8 thousand people from Belorus were sent to Konzentrationslager Lublin. Transports from the following Belorussian towns arrived to Majdanek: Bobrujsk, Borysow, Lida, Minsk, Mohylew, Smolensk, Witebsk.

In the Majdanek camp families of mother and children were being sparated, many of the never met each other again. Children were carried away in transports to a camp in Konstantynow near Litzmannstadt (Lodz) and KL Auschwitz, mothers to KL Auschwitz or to the Third Reich for forced labour. The presented transport list, as well as most of survived documentation of a camp chancellery, was found in 1948 in a hearth hole in field 1. In the 60. it underwent conservation. A title of the list indicates it was a developing list. It suggests that there are no numbers and signatures in the list. Apparently, while enlisting to camp records some of the prisoners had their numbers added. (Krzysztof A. Tarkowski) External description: Original, paper, size 297x210 mm, in German, first sheet of a list. Location: Archive of the State Museum at Majdanek, cat. no. APMM, I d.16, k.2. The Archive of the State Museum at Majdanek