Time of the Beasts: Terror in Occupied Poland 1939-1945

(For professors, college students, high-school teachers and students, parents, and interested adults)

This outstanding work was authored by Dr. Adam Pleskaczynski and published in 2024 by The Institute of National Remembrance, Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes Against the Polish Nation. The following is the Foreword by Dr. Karol Nawrocki, President, The Institute of National Remembrance.

“Who was the victim and who was the perpetrator? Who were the titular beasts occupying the territories of Poland for more than five years and committing countless crimes against millions of Polish citizens? The answer to the rhetorical question is obvious and straightforward. However, we live in a world in which not only the guilt of the Germans and Russians is questioned but also attempts are being made at shifting the blame onto Poles, who allegedly provoked the outbreak of the armed conflict.

In Germany, as well as in the broadly understood Western world, it is becoming more and more common to argue that the individuals responsible for the crimes committed during the worst of the wars of our times were some indeterminate Nazis – without any particular nationality assigned to them – who allegedly conquered the whole of Europe and who occupied Germany as well, which seems beyond absurd. On 8 May [2023], on the seventy-eighth anniversary of the end of WWII, Germany gratefully celebrates its “liberation from the tyranny of National Socialism.” Such cues inevitably must arouse our objection and encourage us to keep reminding the world that the main objective of Germany was to achieve political and economic dominance over the European continent, to exterminate Jews and, subsequently the Slavs, and to establish a racist, thousand-year Reich. It was the Germans who were the main executors of these criminal objectives, and it was German society that straightforwardly supported the National Socialist system until the end of the war, with some people doing so as a result of their ideological beliefs and enthusiasm and others driven by purely opportunistic reasons. It goes without saying that it was the Germans who took advantage of the racist privileges and labor provided by the hundreds of thousands of slaves. It was the Germans who became rich by stealing property. It was the Germans who executed the most criminal orders with petrifying zeal and accuracy, even when the failure of the Third Reich was imminent and evident.

Neither do the Russians, proud heirs to the legacy of the Soviet Union, intend to admit their criminal contribution to the occupation of Poland. Nor have they ever reflected upon it, as the Germans did after the war. However, this does not come as a surprise, given that the USSR belonged to the narrow group of victors in WWII. The Russians are trying to prove that they themselves were victims of Stalinist crimes. While this is true, it does not negate the fact that Russian terror was implemented anywhere a Red Army soldier set foot. The Russians also do not want to acknowledge that, in the years 1939-1941, the Soviet Union was a criminal ally of the Third Reich, or that their marching into Eastern Europe in 1944 was not a liberation to its nations.

The German (as well as post-Soviet) historical narrative seems to be gaining an audience, not only in the wider world but also within certain leading circles in Poland – a country that experienced the worst of the terror of both totalitarian systems of WWII, a country that saw nearly six million of its people murdered, a country that was devastated, robbed, and finally abandoned to the mercy of its aggressors.

For years, we have been witnessing a denial or at least a downplaying of the narrative describing this Polish martyrdom. Putting it bluntly, we are facing the extremely dangerous phenomenon of spreading false or inadequate knowledge, which leads to ignorance, and which in turn constitutes the ideal ground for questioning or undermining the scope of suffering incurred by the Polish victims of WWII – in the end, this process is may result in bringing the victims to the same level as their persecutors, or even in reversing their positions.

By releasing this shocking historical album, particularly with reference to the images contained within, the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamieci Narodowej, IPN) would like to recall the immensity of the criminal acts and suffering that was experienced in WWII in the occupied territories of Poland. Simultaneously, we would like to pay tribute to the millions of victims: Poles, Jews, and representatives of all other ethnic groups that lived in prewar Poland. Let this album become a memento of its own kind. Let it make the readers see the obvious truths, let it dispel any doubts, let it never allow us to forget.”