RG 84: Poland
State Department and Foreign Affairs Records
Records of the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State (RG 84)
Poland
The German Army, without a declaration of war and on the pretense that Poland was infringing on German territory, invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Within the week the Polish Army was virtually defeated. On September 17, Russia, having signed a nonaggression pact with Germany on August 23, 1939, invaded Poland from the east. Two days later the German and Russian forces met near Brest Litovsk. On September 27 Warsaw surrendered and the next day Germany and Russia divided Poland. By the end of the month a Polish government-in-exile was established in Paris and it eventually transferred to London.
Danzig was annexed and incorporated into the Greater Reich as well as 32,000 square miles of territory between East Prussia and Silesia. Western Poland was divided into districts: Danzig- West Prussia under Gauleiter Albert Forster and Warth under Gauleiter Arthur Greiser. The rest of German-occupied Poland was designated as Generalgouvernment of Poland and placed under German civil administration headed by Governor General Hans Frank, headquartered in Cracow.
The Nazi occupiers set about subjugating the Poles. First they exterminated many political, intellectual, and religious leaders, and sent many to Germany as slave laborers. To create new living space for Germans, many Poles were resettled (being pushed into Generalgouvernment from the incorporated areas) and German families moved into the emptied lands, and took control of Polish business establishments. Thousands of other Poles, including Jews, were sent to concentration camps and some 50,000 Polish children were sent to Germany to be adopted by German families.
After the German invasion of Russia in June 1941, the Russian-occupied portion of Poland was brought into German control. This meant that the Germans had acquired over 150,000 square miles, over 35 million people, and access to great wealth. The German occupiers brutally exploited Poland's economic resources, confiscating a significant amount of Poland's wealth. By the spring of 1942, it was estimated that 230,000 Polish firms, industrial and commercial, and 187,000 urban properties (urban real estate) had been expropriated in the incorporated area of Poland. In addition, some 2 million Poles were sent to Germany as slave laborers.
During the early stages of occupation, some 3 million Polish Jews were forced into approximately 400 newly established ghettos. Large number of Jews were also deported from other countries, including Germany, to ghettos in Poland and German-occupied territories further west. Many of these ghettos provided a forced labor pool for the Germany. In 1942, the Germans began a policy of eliminating most of the Ghettos and sending the Jews to extermination camps.
This process began in December 1941, when Jews in the Wartheland began being deported to Chelmno for extermination. This was followed in March 1942, when Jews of Lublin began being deported to Belzec. From July to September 1942, over 300,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw to Treblinka. Extermination centers were also established at Sobibor, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. By war's end approximately 3 million Polish Jews, some 90 percent of the pre-Final Solution population were exterminated during the war.
Russian forces entered eastern Poland in July 1944 and a provisional Polish Government was established. German forces were finally expelled from Poland early in 1945. (Note 87)
Records of the American Mission to the Polish Government in Exile
General Records 1940-1944 (Entry 3110)
Boxes 1-25
1941
Box # File # File Title or Subject
6 840.1 Jews in Poland-Future
Policy Toward
1942
Box # File # File Title or Subject
12 711 Jewish Problem (Violence in Occupied Countries)
711 Persecution of Jews
711 Persecution of the Jews in Nazi Slovakia
711 Jewish Atrocities
711 Jewish Problems
711.2 Blocked Nationals
1943
Box # File # File Title or Subject
16 711 Atrocities
711 War Criminals
711 Jewish Atrocities
711 World Jewish Congress
19 840.1 Bermuda Conference
20 848 UNRRA
1944
Box # File # File Title or Subject
23 711 War Crimes
711 Atrocities
711 World Jewish Congress
711 Jewish Persecution
711 Atrocities (Jewish Situation)
711 Jewish Situation
24 840.1 War Refugee Board
25 848 UNRRA
Classified General Records 1942, 1945 (Entry 3112)
Boxes 1-7
1945
Box # File # File Title or Subject
4 711.6 War Crimes Trials
711.6 Displaced Persons
711.9 List of Looted Property
711.9 Recovery of Polish Property
711.9 Property Looted by Germans
711.9 Safehaven-Works of Art location:
350/67/5/05
Records of the Warsaw Embassy
General Records 1945-1949, 1951, 1954 (Entry 3114A)
Boxes 7-106
1945
Box # File # File Title or Subject
11 711 Displaced Persons
711.5 Polish Jewish Affairs
711.6 Concentration Camps
711.6 Mass Graves
711.6 War Crimes Trials
711.6 Hans Frank
711.9 Restitution of Polish Property
711.9 Restitution of Looted Property
711.9 Claims on Cultural Materials Looted by Germans
711.9 Restitution of Polish Property from Austria
711.9 Polish Art Objects in Germany
711.9 Polish Works of Art-Restitution
711.9 Return of Altar Piece to Cracow
711.9 Restitution of Veit Stoss Altarpiece
1946
Box # File # File Title or Subject
20 711.3 Oatax-Subsidiary of Tokalon
Companies-Proclaimed List
711.5 Displaced Persons
711.6 Katyn Forest Incident
711.6 Execution of Greisers
711.6 Trial of German SS Personnel
21 711.9 Restitution of Looted Polish
Property
711.9 Restitution Claims
711.9 Restoration of Looted Art
27 848 UNRRA
1947
Box # File # File Title or Subject
37-38 711.6 Displaced Persons
and Refugees
38 711.6 War Crimes in Poland
711.9 Property of Count Alfred Potocki [art works]
711.9 Return of Looted Art Objects
711.9 Control of Looted Cultural Objects
711.9 Tripartite Agreement concerning Looted Cultural
Property
1948
Box # File # File Title or Subject
62 711.6 Displaced Persons and Refugees
711.6 Polish Displaced Persons Criminals
711.6 German War Crimes and Criminals
63 711.9 Restitution
800 Jewish Situation