Zamość uprising

{{Short description|Resistance operation during the Nazi occupation of Poland}} {{Infobox military conflict | conflict = | width = | partof = Polish resistance movement in World War II and Polish-Ukrainian ethnic conflict | image = General Government for the occupied Polish territories (1941).png | image_size = | caption = Zamość region in Lublin District (brown, upper centre) | date = 1942 – 1944 | place = Zamość region (Lublin District, General Government) | territory = | result = Polish victory | status = | combatants_header = | combatant1 = {{flagcountry|Nazi Germany}} * 19px Ukrainian Auxiliary Police * 19px Galicia Division {{flagicon image|Flag of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.svg}} Ukrainian Insurgent Army | combatant2 = {{flagdeco|POL|1928}} Polish resistance: * {{flagicon|Polish Underground State}} Home Army * {{flagicon image|Banner of the Farmer Battalions (Stronnictwo Ludowe Roch).svg}} Peasants' Battalions * {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} People's Guard '''Supported by:''' {{flagicon|Soviet Union|1936}} Soviet partisans | commander1 = {{Unbulleted list |{{flagicon|Nazi Germany}} Ernst Zörner |{{flagicon|Nazi Germany}} Odilo Globocnik ---- |{{flagicon image|Flag of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.svg}} Marian Łukasiewicz | }} | commander2 = {{Unbulleted list |{{flagicon image|Banner of the Farmer Battalions (Stronnictwo Ludowe Roch).svg}} Stanisław Basaj |{{flagicon image|Banner of the Farmer Battalions (Stronnictwo Ludowe Roch).svg}} Jerzy Mara-Meÿer |{{flagicon image|Banner of the Farmer Battalions (Stronnictwo Ludowe Roch).svg}} Franciszek Bartłomowicz ---- |{{flagicon|Polish Underground State}} Konrad Bartoszewski |{{flagicon|Polish Underground State}} Franciszek Krakiewicz ---- |{{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} Grzegorz Korczyński |{{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} Antoni Paleń |{{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} Umer Adamanov ---- |{{flagicon|Soviet Union|1936}} Wasyl Wołodin }} | units1 = | units2 = | strength1 = | strength2 = | casualties1 = Unknown | casualties2 = Unknown | casualties3 = 110,000 Poles expelled from Zamojszczyzna of which 50,000 were sent to forced labour to Germany.<ref name="dc"/><ref name="JPop181"/><ref name="Davies">Norman Davies, ''God's Playground: A History of Poland'', Columbia University Press, 2005, [https://archive.org/details/godsplaygroundhi00norm_0/page/338  Google Print, p.338]</ref><ref name="Piotrowski22">Tadeusz Piotrowski, ''Poland's Holocaust'', McFarland & Company, 1997, {{ISBN|0-7864-0371-3}}. [https://archive.org/details/polandsholocaust00piot/page/22  Google Print, p.22]</ref><br>4,945 Polish children were kidnapped and sent to Germany for Germanisation.<ref name="JPop182"/><ref name="dc"/><ref name="Piotrowski22"/><ref name="Ipnb">Zygmunt Mańkowski; Tadeusz Pieronek; Andrzej Friszke; Thomas Urban (panel discussion), "[http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.aspx?logid=5&id=545B236E-A0B9-4357-A242-38B4AE779D0F Polacy wypędzeni] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018123652/http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.aspx?logid=5&id=545B236E-A0B9-4357-A242-38B4AE779D0F |date=2015-10-18 }}", Biuletyn IPN, nr5 (40) May 2004 / Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance (Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej), issue: 05 / 2004, pages: 628</ref><ref name="Lukas"> Lukas, Richard C. ''Did the Children Cry? Hitler's War against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939–1945''. Hippocrene Books, New York, 2001</ref><br>4,465–4,484 Ukrainian civilians killed by Polish resistance in retaliatory for UPA's attacks on Poles.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hałagida |first=Igor |title=Ukraińskie straty osobowe w dystrykcie lubelskim (październik 1939-lipiec 1944) |date=2017 |page=385 |language=Polish}}</ref> | notes = | campaignbox = }}

The '''Zamość uprising''' comprised World War II partisan operations, 1942–1944, by the Polish resistance (primarily the Home Army and Peasant Battalions) against Germany's ''Generalplan-Ost'' forced expulsion of Poles from the Zamość region (''Zamojszczyzna'') and the region's colonization by German settlers.<ref name="JPop182"/>

The Polish defense of the Zamość region was one of Poland's largest resistance operations of World War II.<ref name="JPop182"/><ref name="AK-PWN">[http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3871190 Armia Krajowa] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140512221344/http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3871190 |date=2014-05-12 }} at Encyklopedia PWN. Last accessed on 14 March 2008. {{in lang|pl}}</ref>

==German atrocities== {{Main article|Ethnic cleansing of Zamojszczyzna by Nazi Germany}} [[File:Wysiedlanie-Zamojszczyzna.jpg|thumb|left|Expulsion of Poles from villages in Zamość region by SS, December 1942]]

In 1942, as part of ''Generalplan Ost'', the Zamość region, with its fertile black soil, in the General Government, was chosen for further German colonisation.<ref name="dc">[http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/zamosc%20ghetto.html "Zamosc Ghetto"] at DeathCamps.org. Last retrieved on March 16, 2008</ref><ref name="JPop110-110">Joseph Poprzeczny, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=2arPruq8lhIC Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East]'', McFarland, 2004, {{ISBN|0-7864-1625-4}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=gjOO6ui8SIkC&q=Zamosc&pg=PA110 pp. 110–111.]</ref> In fact the Zamość region expulsions and colonization can be considered the beginning of the large-scale implementation of the Generalplan Ost.<ref name="JPop181">Poprzeczny 2004, p. 181.</ref> The city itself was to be renamed "Himmlerstadt" (Himmler City), later changed to Pflugstadt (Plow City), which was to symbolise the German "plow" that was to "plow the East".<ref name="dc"/> The German occupiers had planned the relocation of at least 60,000 ethnic Germans to the area before the end of 1943. An initial "test trial" expulsion was performed in November 1941, and the whole operation ended in anti-partisan pacification operations combined with expulsions in June–July 1943 which were codenamed ''Wehrwolf'' Action I and II.

Over 110,000 Polish people from approximately 300 villages were expelled to make room for German (and to a lesser extent, Ukrainian) settlers as part of Nazi plans for establishment of German colonies in the conquered territories (Generalplan Ost).<ref name="dc"/><ref name="JPop181"/><ref name="Davies">Norman Davies, ''God's Playground: A History of Poland'', Columbia University Press, 2005, [https://archive.org/details/godsplaygroundhi00norm_0/page/338  Google Print, p.338]</ref><ref name="Piotrowski22">Tadeusz Piotrowski, ''Poland's Holocaust'', McFarland & Company, 1997, {{ISBN|0-7864-0371-3}}. [https://archive.org/details/polandsholocaust00piot/page/22  Google Print, p.22]</ref> In the Warsaw or Lublin area some villagers were ''resettled'', but about 50,000 of those expelled were sent as forced labour to Germany while others were sent to the Nazi concentration camps never to return.<ref name="dc"/> Some villages were simply razed and the inhabitants murdered.<ref name="dc"/><ref name="JPop110-110"/>

4,454 Polish children were kidnapped by German authorities from their parents for potential Germanisation.<ref name="JPop182"/><ref name="dc"/><ref name="Piotrowski22"/><ref name="Ipnb">Zygmunt Mańkowski; Tadeusz Pieronek; Andrzej Friszke; Thomas Urban (panel discussion), "[http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.aspx?logid=5&id=545B236E-A0B9-4357-A242-38B4AE779D0F Polacy wypędzeni] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018123652/http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.aspx?logid=5&id=545B236E-A0B9-4357-A242-38B4AE779D0F |date=2015-10-18 }}", Biuletyn IPN, nr5 (40) May 2004 / Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance (Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej), issue: 05 / 2004, pages: 628</ref><ref name="Lukas"> Lukas, Richard C. ''Did the Children Cry? Hitler's War against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939–1945''. Hippocrene Books, New York, 2001</ref> Only 800 of them were found and sent back to Poland after World War II.

==Polish resistance== {{details|Polish resistance in World War II}}

[[File:Biłgoraj - pomnik AK.jpg|thumb|Monument to Polish Home Army insurgents, Biłgoraj]] Local people resisted the action with great determination;<ref name="dc"/> they escaped into forests, organised self-defence, helped people who were expelled, and bribed kidnapped children out of German hands.<ref name="JPop182">Poprzeczny 2004, p. 182.</ref> Units of Polish resistance (primarily of Armia Krajowa and Bataliony Chłopskie) as well as elements of Soviet partisans and the Soviet-created Gwardia Ludowa helped to evacuate Polish civilians and assaulted German colonists and forces in the region.<ref name="JPop142">Poprzeczny 2004, p. 142.</ref> In December 1942 one of the first large partisan battles of World War II occurred in the region. The resistance forces numbered several thousand forest fighters. The first phase of the resistance took place from December 1942 to February 1943; the Germans then lessened their activities for a few months but counter-attacked in June, with major anti-partisan actions and terror directed against the civilian population (''Aktion Wehrwolf'').<ref name="JPop190"/>

After several battles between the partisans and the German units (the most notable being the battles of Wojda, Róża, Zaboreczno, Długi Kąt, Lasowce and Hrubieszów as well as the Battle of Osuchy),<ref name="JPop190">Poprzeczny 2004, p. 190.</ref> the Germans had to halt the action and in the end very few German settlers were brought to the area.<ref>Włodzimierz Borodziej, ''The Warsaw Uprising of 1944'', University of Wisconsin Press, 2005, {{ISBN|0-299-20730-7}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=YHO0F65ifDIC&dq=%22Zamosc%22+resistance+-wikipedia&pg=PA41 Google Print, p. 41]</ref> Until the middle of 1943, the Germans managed to settle 9,000 colonists, and an additional 4,000 until the end of 1943. The increasing harassment from the partisans meant that the Germans began to lose the control of the region in the spring of 1943.<ref name="JPop190"/> [[File:Pomnik AK zamosc.JPG|thumb|Home Army monument, Zamość]]

In the first half of 1944, Polish civilians and the Polish resistance were also attacked by Ukrainian units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (see massacres of Poles in Volhynia). In response, Poles carried out several dozen reprisals against the Ukrainian population, killing 4,465–4,484 of them, 1,969 of whom were murdered during the Hrubieszów Revolution.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hałagida |first=Igor |title=Ukraińskie straty osobowe w dystrykcie lubelskim (październik 1939-lipiec 1944) |date=2017 |page=385 |language=Polish}}</ref>Nonetheless, by the summer of 1944 the Polish partisans, based in the large forests of the region, had taken control of most of the countryside, limiting German control to the major towns.<ref name="JPop190"/> In the summer of 1944 Germans again initiated major anti-partisan operations (Sturmwind I and Sturmwind II) which resulted in the battle of Osuchy (one of the largest battles between the Polish resistance and Nazi Germany), with the insurgents sustaining heavy casualties.<ref>Martin Gilbert, ''Second World War A Complete History'', Holt Paperbacks, 2004, {{ISBN|0-8050-7623-9}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=xxdTZE2zREMC&q=osuchy&pg=RA4-PA542 Google Print, p. 542]</ref> However, soon afterwards, in July, the remaining Polish units took part in the nationwide Operation Tempest and managed to liberate several towns and villages in the Zamość region. The Germans, pressured by the advancing Red Army, were forced to abandon the region.

==Remembrance== Several monuments, museums and cemeteries have been raised in the area over time. In the People's Republic of Poland the actions of the Soviet-sponsored and created Gwardia Ludowa and Armia Ludowa entities were emphasized at the expense of those of the other resistance. A recent Polish documentary dedicated to the uprising has been recognized in the New York Festivals of 2008 with a bronze medal.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stopklatka.pl/wydarzenia/wydarzenie.asp?wi=42288&strona= |title=Internetowy Serwis Filmowy - Film Kino DVD Wideo Program tv Repertuar kin Konkursy - Dobra Strona Filmu |publisher=Stopklatka.pl |access-date=2013-02-08}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.roztocze.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1283&Itemid=94 |title=Brązowe "Powstanie" - Roztocze - od Kraśnika po Lwów |publisher=Roztocze |date=2007-10-15 |access-date=2013-02-08}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.film.gildia.pl/newsy/archiwum/2008/02/tvp-medal-ny |title=TVP na medal - film.gildia.pl - film, newsy, recenzje |publisher=film.gildia.pl |access-date=2013-02-08 |archive-date=2012-02-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120208130045/http://www.film.gildia.pl/newsy/archiwum/2008/02/tvp-medal-ny |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Notes== {{Reflist|25em}}

==References== * {{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2arPruq8lhIC | title=Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East | publisher=McFarland | author=Joseph Poprzeczny | year=2004 | isbn=0786481463}} * Joseph Poprzeczny, [https://books.google.com/books?id=gjOO6ui8SIkC&q=Globocnik's+order&pg=PA179 German order, dated 22 November 1943, for the ethnic cleansing of the Zamosc Lands] issued by Odilo Globocnik, in ''Hitler's Man'' (2004). * Andrzej Jerzy Krukowski, [https://web.archive.org/web/20070330055850/http://www.zsp4zamosc.edu.pl/inno/inno11.html Powstanie Zamojskie 1942–1943 (The Zamość Uprising)] at ZSP4Zamosc.edu.pl {{in lang|pl}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20080312011425/http://www.dws.xip.pl/PW/pw40.html "Bitwa o Zamojszczyznę"] {{in lang|pl}} * Zygmunt Puźniak, [https://archive.today/20130416102217/http://www.tygodnikzamojski.pl/tz.php?get=dzial,7475 POWSTANIE ZAMOJSKIE CZY JÓZEFOWSKIE?], Tygodnik Zamojski, 27 luty 2008. {{in lang|pl}} * Janusz Gmitruk, ''Powstanie Zamojskie'', Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego, 2003, {{ISBN|83-87838-69-1}} * Jan Grygiel, ''Związek Walki Zbrojnej i Armia Krajowa w Obwodzie Zamojskim 1939–1944'', Polskie Wydawnictwo Naukowe 1985 * ''Walki oddziałów ZWZ-AK i BCh Inspektoratu Zamojskiego w latach wojny 1939–1944'', Związek Żołnierzy Armii Krajowej Okręg Zamość 1990

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zamosc Uprising}} Category:Conflicts in 1944 Category:Military operations of World War II involving the Polish resistance Category:Uprisings during World War II Category:History of Zamość Category:General Government Category:Ukrainian Insurgent Army Category:Rebellions in Poland Category:Battles of the Polish–Ukrainian conflict