74-531: Radom District was one of the first four Nazi districts of the General Governorate region of German-occupied Poland during World War II, along with Warsaw District , Lublin District , and Kraków District . To the west it bordered Reichsgau Wartheland and East Upper Silesia . The district's governors were Karl Lasch from 1939 to 1941, followed by Ernst Kundt until 1945. It is estimated that
148-572: A Jewish Ghetto Police was set up, headed by Hermann Stahl. Jews were ordered to hand over their furs, radios, silver and gold. Among the people trapped in the Sambor Ghetto were thousands of refugees who arrived there in an attempt to escape the German occupation of western Poland, and possibly cross the border to Romania and Hungary. Confined to the Blich neighbourhood of Sambor – the ghetto
222-577: A German-dominated Europe. According to the Nazi government the Polish state had effectively ceased to exist, in spite of the existence of a Polish government-in-exile . The General Government had the character of a type of colonial state . It was not a Polish puppet government , as there were no Polish representatives above the local administration. The government seat of the General Government
296-485: A Jewish gymnasium and a Bais Yaakov for girls were established, as well as new industrial plants, unions, Jewish relief organizations, and several Zionist parties such as World Agudath Israel . Jews engaged in trade, crafts, carter, agriculture, and professional activities. Jewish cultural institutions included a large library and a sports club. On 8–11 September 1939, Sambor was overrun by the 1st Mountain Division of
370-709: A grave danger for the non-Jewish Poles who attempted to help ghettoised Jews in the cities, as in the Mińsk Mazowiecki Ghetto among numerous others, because Christian Poles were executed under the charge of aiding Jews. A Forest Protection Service also existed, responsible for policing wooded areas in the General Government. A Bahnpolizei policed railroads. The Germans used pre-war Polish prisons and organised new ones, like in Jan Chrystian Schuch Avenue police quarter in Warsaw and Under
444-518: A small number would be "Germanized", and young Poles of desirable qualities would be kidnapped and raised in Germany . In the General Government, all secondary education was abolished and all Polish cultural institutions closed. In 1943, the government selected the Zamojskie area for further Germanization on account of its fertile black soil, and German colonial settlements were planned. Zamość
518-578: Is a Polish reservation, a great Polish labor camp. — Note of Martin Bormann from the meeting of Dr. Hans Frank with Adolf Hitler , Berlin, 2 October 1940. German bureaucrats drew up various plans regarding the future of the original population. One called for the deportation of about 20 million Poles to western Siberia , and the Germanisation of 4 to 5 million; although deportation in reality meant many Poles were to be put to death,
592-520: Is administered centrally. In the French and Dutch original, the 'General' in the name is a reference to the Estates-General , the central assembly which was given an authority to directly rule the territory. The Nazi designation of Generalgouvernement also gave a nod to the once existing Generalgouvernement Warschau , a civil entity created in the invaded Russian Empire territory by
666-709: Is anticipated for Poland, but a complete German administration. (...) Leadership layer of the population in Poland should be as far as possible, disposed of. The other lower layers of the population will receive no special schools, but are to be oppressed in some form. — Excerpt from the minutes of the first conference of Heads of the main police officers and commanders of operational groups led by Heydrich's deputy, SS- Brigadefuhrer Dr. Werner Best , Berlin 7 September 1939 The General Government had no international recognition . The territories it administered were never either in whole or part intended as any future Polish state within
740-679: The Ordnungspolizei . The Polish educational system was similarly retained, but most higher institutions were closed. The Polish local administration was kept, subordinated to new German bosses. The Polish fiscal system, including the zloty currency, remained in use but with revenues going to the German state. A new bank was created; it issued new banknotes. The Germans sought to play Ukrainians and Poles off against each other. Within ethnic Ukrainian areas annexed by Germany, beginning in October 1939, Ukrainian Committees were established with
814-720: The District of Galicia . Until 1945, the General Government comprised much of central, southern, and southeastern Poland within its prewar borders (and of modern-day Western Ukraine ), including the major Polish cities of Warsaw , Kraków , Lwów (now Lviv , renamed Lemberg ), Lublin (see Lublin Reservation ), Tarnopol (see history of Tarnopol Ghetto ), Stanisławów (now Ivano-Frankivsk , renamed Stanislau ; see Stanisławów Ghetto ), Drohobycz , and Sambor (see Drohobycz and Sambor Ghettos ) and others. Geographical locations were renamed in German. The administration of
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#1732765283628888-584: The German Empire during World War I. This district existed from 1914 to 1918 together with an Austro-Hungarian -controlled Military Government of Lublin alongside the short-lived Kingdom of Poland of 1916–1918 , a similar rump state formed out of the then- Russian-controlled parts of Poland . The General Government area was also known colloquially as the Restpolen ('Remainder of Poland'). After Germany's attack on Poland , all areas occupied by
962-643: The German army including the Free City of Danzig initially came under military rule . This area extended from the 1939 eastern border of Germany proper and of East Prussia up to the Bug River where the German armies had halted their advance and linked up with the Soviet Red Army in accordance with their secret pact against Poland. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed on 23 August 1939 had promised
1036-581: The Rhineland ." By 1942 Hitler and Frank had agreed that the Kraków ("with its purely German capital") and Lublin districts would be the first areas for German colonists to re-populate. Hitler stated: "When these two weak points have been strengthened, it should be possible to slowly drive back the Poles." Peculiar about these statements is the circumstance that there were not enough German settlers to even make
1110-503: The Vandals ) in a speech he gave on 16 December 1941. When Frank unsuccessfully attempted to resign his position on 24 August 1942, Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann tried to advance a project to dissolve the General Government altogether and to partition its territory into a number of Reichsgaue , arguing that only this method could guarantee the territory's Germanization, while also claiming that Germany could economically exploit
1184-643: The Wartheland "as German as the Rhineland". According to notes from Martin Bormann German policy envisaged reducing lower-class Poles to the status of serfs , while deporting or otherwise eliminating the middle and upper classes and eventually replacing them with German colonists of the " master race ". The General Government is our work force reservoir for lowgrade work (brick plants, road building, etc.) ... Unconditionally, attention should be paid to
1258-599: The yellow badge . In July 1941, a Judenrat was formed in Sambor on German orders, with Dr. Shimshon (Samson) Schneidscher as its chairman. In the following months, Jews were deported to the open-type ghetto in Sambor from the entire county. On 17 July, Heinrich Himmler decreed the formation of the Schutzmannschaften from among the local Ukrainians, owing to good relations with the local Ukrainian Hilfsverwaltung . By 7 August 1941, in most areas conquered by
1332-633: The "line Memel - Odessa ". In this context Zvanetti's study proposed a re-ordering of the "Eastern Gaue" into three geopolitical blocs: The General Government was administered by a General-Governor ( German : Generalgouverneur ) aided by the Office of the General-Governor ( German : Amt des Generalgouverneurs ; changed on December 9, 1940 to the Government of the General Government, German : Regierung des Generalgouvernements ). For
1406-559: The Clock torture centre in Lublin . German administration constructed a terror system to control Polish people enforcing reports of any illegal activities, e.g. hiding Roma, POWs, guerilla fighters, Jews. Germans designated hostages, terrorised local leaders, applied collective responsibility. German police used sting operations to find and kill rescuers of the Germans' quarries. Through
1480-523: The General Government was composed entirely of German officials, with the intent that the area was to be colonized by Germanic settlers who would reduce the local Polish population to the level of serfs before their eventual genocide . The Nazi German rulers of the Generalgouvernement had no intention of sharing power with the locals throughout the war, regardless of their ethnicity and political orientation. The authorities rarely mentioned
1554-667: The General Government was the "Annexation Decree on the Administration of the Occupied Polish Territories". Announced by Hitler on October 8, 1939, it claimed that the Polish government had totally collapsed. This rationale was utilized by the German Supreme Court to reassign the identity of all Polish nationals as stateless subjects , with the exception of the ethnic Germans of interwar Poland—who, disregarding international law, were named
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#17327652836281628-500: The German zone, in order to increase the Reich's Lebensraum . Germany organized most of these areas as two new Reichsgaue : Danzig-West Prussia and Wartheland . The remaining three regions, the so-called areas of Zichenau, Eastern Upper Silesia and the Suwałki triangle, became attached to adjacent Gaue of Germany. Draconian measures were introduced by both RKF and HTO, to facilitate
1702-550: The German-Polish conflict (although they were unable to help Soviet POWs of Ukrainian ethnicity). After the war, the Polish Supreme National Tribunal declared that the government of the General Government was a criminal institution. Other than summary German military tribunals, no courts operated in Poland between the German invasion and early 1940. At that time, the Polish court system
1776-644: The Holocaust . Sambor (Sambir) is not to be confused with the much smaller Old Sambor (Stary Sambor, now Staryi Sambir ) located nearby, although the Jewish history of the two is inextricably linked. When the Second Polish Republic was formed in 1918, both Sambor and Stary Sambor became seats of separate gminas . In 1932, the counties were combined into a single administrative area. The Jewish population grew steadily. Brand new schools, including
1850-610: The Nations who helped Sambor Ghetto's Jews included the Plewa family, Celina Kędzierska , the Bońkowski family and the Oczyński family. In 1943, the Nazi police executed at least 27 people in Sambor for attempting to hide Jews. Altogether, about 160 Jews survived, mostly by hiding with Poles and Ukrainians in the town or the surrounding countryside. After the war, several members of
1924-639: The Nazi theory of Judeo-Bolshevism , launched retaliatory pogroms against the Polish Jews . The deadliest of them , overseen by SS-Brigadeführer Otto Rasch , took place in Lwów beginning 30 June 1941. On 1 July 1941, the Ukrainian nationalists killed approximately 50–100 Polish Jews in Sambor, but similar pogroms affected other Polish provincial capitals as far as Tarnopol , Stanisławów and Łuck . The German authorities forced all adult Jews to wear
1998-559: The Occupied Polish Region (German: Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete ), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany , Slovakia and the Soviet Union in 1939 at the onset of World War II . The newly occupied Second Polish Republic was split into three zones: the General Government in its centre, Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany in
2072-545: The Polish government reopened. By March 1941, there were 808 Ukrainian educational societies with 46,000 members. A Ukrainian publishing house and periodical press was set up in Cracow, which – despite having to struggle with German censors and paper shortages – succeeded in publishing school textbooks, classics of Ukrainian literature , and the works of dissident Ukrainian writers from the Soviet Union. Krakivs'ki Visti
2146-673: The Polish population. The official name chosen for the new entity was the Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete (General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories), then changed to the Generalgouvernement (General Government) by Frank's decree of July 31, 1940. However, this name did not imply anything about the actual nature of the administration. The German authorities never regarded these Polish lands (apart from
2220-588: The Polish underground killed a German, 50–100 Poles were executed by German police as a punishment and as a warning to other Poles. Most of the Jews, perhaps as many as two million, had also been rounded up and murdered. Germans destroyed Warsaw after the Warsaw Uprising . As the Soviets advanced through Poland in late 1944 the General Government collapsed. American troops captured Hans Frank , who had governed
2294-719: The Wehrmacht during the Polish Battle of Lwów . It was transferred to the Soviet Union in accordance with the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty signed on 28 September 1939. After the Soviet takeover, wealthy and middle-class Polish Jews were arrested by the NKVD and sentenced for deportation to Siberia along with the Polish intelligentsia . Some pro-Soviet Jews were given government jobs. The economy
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2368-605: The Wehrmacht, units of the Ukrainian People's Militia had already participated in a series of so-called "self-purification" actions, followed closely by killings carried out by Einsatzgruppe C . The OUN-B militia spearheaded a day-long pogrom in Stary Sambor. Thirty-two prominent Jews were dragged by the nationalists to the cemetery and bludgeoned. Surviving eyewitnesses, Mrs. Levitski and Mr. Eidman, reported cases of dismemberment and decapitation. Afterwards,
2442-491: The area more effectively, particularly as a source of food. He suggested separating the "more restful" population of the formerly Austrian territories (because this part of Poland had been under German-Austrian rule for a long period of time it was deemed more racially acceptable) from the rest of the Poles, and cordoning off the city of Warsaw as the center of "criminality" and underground resistance activity . Ludwig Fischer (governor of Warsaw from 1939 to 1945) opposed
2516-524: The area to the west of Kraków to the San river in the east. At this time Germany had not yet directly annexed the Łódź area, and Łódź (rather than Kraków) served as the capital of the General Government. In November 1940, Gauleiter Arthur Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland argued that the counties of Tomaschow Mazowiecki and Petrikau should be transferred from the General Government's Radom district to his Gau. Hitler agreed, but since Frank refused to surrender
2590-428: The attack and joined the invading force thereafter. However, after the 1941 Operation Barbarossa they included also the Soviet prisoners of war who volunteered for special training, such as the " Trawniki men " (German: Trawnikimänner ) deployed at all major killing sites of the " Final Solution ". A lot of those men did not know German and required translation by their native commanders. Ukrainian Auxiliary Police
2664-647: The counties, the resolution of the border question was postponed until after the final victory. Upon hearing of the German plans to create a " Gau of the Goths " ( Gotengau ) in the Crimea and the Southern Ukraine after the start (June 1941) of Operation Barbarossa , Frank himself expressed his intention to turn the district under his control into a German province called the Vandalengau (Gau of
2738-497: The depopulated ghetto was filled with expellees from Turka and Ilnik . Some Jews escaped to the forest. The town of Turka was declared Judenfrei on 1 December 1942. Irrespective of deportations, mass shootings of Jews were also carried out. In January 1943, the Germans and Ukrainian Auxiliary Police rounded up 1,500 Jews deemed ' unworthy of life '. They were trucked to the woods near Radlowicz (Radłowicze, Radlovitze; now Ralivka) and shot one by one. Among those still alive in
2812-403: The district's population in 1940 was approximately 3 million people, including over 300,000 Jews. This Polish history –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . General Governorate The General Government ( German : Generalgouvernement ; Polish : Generalne Gubernatorstwo ; Ukrainian : Генеральна губернія ), formally the General Governorate for
2886-524: The entire period of the General Government's existence there was only one General-Governor: Dr. Hans Frank. The NSDAP structure in General Government was Arbeitsbereich Generalgouvernement led by Frank. The Office was headed by Chief of the Government ( German : Regierung , lit. 'government'), Josef Bühler , who was also the State Secretary ( German : Staatssekretär ). From October 1939 to May 1940, Arthur Seyss-Inquart
2960-421: The fact that there can be no "Polish masters"; where there are Polish masters, and I do not care how hard this sounds, they must be killed. (...) The Führer must emphasize once again that for Poles there is only one master and he is a German, there can be no two masters beside each other and there is no consent to such, hence all representatives of the Polish intelligentsia are to be killed ... The General Government
3034-593: The focus was on the better-known Einsatzgruppen ("Operational groups") who reported to RSHA led by Reinhard Heydrich . On 6 May 1940 Gauleiter Hans Frank, stationed in occupied Kraków , established the Sonderdienst , based on similar SS formations called Selbstschutz operating in the Warthegau district of German-annexed western part of Poland since 1939. Sonderdienst were made up of ethnic German Volksdeutsche who lived in Poland before
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3108-424: The following year, at which time Lublin was to be declared a German city and given a German mayor. Nazi planners never definitively resolved the question of the exact territorial reorganization of the Polish provinces in the event of German victory in the east. Germany had already annexed large parts of western pre-war Poland (8 October 1939) before the establishment of the General Government (26 October 1939), and
3182-668: The ghetto was approaching. In June, Dr. Zausner, deputy to the Judenrat chairman, gave a speech full of hope because the Gestapo office in Drohobicz agreed to save a group of labourers in exchange for a huge ransom. Nevertheless, on the night of 8 June 1943, the Ukrainian Hilfspolizei set the ghetto houses on fire. In the morning, all Jewish slave labourers were escorted to prison, loaded onto lorries and trucked to
3256-495: The ghetto, death by starvation and typhus raged. After the long winter, new terror operations in the ghetto took place in March or April 1943. The Gestapo utilized Wehrmacht units transiting through Sambor to round up Jews. All houses, cellars and even chimneys were searched. The 1,500 captives were split in groups of 100 each. They were escorted to the cemetery, where Jewish men were forced to dig mass graves. The liquidation of
3330-471: The immediate Germanization of the annexed territory, typically resulting in mass expulsions , especially in the Warthegau. The remaining parts of the former Poland were to become a German Nebenland ( March , borderland) as a frontier post of German rule in the east. A Führer's decree of October 12, 1939 established the General Government; the decree came into force on October 26, 1939. Hans Frank
3404-429: The killing fields at Radłowicze. The ghetto was no more; the city was declared " Judenrein ". The Soviet Red Army liberated Sambor a year later amid heavy fighting with the retreating Germans, around 7 August 1944. Some Jews had managed to dig a tunnel leading to a sewer out of the ghetto and escaped to the partisans in the forest. A number of local gentiles aided some of the escapees. Those declared Righteous Among
3478-535: The name Poland in legal correspondence. The only exception to this was the General Government's Bank of Issue in Poland ( Polish : Bank Emisyjny w Polsce , German : Emissionbank in Polen ). The full title of the regime in Germany until July 1940 was the Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete , a name that is usually translated as "General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories". Governor Hans Frank , on Hitler's authority, shortened
3552-481: The name on 31 July 1940 to just Generalgouvernement . An accurate English translation of Generalgouvernement , which is a borrowing from French , is 'General Governorate', cognate with the Dutch Generaliteitslanden . A more accurate English translation of the French term gouvernement in this context is not 'government', but " governorate ", which is a type of a territory that
3626-801: The occupation Germany diverted a significant number of its military forces to keep control over Polish territories. (includes German forces only) The propaganda was directed by the Fachabteilung für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (FAVuP), since Spring 1941 Hauptabteilung Propaganda (HAP). Prasą kierował Dienststelle der Pressechef der Regierung des Generalgouvernements , a w Berlinie Der Bevollmächtige des Generalgouverneurs in Berlin . Thousands of anti-Semitic posters were distributed in Warsaw. Germans wanted Poles to obey orders. Sambor Ghetto Sambor Ghetto ( Polish : getto w Samborze , Ukrainian : Самбірське гето , Hebrew : גטו סמבור )
3700-580: The only rightful citizens of Nazi Germany . The General Government was run by Germany as a separate administrative unit for logistical purposes. When the Wehrmacht forces invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 ( Operation Barbarossa ), the area of the General Government was enlarged by the inclusion of the Polish regions previously annexed to the USSR. Within days East Galicia was overrun and incorporated into
3774-413: The proposed administrative streamlining resulting from these discussions. Fischer prepared his own project in his Main Office for Spatial Ordering ( Hauptamt für Raumordnung ) located in Warsaw. He suggested the establishment of the three provinces Beskiden , Weichselland (" Vistula Land"), and Galizien ( Galicia and Chełm ) by dividing the Radom and Lublin districts between them. Weichselland
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#17327652836283848-416: The purpose of representing the Ukrainian community to the German authorities and assisting the approximately 30,000 Ukrainian refugees who fled from Soviet-controlled territories. These committees also undertook cultural and economic activities that had been banned by the previous Polish government. Schools, choirs, reading societies and theaters were opened, and twenty Ukrainian churches that had been closed by
3922-442: The region, in May 1945; he became one of the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials . During his trial he resumed his childhood practice of Catholicism and expressed repentance. Frank surrendered forty volumes of his diaries to the Tribunal; much evidence against him and others was gathered from them. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity . On October 1, 1946, he was sentenced to death by hanging . The sentence
3996-432: The remaining region was also intended to be directly incorporated into the German Reich at some future date. The Nazi leadership discussed numerous initiatives with this aim. The earliest such proposal (October/November 1939) called for the establishment of a separate Reichsgau Beskidenland which would encompass several southern sections of the Polish territories conquered in 1939 (around 18,000 km ), stretching from
4070-402: The short period of military administration during the actual invasion of Poland ) as an occupied territory . The Nazis considered the Polish state to have effectively ceased to exist with its defeat in the September campaign. Overall, 4 million of the 1939 population of the General Government area had lost their lives by the time the Soviet armed forces entered the area in late 1944. If
4144-438: The town's German civilian administration and security apparatus received prison sentences; others did not. "During the Soviet era, the Jewish cemetery of Sambor lost its original function and was levelled. Plans were made to construct a sports field on the site." Since 1991, Sambir (Самбір) has been part of Ukraine . In 2000, attempts to preserve the site of the mass shootings for a Holocaust memorial park were halted. In 2019,
4218-403: The vast territory between the Vistula and Bug rivers to the Soviet "sphere of influence" in divided Poland, while the two powers would have jointly ruled Warsaw. To settle the deviation from the original agreement, the German and Soviet representatives met again on September 28 to delineate a permanent border between the two countries. Under this revised version of the pact the territory concerned
4292-413: The west, and Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union in the east. The territory was expanded substantially in 1941, after the German Invasion of the Soviet Union , to include the new District of Galicia . The area of the Generalgouvernement roughly corresponded with the Austrian part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. The basis for the formation of
4366-400: Was a Nazi ghetto established in March 1942 by the SS in Sambir , Western Ukraine . In the interwar period, the town (Sambor) had been part of the Second Polish Republic . In 1941, the Germans captured the town at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa . According to the Polish census of 1931 , Jews constituted nearly 29 percent of the town's inhabitants, most of whom were murdered during
4440-403: Was appointed as the governor-general of the General Government. German authorities made a sharp contrast between the new Reich territory and a supposedly occupied rump state that could serve as a bargaining chip with the Western powers. The Germans established a closed border between the two German zones to heighten the difficulty of cross-frontier communication between the different segments of
4514-485: Was carried out on October 16. The conversion of Warsaw into a "model city" was planned in 1940 and later, in similar ways like the conversion of Berlin was planned. In March 1941 Hans Frank informed his subordinates that Hitler had made the decision to "turn this region into a purely German area within 15–20 years". He explained: "Where 12 million Poles now live, is to be populated by 4 to 5 million Germans . The Generalgouvernement must become as German as
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#17327652836284588-446: Was conducted in the ghetto on 2–4 August 1942 ahead of the first deportation. The 'resettlement' rail transports to Belzec left Sambor on 4–6 August 1942 under heavy guard, with 6,000 men, women, and children crammed into Holocaust trains without food or water. About 600 Jews were sent to the Janowska concentration camp nearby. The second set of trains with 3,000–4,000 Jews departed on 17–18 and 22 October 1942. On 17 November 1942,
4662-401: Was exchanged for the inclusion in the Soviet sphere of Lithuania , which had originally fallen within the ambit of Germany. With the new agreement the entire central part of Poland, including the core ethnic area of the Poles, came under exclusively German control. Hitler decreed the direct annexation to the German Reich of large parts of the occupied Polish territory in the western half of
4736-454: Was formed in Distrikt Galizien in 1941, many policemen deserted in 1943 joining UPA. The former Polish policemen, with no high-ranking Polish officers (who were arrested or demoted), were drafted to the Blue Police and became subordinated to the local Ordnungspolizei . Some 3,000 men served with the Sonderdienst in the General Government, formally assigned to the head of the civil administration. The existence of Sonderdienst constituted
4810-421: Was headed by Frank until the end of World War II and had as editor Michael Chomiak . It was "the leading legal newspaper" of the General Government and "attracted more (and better) contributors among whom were the most prominent Ukrainian cultural figures of the (early) 20th century." Ukrainian organizations within the General Government were able to negotiate the release of 85,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war from
4884-407: Was initially renamed by the government to Himmlerstadt ( Himmler City), which was later changed to Pflugstadt ( Plough City), both names were not implemented. Most of the Polish population was expelled by the Nazi occupation authorities with documented brutality. Himmler intended the city of Lublin to have a German population of 20% to 25% by the beginning of 1944, and of 30% to 40% by
4958-420: Was introduced for, among other things: The police in the General Government was divided into: The most numerous OrPo battalions focused on traditional security roles as an occupying force. Some of them were directly involved in the pacification operations . In the immediate aftermath of World War II, this latter role was obscured both by the lack of court evidence and by deliberate obfuscation, while most of
5032-443: Was located in Kraków (German: Krakau ; English: Cracow ) rather than in Warsaw for security reasons. The official state language was German, although Polish continued in use by local government. Useful institutions of the old Polish state were retained for ease of administration. The Polish police, with no high-ranking Polish officers (they were arrested or demoted), was reorganised as the Blue Police and became subordinated to
5106-414: Was nationalized; hundreds of citizens were executed out of sight by the secret police as " enemies of the people ". Sambor became part of the Drohobych Oblast on 4 December 1939. On 22 June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa . During the hasty evacuation of the political prison in Sambor, the NKVD shot 600 prisoners; 80 corpses were left unburied for lack of time. Sambor
5180-434: Was reinstated and made decisions in cases not concerning German interests, for which a parallel German court-system was established. The German system was given priority in cases of overlapping jurisdiction. New laws were passed, discriminating against ethnic Poles and, in particular, the Jews. In 1941 a new criminal law was introduced, introducing many new crimes, and making the death penalty very common. The death penalty
5254-553: Was sealed off from the outside on 12 January 1942, . Jews from different parts of the city, along with inhabitants of neighbouring communities, including Stary Sambor, were transferred to the ghetto until March 1942. A curfew was imposed, subject to shoot-on-sight enforcement. In July 1942, the first killing centre of Operation Reinhard built by the SS at Belzec (just over 100 kilometres away) began its second phase of extermination, with brand new gas chambers built of brick. Sambor Jews were rounded up in stages. A terror operation
5328-631: Was taken over by the Wehrmacht on 29 June. The city became one of a dozen administrative units of the District of Galicia , the fifth district of the General Government , with the capital in Lemberg . Arriving German troops were accompanied by Ukrainian task forces ( pokhidny hrupy ) indoctrinated at German training bases in the General Government. The OUN followers ( Anwärters included) mobilized Ukrainian militants in some 30 locations at once, including in Sambor, and in accordance with
5402-559: Was the Deputy General-Governor. After his departure, Bühler served as Frank's deputy through January 1945. Several other individuals had powers to issue legislative decrees in addition to the General-Governor, most notably the Higher SS and Police Leader of the General Government (SS- Obergruppenführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger ; from October 1943: SS- Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Koppe ). No government protectorate
5476-572: Was to have a "Polish character", Galizien a "Ukrainian" one, and the Beskiden -province to provide a German "admixture" (i.e. colonial settlement). Further territorial planning carried out by this Warsaw-based organization under Major Dr. Ernst Zvanetti in a May 1943 study to demarcate the eastern border of " Central Europe " (i.e. the Greater German Reich) with the " Eastern European landmass" proposed an eastern German border along
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