Polish culture during World War II
Polish culture during World War II was suppressed by the occupying powers of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, both of whom were hostile to Poland's people and cultural heritage. Policies aimed at cultural genocide resulted in the deaths of thousands of scholars and artists, and the theft and destruction of innumerable cultural artifacts. ''The maltreatment of the Poles was one of many ways in which the Nazi and Soviet regimes had grown to resemble one another", wrote British historian Niall Ferguson.
Germans looting the Zachęta Museum in Warsaw, summer 1944
Portrait of a Young Man, by Raphael, ca. 1514. Possibly a self-portrait, and if so, the most valuable single piece of art looted by the Nazis in Poland. Formerly in the collection of the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, its whereabouts remain unknown.
Photo of earliest, 1829 portrait of Chopin, by Mieroszewski. Destroyed in Warsaw, September 1939.
Burned ruins of the Great Synagogue of Białystok, after it was torched down by the Germans with approximately 2000 Jews inside, 1941.
Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)
The occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II (1939–1945) began with the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, and it was formally concluded with the defeat of Germany by the Allies in May 1945. Throughout the entire course of the occupation, the territory of Poland was divided between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (USSR), both of which intended to eradicate Poland's culture and subjugate its people. In the summer-autumn of 1941, the lands which were annexed by the Soviets were overrun by Germany in the course of the initially successful German attack on the USSR. After a few years of fighting, the Red Army drove the German forces out of the USSR and crossed into Poland from the rest of Central and Eastern Europe.
Beginning of Lebensraum, the German expulsion of Poles from western Poland, 1939
Operation Tannenberg, October 1939, mass murder of Polish townsmen in western Poland
German and Soviet soldiers stroll around Sambir after the German-Soviet invasion of Poland.
Expulsion of Poles from western Poland, with Poles led to the trains under German army escort, 1939.