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ZAMOJSZCZYZNA IN SCOPE OF THE POPULATION/TERRITORIAL POLICY OF THE THIRD REICH

DEPORTATIONS FROM THE ZAMOJSZCZYZNA REGION TO AUSCHWITZ

ZAMOJSZCZYZNA IN SCOPE OF THE POPULATION/TERRITORIAL POLICY OF THE THIRD REICH

Due to the aggression of the Third Reich against the Soviet Union in June 1941, Zamojszczyzna gained particular importance in the German settlement plans. During his visit to Lublin and Zamość, which took place less than a month after the attack on the USSR, Heinrich Himmler gave the SS and police commander Odilo Globocnik an order to draw up plans for the redesigning of Zamość (which was to change its name to Himmlerstadt) and create a “German settlement district” around the city.

Source: Zamojskie Museum, Sign. MF-127-R

During the occupation, there was a seat occupied by German authorities.

In a letter from Helmut Müller (Head of the Gestapo in the Lublin District) to Otto Hoffmann (Head of the Race and Settlement Main Office), the following instructions of H. Himmler were expressed:

The market square in Zamość should be preserved but also undergo a thorough renovation (including the construction of modern equipment such as central heating). Since the houses were temporarily taken over by the East Trust Office, the Reichsführer SS will contact Mayor Winkler to hand over these houses to SS. Also, in Zamość you should arrange a house for SS commanders with a room for the Reichsführer and guests. For 30 German children in Zamość and Tomaszów, a school should be organized immediately.

By the autumn of this year, the Reichsführer’s Plenipotentiary is primarily to issue appropriate arrangements to establish SS and police bases in the new eastern area. [...]

Source: Zamojszczyzna – Sonderlaboratorium SS. Zbiór dokumentów polskich i niemieckich z okresu okupacji hitlerowskiej, ed. Cz. Madajczyk, vol. 2, Warsaw 1977, p. 26-28.

The action of Germanisation was planned to start from the south-eastern part of the Lublin district, which consisted of the pre-war districts: Zamojski, Hrubieszowski, Biłgoraj and Tomaszów. This area, called Zamojszczyzna, was chosen because of its agricultural assets. It consisted of five cities and 696 villages and covered 608,000 hectares with more than half of it being arable land. Before the war, 80 % of the local population worked in the agricultural sector. Numerous farms along with all the farm equipment and inventory would be confiscated and handed over to German settlers.

Source: A-BSM, graphic desing: Elżbieta Pietruczuk

A map showing the administrative division of occupied Polish lands. In red, the area of Zamojszczyzna is marked.

However, the key argument in favor of the creation of a “bastion of Germanism” in the Zamojszczyzna region was its geographical location, beneficial both for current military and political goals, as well as in the perspective of far-reaching colonization plans. In view of the ongoing war, the Germanized Zamojszczyzna was supposed to secure the back of the German army and to separate the lands of the Great Reich from the East. This “German protective wall” was to extend over time from the Baltic states to Transylvania.

A thatched cottage. In front of the thatched cottage, three men stand in front of the road and talk.

Source: Zamojskie Museum, sign. 1409-MF-N-MZ.

Cottage in one of the Zamość villages, probably from the area of Wożuczyn.

Country road. On both sides of the buildings - thatched buildings. In the middle people carry sheaves of hay.

Source: Zamojskie Museum, sign. 1408-MF-N-MZ.

The main road and buildings of Siemnice village. The photograph shows children forced to work stripping the thatched roofs of old houses.

Source: Zamojskie Museum, sign. 1368-MF-N-MZ.

Landscape of Zamojszczyzna. People walking probably from Siemnice to the church in Grodysławice.

Extract from Helmut Müller’s letter (Head of the Gestapo in the Lublin District) to Otto Hoffmann (Head of the Race and Settlement Main Office), in:

Brigadenführer Odilo Globocnik [...] intends to inhabit the entire district of Lublin by Germans in order to create a bridge connecting the Nordic or German colonised Baltic States through the Lublin district with the German-inhabited Transylvania. In this, he wants the Polish population, which still remains in the western zone, to be "closed in the cauldron" and gradually suffocate economically and biologically. The expansion from west to east, directed from the Warta County, is to be accompanied by pressure from east to west, flowing from the Lublin area and from the lands to the north and south of it. A very far-reaching goal, but in its tendencies, good.

Lublin, 15 October 1941

Source: Zamojszczyzna – Sonderlaboratorium SS. Zbiór dokumentów polskich i niemieckich z okresu okupacji hitlerowskiej, ed. Cz. Madajczyk, vol. 2, Warszawa 1977, p. 31.

From the order of Heinrich Himmler (Reichsführer SS and Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood):

The action "search for German blood" will be extended to the entire General Government, and a large settlement area will be created next to the German colonies near Zamość. In order to give these areas a purely German character as soon as possible, it is necessary to start setting up farms and farming as soon as possible.

Source: Zamojszczyzna – Sonderlaboratorium SS. Zbiór dokumentów polskich i niemieckich z okresu okupacji hitlerowskiej, ed. Cz. Madajczyk, vol. 2, Warsaw 1977, p. 28.