The Situation of Civilians in Kreishauptmannschaft Ostrow (Ostrów) Mazowiecka in the Years 1939–1940

An Analysis Based on Source Materials Gathered by the Main Commission for the Investigation of German/Hitlerite Crimes in Poland

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the situation of the civilian population of the Ostrów Mazowiecka district, a part of the pre-war district of the Second Polish Republic which was incorporated into the General Government and from which the Kreishauptamannschaft Ostrów Mazowiecka was formed, and especially the crimes committed against its residents by the German occupier in 1939–1940. The article begins with an outline of demographics at the outbreak of the Second World War, as this was of vital importance to the policy of terror in the first months of the German occupation. This is followed by a presentation of the fate of Ostrów and its environs immediately following the German invasion in September 1939, especially the crimes committed in Małkinia, Bagatele and Orło. The rest of the text examines the terror appara­tus created in the area, as well as the crimes committed against the civilian population in the officially functioning General Government. The largest and most characteristic of these was, of course, the murder of the Jewish popula­tion on 11 November 1939. Research has been conducted primarily on source material in the resources of the Institute of National Remembrance (the archival resource of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerite/German Crimes in Poland). Integral to the text are statistical summaries and illustrations showing the German crimes committed in the Kreishauptamannschaft Ostrów Mazowiecka.