The end of World War II in Europe did not bring Poland a victory, and even more so it was not a victorious time for Upper Silesia. For many of Upper Silesia this was a time of dramatic experience.

“If you don’t get in – it’s your fault, they will immediately send you to Auschwitz
And if you come in, old donkey – soon Hitler will send you to the ostfront”

The above poem was told during World War II by residents of the Polish part of Upper Silesia, who joined in 1939 into the Third German Reich. He aptly describes the tragedy that Upper Silesia faced during World War II, namely the consequences of joining or refusing to enter the Deutsche Volkslist (DVL).

The majority of Upper Silesians enrolled in the DVL, most often in the third or fourth category, which was not a sign of support for Nazi Germany but rather opportunism regarding another change of Upper Silesian nationality. As Prof. Ryszard Kaczmarek: “No one asked Upper Silesia about their willingness or lack of desire to change their own circumstances anymore. This choice, not for the first time in the 20th century, was made against their will. It was a habit of constant change that followed the rise of nationalist ideology , further strengthened the dominating tendency of a hold-and-wait attitude.As the life experience of the Upper Silesian people teaches, resistance always leads to repression or the need to leave their small homeland.

Nevertheless, some Upper Silesians refused to enter the DVL, finding themselves under censorship. These men were forced to wear armbands with the letter “P” on their arms, and from time to time report to the nearest German Ordungspolizei post. Sometimes they are treated by their neighbors as disturbing the peace.

Thousands died in the battle

The decision made when Upper Silesia found itself completely within the borders of the Third Reich had not only consequences during the war – exactly as the poem mentioned at the outset – refusal to enter the DVL often had consequences in the form of deportation to a concentration camp, in turn , more or less since 1942, entry into the DVL for Silesian men meant conscription into the Wehrmacht and, most often, the need to fight on the eastern front against the Red Army. Over time, Ostfront generated more and more fear among conscripts. Sending a detachment east often meant death, or at best injury or maiming. In 2010, Michał Smolorz wrote in “Polityka” that up to 220,000 people were enlisted as Nazi soldiers. Upper Silesia, of whom around 40,000 were killed and one more seriously injured. Only 10% of Upper Silesia who fought in the ranks of the German army were volunteers.

Deportation on the agenda

On the occasion of the following May anniversary of the victory over Nazism, it is necessary to remember the postwar consequences that especially affected the inhabitants of Upper Silesia. While Poland, theoretically on the victorious side of World War II, was actually the big loser of this conflict, Upper Silesia and its people were utterly lost. First used as cannon fodder by the Germans or sent by them to concentration camps, they were treated by the new communist authorities as an indeterminate German element, and by the Red Army of Upper Silesia as a German colony. Arrests and deportations in the first weeks of “liberation” were almost a regular occurrence, which is mentioned in the publication “Jo has been stolen” by K. Miroszewski and M. Sobeczka, who devoted themselves to the Upper Silesian Tragedy. Not only were people in the service of the German administrative and security apparatus deported (e.g. officials of the lowest level, namely the communal administration, recruited from pre-war German minorities or SA people), former soldiers – including defectors – of the Wehrmacht, were also the same people. had absolutely nothing in common, except that they had signed up with the DVL several years earlier. Unfortunately, there have been many cases of people being arrested and deported as a result of complaints. There are known and documented cases of people serving the Germans during the war, and after the change of power deliberately denounced their neighbors in order to weed out uncomfortable witnesses. There have been criticisms of wanting to expropriate property or as a result of revenge for wrongs suffered during war.

Liberation through slavery

This was facilitated by the new communist law. During the arrest, statutory provisions were enforced on the exclusion of persons serving Germany from the Polish state. In general, this right does not apply to persons of categories III and IV of the DVL, unless the behavior of these persons is irreconcilable with the Polish national identity, as stated in the decree of February 28, 1945 on the exclusion of hostile elements from Polish society. It was this decision that had tragic consequences for many residents of Upper Silesia. It obligated the security authorities to be notified of persons hostile to the new Poland. He just loves to inform, and what is worse, he does not give the possibility of appealing to a higher authority accused of cooperation. This means that literally anyone can be accused of cooperating, and the accused have no way of defending themselves. Over time, these regulations began to be criticized even by the new authorities. Only by announcing 3 July 1945 did the then Voivode of Silesia, General Aleksander Zawadzki, confirm that on 1 September 1939, within the borders of the Silesian Province, Germany introduced compulsory general entry into the DVL, and therefore persons of groups III and IV only required to submit a statement of loyalty.

In practice, it’s a conquest

Today, that may seem like the distant past. For the last witnesses of those events and their descendants, this is still a living memory. Several years ago I had the opportunity to speak with people who experienced “liberation” firsthand. I had the opportunity to know the testimonies of ordinary people who were just trying to survive the chaos of war, as well as people whose loved ones served the German nation out of faith, and people whose loved ones were forcibly conscripted into the army to Germany. Wehrmacht. I know the incredible story of four brothers – Franciszek, Oskar, Roman and Antoni. They were all drafted into the Wehrmacht. The first three died in the east. Lucky Anton. He went to the Italian front. There he was taken prisoner and soon found himself in the ranks of the Polish Armed Forces in the West. He was the only one among the brothers who survived the war and returned to his native village. After the war, he had to explain to the communists his service in the Polish Armed Forces in the West more than his service in the Wehrmacht. I know the story of Józef, who in 1945 was already an old man because, as his daughter (born 1924) tells him, he was born in 1878 in the German state, spent most of his life in the German state, and in Poland was only 18 years, so he considers himself a German. During the war, he was an ortsbauernführer – the head of the local peasantry, a kind of mayor. Taken by the Russians after the war, he died in the camp at Świętochłowice. I studied the story of Antoni, a Wehrmacht soldier, who in early 1942 was supposed to go with his unit to the Ostfront, but his mother died and, using a funeral card, he left, and his teenage son heard him say. coffin: “Matuchno, thank you for pulling me out of there. I’m not going back there and I’m not going to serve Hitler.” He managed to hide from Schupo until the end of the war, but he was out of luck after his “liberation”, as the Soviets recognized him as German and in April 1945 he marched with 80 other “elect” to Auschwitz. He was lucky because he was the only one from the group to survive and come back. I also learned the story of Alojzy, a rebel who registered at KL Auschwitz on July 8, 1942 and died there just three weeks later – officially of gastroenteritis. Another rebel, Jan, survived the war but was not released. The Russians took him – as a result of a complaint – to Świętochłowice, where all trace of him was lost. His distant neighbor was also taken in by the communists as a result of the complaint, but he returned home. After two years. The fate of many women, including older women and teenage girls, was tragic, being raped frequently by Soviet soldiers, regardless of age.

This is how liberation often looked in practice, and in fact the Soviet conquest of Upper Silesia.