Memorial in Palmiry
The Polish Memorial in Palmiry was established in 1948. It is located in a forest near the village of Palmiry (Czosnów) within the Kampinos National Park in the Masovian Voivodeship. During the German occupation of Poland between 1939 and 1943, the Gestapo and SS units carried out secret mass shootings of the Polish civilian population here.[1] The memorial is located near the former mass graves.
Contents
History
Before the Second World War, ammunition was stored here, which is why the local population called the area "Po wybuchu" (powder keg). These camps, originally part of the Modlin fortress,[2] supplied ammunition to the Polish defence forces during the siege of Warsaw in September 1939. The ammunition depot was equipped with a railway connection. In the first months of occupation, the facility, including the tracks, were dismantled by German units. The surrounding forest was cleared. A clearing was created which was to become a secret place of execution. Shootings were carried out here for the first time on 14 December 1939.
The executions in Palmiry were carefully planned by the Gestapo deployed in Warsaw. A few days before the transport, a department of the Reich Labour Service, located in nearby Łomna, sometimes also units of the Hitler Youth camping near Palmiry, excavated pits suitable for mass graves in the clearing. These pits were about 2.5 m deep and 30 m long. The victims to be shot were usually taken from the Warsaw Pawiak prison, and rarely from the Mokotów prison in Rakowiecka Street on trucks to Palmiry. Most of the Poles murdered here belonged to the Polish Inteligencja. The climax of the shootings was reached within the framework of the Poland-wide AB Actions.
Literature
- Władysław Bartoszewski: Der Todesring um Warschau,1939–1944, Interpress, Warszawa 1969, pp. 38–85.
