Editing History of Poland (section)

===War losses, extermination of Jews and Poles===

[[File:Samuel Willenberg Treblinka 2 sierpnia 2013 01.JPG|[[Samuel Willenberg]] showing his drawings of the [[Treblinka extermination camp]]|thumb|right]]

A lack of accurate data makes it difficult to document numerically the extent of the human losses suffered by Polish citizens during World War II. Additionally, many assertions made in the past must be considered suspect due to flawed methodology and a desire to promote certain political agendas. The last available enumeration of ethnic Poles and the large ethnic minorities is the [[Polish census of 1931]]. Exact population figures for 1939 are therefore not known.<ref name="Brzoza Sowa 694-695">{{Harvnb|Brzoza|Sowa|2009|pp=694–695}}.</ref><ref name="Polskosc nosze z soba w plecaku">{{Harvnb|Domagalik|2011}}.</ref>

According to the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]], at least 3 million Polish [[Jews]] and at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians were killed.<ref name="Polish victims">{{Harvnb|USHMM}}.</ref> According to the historians Brzoza and Sowa, about 2 million ethnic [[Polish people|Poles]] were killed, but it is not known, even approximately, how many Polish citizens of other [[ethnic group|ethnicities]] perished, including [[Ukrainians]], [[Belarusians]], and [[Germans]].<ref name="Brzoza Sowa 695-696"/> Millions of Polish citizens were deported to Germany for forced labor or to German [[extermination camp]]s such as [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] and [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]]. Nazi Germany intended to exterminate the Jews completely, in actions that have come to be described collectively as [[the Holocaust]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Czubiński|2009|pp=215–217}}.</ref> The Poles were to be expelled from areas controlled by Nazi Germany through a process of [[Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany|resettlement that started in 1939]]. Such Nazi operations matured into a plan known as the ''[[Generalplan Ost]]'' that amounted to displacement, enslavement and partial extermination of the [[Slavs|Slavic]] people and was expected to be completed within 15 years.<ref>{{Harvnb|Berghahn|1999|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=j6VCNno2DVMC&pg=PA32 32]}}.</ref>

[[File:Warsaw Old Town 1945.jpg|thumb|left|[[Warsaw]] destroyed, photo taken January 1945]]

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The majority of Poles remained indifferent to the Jewish plight, and neither assisted nor persecuted Jews.<ref name="Winstone 2014">{{Cite book| publisher = Tauris| isbn = 978-1-78076-477-1 | last = Winstone| first = Martin| title = The Dark Heart of Hitler's Europe: Nazi rule in Poland under the General Government| location = London| date = 2014 |pages=181–186}}</ref><ref name="Connelly 2005">{{cite journal|first=John |last=Connelly |title=Why the Poles Collaborated so Little: And Why That Is No Reason for Nationalist Hubris |journal=Slavic Review |volume=64 |number=4 |year=2005 |pages=771–781|url= https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272584372 |doi=10.2307/3649912 |jstor=3649912|doi-access=free }}</ref> Of those who have helped [[Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust|rescue, shelter and protect Jews from the Nazi atrocity]], [[Yad Vashem]] and the [[State of Israel]] have recognized 6,992 individuals as ''[[Polish Righteous Among the Nations|Righteous Among the Nations]]''.<ref name="YV Stats">Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, [https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/statistics.html Names and Numbers of Righteous Among the Nations - per Country & Ethnic Origin, as of January 1, 2019]</ref>

In an attempt to incapacitate Polish society, the Nazis and the Soviets executed tens of thousands of members of the [[intelligentsia]] and community leadership during events such as the [[German AB-Aktion in Poland]], [[Operation Tannenberg]] and the [[Katyn massacre]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Naimark|2010|p=91}}; {{Harvnb|Snyder|2010|pp=126, 146–147, 415}}.</ref>{{Ref label|j|j|none}} Over 95% of the Jewish losses and 90% of the ethnic Polish losses were caused directly by Nazi Germany,{{Ref label|d|d|none}} whereas 5% of the ethnic Polish losses were caused by the Soviets and 5% by Ukrainian nationalists.<ref name="Brzoza Sowa 695-696">{{Harvnb|Brzoza|Sowa|2009|pp=695–696}}.</ref> The large-scale [[History of the Jews in Poland|Jewish presence in Poland]] that had endured for centuries was rather quickly put to an end by the policies of extermination implemented by the Nazis during the war. Waves of displacement and emigration that took place both during and after the war removed from Poland a majority of the Jews who survived. Further significant Jewish emigration followed events such as the [[Polish October]] political thaw of 1956 and the [[1968 Polish political crisis]].<ref name="Poland under Communism 157-163">{{Harvnb|Kemp-Welch|2008|pp=157–163}}.</ref>

[[File:Auschwitz - panoramio (40).jpg|thumb|right|The infamous gatehouse at [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz-Birkenau]] concentration camp, where at least 1.1 million people were murdered by Nazi Germany]]

In 1940–1941, some 325,000 Polish citizens were deported by the Soviet Union.<ref name="Brzoza Sowa 695-696"/> The number of Polish citizens who died at the hands of the Soviets is estimated at less than 100,000.<ref name="Brzoza Sowa 695-696"/>

In 1943–1944, Ukrainian nationalists associated with the [[Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists]] (OUN) and the [[Ukrainian Insurgent Army]] perpetrated the [[Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia]].<ref name="Brzoza Sowa 695-696"/> Estimates of the number of Polish civilian victims vary greatly, from tens to hundreds of thousands.<ref name ="Motyka">{{Harvnb|Motyka|2011|pp=447–448}}.</ref>

Approximately 90% of Poland's war casualties were the victims of prisons, death camps, raids, executions, the annihilation of ghettos, epidemics, starvation, excessive work and ill treatment. The war left one million children orphaned and 590,000 persons disabled. The country lost 38% of its national assets (whereas Britain lost only 0.8%, and France only 1.5%).<ref>{{Harvnb|Buszko|1986|pp=410–411}}.</ref> Nearly half of pre-war Poland was expropriated by the Soviet Union, including the two great cultural centers of [[Lviv|Lwów]] and [[Vilnius|Wilno]].<ref name="Brzoza Sowa 694-695"/>

The policies of Nazi Germany have been judged after the war by the International Military Tribunal at the [[Nuremberg trials]] and Polish genocide trials to be aimed at extermination of Jews, Poles and Roma, and to have "all the characteristics of genocide in the biological meaning of this term".<ref>Law-Reports of Trials of War Criminals, The United Nations War Crimes Commission, Volume VII, London, HMSO, 1948 CASE NO. 37 The Trial of Haupturmfuhrer Amon Leopold Goeth page 9.</ref>