Editing Białystok (section)

===World War II===
With the beginning of [[World War II]], Poland was invaded by [[Nazi invasion of Poland|Nazi Germany]] and the [[Soviet invasion of Poland|Soviet Union]]. City president [[Seweryn Nowakowski]] established the Citizens' Guard. Due to the need to evacuate the police forces, the Guard took over its duties after September 11.<ref name="Kozak"/> In addition to the Police, a group of officials left along with selected archives.<ref name="Kozak"/> However, most of the residents of Białystok remained in the city.<ref name="Kozak">{{cite web|url=https://przystanekhistoria.pl/pa2/teksty/96811,Policja-Panstwowa-wojewodztwa-bialostockiego-we-wrzesniu-1939-r.html|title=Policja Państwowa województwa białostockiego we wrześniu 1939 r.|last1=Kozak|first1=Marek|publisher=Przystanek Historia|language=pl|accessdate=2025-02-10|date=2022-11-24}}</ref> Initially Białystok was briefly [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|occupied]] by Germany, and the German ''[[Einsatzgruppen|Einsatzgruppe IV]]'' entered the city on 20–21 September 1939 to commit [[Nazi crimes against the Polish nation|crimes against the population]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Wardzyńska|first=Maria|year=2009|title=Był rok 1939. Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion|language=pl|location=Warszawa|publisher=[[Institute of National Remembrance|IPN]]|page=55}}</ref> After occupying Białystok, the Germans established the Military City Command, which ordered the surrender of weapons and ammunition and the disbandment of the Citizens' Guard.<ref name="Kozak"/> On September 20, a brutal murder was committed in the courtyard of Primary School No. 1, where a transit camp for prisoners had been set up earlier. Wehrmacht soldiers murdered 8 people "for disobedience".<ref name="Kozak"/> The next day, German troops began to withdraw from the city, where they were replaced by Red Army units, as a result of the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]].

Under Soviet occupation, it was [[Soviet annexation of Western Belorussia|incorporated]] into the [[Byelorussian SSR]] from 1939 to 1941 as the capital of [[Belastok Region]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Podział Polski między ZSRR i Trzecią Rzeszę według Paktu Ribbentrop-Mołotow |url=http://www.ivrozbiorpolski.pl/img/granice_rozbiorowe_2rp.gif |access-date=2011-01-26 |language=pl |archive-date=2012-03-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120315100953/http://www.ivrozbiorpolski.pl/img/granice_rozbiorowe_2rp.gif |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Mapa podziału Polski. Podpisy: Stalin, Ribbentrop |url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Mapa_2_paktu_Ribbentrop-Mo%C5%82otow.gif |access-date=2011-03-22 |language=pl |archive-date=2022-05-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220505183144/http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Mapa_2_paktu_Ribbentrop-Mo%C5%82otow.gif |url-status=live }}</ref> Polish people were subject to deportations deep into the [[USSR]] ([[Siberia]], [[Kazakhstan]], [[Far North (Russia)|Far North]]).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo/Bialystok;3877124.html|title=Białystok|website=Encyklopedia PWN|access-date=24 October 2019|language=pl|archive-date=22 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191122091602/https://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo/Bialystok;3877124.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Pre-war mayor Seweryn Nowakowski was arrested by the [[NKVD]] in October 1939 and probably also deported to the USSR, however his fate remains unknown.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dzieje.pl/wystawy/wystawa-seweryn-nowakowski-zaginiony-prezydent-bialegostoku-od-piatku|title=Wystawa "Seweryn Nowakowski – zaginiony prezydent Białegostoku" – od piątku|website=Dzieje.pl|author=Sylwia Wieczeryńska|access-date=6 September 2021|language=pl|archive-date=6 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210906182424/https://dzieje.pl/wystawy/wystawa-seweryn-nowakowski-zaginiony-prezydent-bialegostoku-od-piatku|url-status=live}}</ref> The [[NKVD]] took over the local prison.<ref name=gr/> The [[Polish resistance movement in World War II|Polish resistance movement]] was active in the city, which was the seat of one of the six main commands of the [[Union of Armed Struggle]] in occupied Poland (alongside [[Warsaw]], [[Kraków]], [[Poznań]], [[Toruń]] and [[Lwów]]).<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Grabowski|first=Waldemar|year=2011|title=Armia Krajowa|magazine=Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej|language=pl|publisher=IPN|issue=8-9 (129-130)|page=116|issn=1641-9561}}</ref> Białystok native and future President of Poland [[Polish government-in-exile|in exile]] [[Ryszard Kaczorowski]] was a member of the local Polish resistance and was arrested in the city by the NKVD in 1940.<ref name=rk>{{cite web|url=https://uwb.edu.pl/ryszard-kaczorowski-1919-2010|title=Ryszard Kaczorowski (1919 - 2010)|website=Uniwersytet w Białymstoku|access-date=6 September 2021|language=pl|archive-date=28 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220528072234/https://www.uwb.edu.pl/ryszard-kaczorowski-1919-2010|url-status=dead}}</ref> Initially the Soviets sentenced him to death, but eventually he was sentenced to 10 years in [[Gulag|forced labor camps]] and deported to [[Kolyma]], from where he was released in 1942, when he joined the [[Anders' Army]].<ref name=rk/>

[[File:Henryk Poddębski Białystok Kościół 02.jpg|thumb|right|Białystok in the interbellum]]

In the course of the [[Operation Barbarossa|German invasion of the Soviet Union]] in 1941, Białystok was occupied by the [[Wehrmacht|German Army]] on 27 June 1941, during the [[Battle of Białystok–Minsk]], and the city became the capital of [[Bezirk Białystok]], a separate region in [[German occupation of Poland|German occupied Poland]], until 1944.<ref>{{Cite journal |publisher=IPN |series=Biuletyn IPN |volume=35-36|title=Budapest Review of Books |journal=Books: Budapest Review of Books |edition=12/2003-1/2004 |location=Warsaw |issn=1641-9561|language=pl|oclc=212382824 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Gnatowski |first=M |title=Białostockie Zgrupowanie Partyzanckie |year=1994 |location=Białystok|language=pl}}</ref> Between July and June the [[1941 Białystok massacres]] took place. The [[Great Synagogue (Białystok)|Great Synagogue]] was burnt down by Germans on 27 June 1941, with an estimated number of 2,000 Jews inside. From the very beginning, the Nazis pursued a ruthless policy of pillage and removal of the non-German population. The Germans operated a Nazi prison in the city,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bundesarchiv.de/zwangsarbeit/haftstaetten/index.php?action=2.2&tab=7&id=441|title=Schweres NS-Gefängnis Bialystok|website=Bundesarchiv.de|access-date=6 September 2021|language=de|archive-date=6 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210906182613/https://www.bundesarchiv.de/zwangsarbeit/haftstaetten/index.php?action=2.2&tab=7&id=441|url-status=live}}</ref> and a [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|forced labour]] camp for Jewish men.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bundesarchiv.de/zwangsarbeit/haftstaetten/index.php?action=2.2&tab=7&id=440|title=Zwangsarbeitslager für Juden Bialystok|website=Bundesarchiv.de|access-date=6 September 2021|language=de|archive-date=6 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210906182618/https://www.bundesarchiv.de/zwangsarbeit/haftstaetten/index.php?action=2.2&tab=7&id=440|url-status=live}}</ref> Since 1943, the ''[[Sicherheitspolizei]]'' carried out deportations of Poles including teenage boys from the local prison to the [[Stutthof concentration camp]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Drywa|first=Danuta|editor-last=Kostkiewicz|editor-first=Janina|year=2020|title=Zbrodnia bez kary... Eksterminacja i cierpienie polskich dzieci pod okupacją niemiecką (1939–1945)|language=pl|location=Kraków|publisher=[[Jagiellonian University|Uniwersytet Jagielloński]], [[Biblioteka Jagiellońska]]|page=187|chapter=Germanizacja dzieci i młodzieży polskiej na Pomorzu Gdańskim z uwzględnieniem roli obozu koncentracyjnego Stutthof}}</ref> The 56,000 Jewish residents of the town were confined in a ghetto.<ref name=ushmm>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005170 |title=Bialystok |encyclopedia=Holocaust Encyclopedia |publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] |access-date=2007-07-26| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070805001654/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005170| archive-date= 5 August 2007 | url-status= live}}</ref> On 15 August 1943, the [[Białystok Ghetto Uprising]] began, and several hundred [[History of the Jews in Poland|Polish Jews]] and members of the [[Anti-Fascist Military Organisation]] ({{langx|pl|Antyfaszystowska Organizacja Bojowa}}) started an armed struggle against the German troops who were carrying out the planned liquidation of the ghetto with deportations to the [[Treblinka extermination camp]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Ruch oporu w getcie białostockim. Samoobrona-zagłada-powstanie |author=Mark, B |year=1952 |location=Warsaw|language=pl}}</ref> Ultimately the ghetto was liquidated, and the vast majority of its remaining 40,000 occupants including men, woman and children, were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, primarily at the Treblinka death camp.

The city fell under the control of the [[Red Army]] on 27 July 1944. The Soviets carried out mass arrests of Polish resistance members in the city and region, and imprisoned them in Białystok. On 20 September 1944 the city was transferred back to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the [[Fall of Communism]] in the 1980s, and the Soviet [[NKVD]] and [[SMERSH]] continued the persecution of the Polish resistance in the following months. From November 1944 to January 1945, the Russians deported nearly 5,000 Poles from the local prison to the Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Zwolski|first=Marcin|year=2005|title=Deportacje internowanych Polakow z wojewodztwa białostockiego 1944–1945|magazine=Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość|volume=2|language=pl|publisher=IPN|issue=8|pages=98–99|issn=1427-7476}}</ref> Later on, the Soviet-appointed communists held political prisoners and other members of the [[Anti-communist resistance in Poland (1944–1953)|Polish resistance]] in the local prison, and until 1956, they also carried out burials of executed Polish resistance members there.<ref name=gr/>