Comment: In autumn of 1939 Bydgoszcz witnessed events tragic for Polish inhabitants of the city. After German troops entered the city on the 5th of September 1939 action of pacification of all circles of Polish community was began. According to a general commander of the 4th German army until the 11th of September 1050 persons had been interned, 370 "partisans" shot and on the 9th and 10th of September 1939 20 Polish hostages shot in a public execution on the Old Market. Public executions were documented by German photographers for propaganda purpose. Not all people in these photographs have been recognized. There are priests and clerks from Bydgoszcz. Some pictures, showing a moment of execution, were used by German propaganda as proof of Polish action against German sabotage on the 3rd of September.

Event shown on the photograph took place during first days of arrests and mass executions. It is estimated that until November 1939 about 1.5 thousand people had been murdered. Special actions were organized against teachers, clerks and other groups of Polish intelligentsia. A few hundred people were executed by sentences of a Nazi Special Tribunal in Bydgoszcz. It is estimated that in result of direct and indirect extermination carried out by the Nazis 5.3 Polish citizens of Bydgoszcz lost their lives. Nazis killed also about 2 thousand of Bydgoszcz Jews.
(Stanislaw Blazejewski)

External description: Copy of a photograph, black and white, sized 16x24 cm.
Location: State Archive in Bydgoszcz, Records of District Committee Of Research Of Nazi Crimes in Bydgoszcz, cat. no. 1003.