Comment: Entering Cracow by the Nazi troops on the 6th of September 1939 began a tragic period in history of the Jagiellonian University. The tragedy, which lasted 1961 days and nights, was result of two parallel actions - one aimed at destroying university structures and its institutes, the other, much more dangerous, at complete annihilation of university staff.

It began with a trap - on the 6th of November 1939 at the Jagiellonian University SS major Bruno Müller, a commander of a special operational squad, was to present "German point of view on science and academic education". Professors and junior members of teaching staff who gathered to listen to the lecture were brutally arrested, transported to a prison and then sent to Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camp.

 

Arresting Cracow scientists and academics and sending them to a death camp, unparalleled in history of the mankind, has become commonly described with a police and Gestapo term "Sonderaktion Krakau" - Special Action Cracow. The name has remained in historical memory and become strongly established in journalism and historical literature, however the actual name, recorded by Cracow Gestapo in a register of the arrested, was "Aktion gegen Universität - Professoren" - i.e. Action against university professors.

In course of "Sonderaktion Krakau" total number of 183 men were arrested, 155 of which were lecturers of the University, including its rector Tadeusz Lehr-Splawinski. (Mieczyslaw Barcik)

External description: Original, in German, one paper sheet size 210 x 148 mm.

Location: Archive of the Jagiellonian University, Committee for compiling history of the Jagiellonian University during the Second World War, cat. no. 25, card 25.