At the onset of World War II in September 1939, Poland was invaded by Germany and Nazi German occupation began. On September 6–8, 1939, the "Einsatzgruppe II" entered the town to commit various crimes against Poles. Mass searches of Polish organizations, offices and houses, and mass arrests of priests, teachers, intelligentsia and fighters of three anti-German, Silesian Uprisings (1919–1921) took place. The synagogue was burned while German minority enthusiastically welcomed invading Nazi forces. Already in September 1939, the Germans murdered over 20 Poles in the present-day districts of Lasowice, Strzybnica and Repty Śląskie. Among the victims were miners, former insurgents and a school principal from nearby Chorzów. Germany established and operated a prison for Poles in the town. During the occupation, the Armia Krajowa (Home Army, the leading Polish underground resistance organization) undertook a sabotage campaign against Nazi forces, railroad-transport and local industry. The Germans operated two forced labour subcamps of the &lt;a href="Stalag%20VIII-B"&gt;Stalag VIII-B/344&lt;/a&gt; prisoner-of-war camp in the town. Liberation of Silesia came in early 1945; in order to save the industrial infrastructure of the region, the Red Army opened an offensive supported by massive numbers of troops with minimal use of heavy artillery and air-bombardment. According to witnesses, the entire operation was extremely fast; countless, shoulder-to-shoulder, crowds of Russian soldiers passed through the town in matter of minutes followed by almost complete still. Liberation from the Nazi occupiers came with a great price and Poland once again lost its freedom; although officially a sovereign country, in fact the state was ruled by a puppet regime installed and fully controlled by Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union.