After the Polish Defensive War of 1939, Germany occupied the area and on 26 October Wadowice was annexed by Nazi Germany. On 29 December of the same year the town was renamed to "Wadowitz". Initially the Polish intelligentsia was targeted by harsh German racial and cultural policies and hundreds of people from the area, most notably priests, teachers and artists, were murdered in mass executions (see "Intelligenzaktion"). Many were imprisoned in the infamous Montelupich Prison in Kraków and then murdered in the Krzesławice Fort of the Kraków Fortress in December 1939. Hundreds more were expelled and resettled to the General Government in order to make place for German settlers in accordance with the "Lebensraum" policy. Germany also established and operated a Nazi prison in the town. Between 1941 and 1943 a ghetto was established in the city. Almost the entire local Jewish population (more than 2,000) was exterminated, mostly in the nearby Auschwitz concentration camp. In addition, the Germans set up a prisoner-of-war camp for Allied soldiers and a penal camp that served as a transfer camp for various German concentration camps. Despite German terror, the Home Army units were active in the area, most notably in the town itself and in the Beskid mountains to the south of it.