page_title: Roundup (history)
section_title: Polish resistance
hierarchical_section_title: Roundup (history) / Polish resistance
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Bydgoszcz, 8 września 1939. Polski mężczyzna aresztowany podczas niemieckiej łapanki na ulicy Parkowej.English: Bydgoszcz on 8th September 1939 – first days of German occupation. Polish civilian arrested during the “łapanka” and guarded by Wehrmacht soldiers at rallying point at Parkowa Street.
context_page_description: A roundup was a widespread German World War II security and economic exploitation tactic used in occupied countries, especially in German-occupied Poland in which the SS, Wehrmacht and German police took captive at random thousands of civilians on the streets of subjugated cities. The civilians were captured in groups of unsuspecting passers-by or kidnapped from selected city quarters that had been surrounded in advance by German forces.
  Those caught in roundups were most often sent to slave labour in Germany, but some were also taken as hostages or executed in reprisal actions; imprisoned and sent to concentration camps or summarily executed in numerous ethnic-cleansing operations.
context_section_description: In 1940, one roundup was used by Home Army secret agent Witold Pilecki to gain entry into the Auschwitz camp set up at about that time for Polish prisoners. There, he gathered first-hand intelligence on the camp, and organised inmate resistance. Pilecki deliberately went out into the street during a Warsaw roundup on 19 September 1940, and was arrested by the Germans along with other civilians. Auschwitz was the main destination for the Poles from beyond the ghetto. There he organised Związek Organizacji Wojskowej (ZOW, the Military Organization Association), and in November 1940 sent its first report about the camp and the genocide being committed there to Home Army headquarters in Warsaw.
  In retribution for roundups as acts of Nazi terror, the Polish resistance carried out attacks on German forces and prepared lists of Nazi leaders to be eliminated for their crimes against civilians. Nazi personnel responsible for organizing roundups, such as members of local unemployment offices, the SS, SD, and German police, were sentenced to death by the Special Courts of the Polish Underground for crimes against Polish citizens during the Occupation of Poland. Because of the particular brutality of the police, the AK killed 361 gendarmes in 1943, and 584 in 1944. In Warsaw alone, ten Germans were killed daily. From August to December 1942, the AK launched 87 attacks on the German administration and members of the apparatus of terror. In 1943 this number rose radically − the AK carried out 514 attacks during the first four months. In an underground operation known as Operacja Główki (Operation Heads), Polish underground combat units from Kedyw eliminated roundup organizers such as:
  Kurt Hoffman - chief of the unemployment office in Warsaw responsible for organising roundups of Poles. Executed by the AK on 9 April 1943.
  Hugo Dietz - Hoffmann's assistant. Executed on 13 April 1943.
  Fritz Geist - chief of the unemployment office department. Killed on 10 May 1943.
  Willi Lübbert - worked at the unemployment office and organised roundups of Poles to be sent to Nazi labor camps. Executed on 1 July 1944.
  Eugen Bollodino - worked at the unemployment office and organised roundups of Poles to be sent to Nazi labor camps. Executed by combat patrol unit DB-17 on 8 June 1944.
caption: Bydgoszcz roundup, 8 September 1939 – Polish civilian being guarded by Luftwaffe   soldier
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