page_title: Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)
section_title: The Holocaust
hierarchical_section_title: Occupation of Poland (1939–1945) / Treatment of Polish citizens under German occupation / The Holocaust
caption_attribution_description: English: Nazi-German annoucement of the introduction of the death penalty for Jews leaving the ghettos and for Poles helping them; dated Nov. 10th, 1941 The German text: Bekanntmachung Betr.: Todesstrafe für unbefugtes Verlassen der jüdischen Wohnbezirke. In der letzten Zeit ist durch Juden, die die ihnen zugewiesenen Wohnbezirke verlassen haben, in zahlreichen Fällen nachweislich das Fleckfieber verbreitet worden. Um die hierdurch der Bevölkerung drohende Gefahr abzuwenden, hat der Herr Generalgouverneur verordnet, dass in Zukunft ein Jude, der den ihm zugewiesenen Wohnbezirk unbefugt verlässt, mit dem Tode bestraft wird. Die gleiche Strafe trifft diejenigen, die diesen Juden wissentlich Unterschlupf gewähren oder in anderer Weise (z.B. durch Gewährung von Nachtlagern, Verpflegung, Mitnahme auf Fahrzeugen aller Art usw.) den Juden behilflich sind. Die Aburteilung erfolgt durch das Sondergericht Warschau. Ich weise die gesamte Bevölkerung des Distrikts Warschau auf diese neue gesetzliche Regelung ausdrücklich hin, da nunmehr mit unerbitterlicher Strenge vorgegangen wird. Warschau am 10. November 1941 gez. Dr. Fischer Gouverneur The Polish text: Obwieszczenie Dotyczy: kary śmierci za nieuprawnione opuszczenie żydowskich dzielnic mieszkaniowych. W ostatnim czasie rozprzestrzenili żydzi, którzy opuścili wyznaczone im dzielnice mieszkaniowe, w licznych udowodnionych wypadkach tyfus plamisty. Aby zapobiec grożącemu w ten sposób niebezpieczeństwu dla ludności, rozporządził Generalny Gubernator, że żyd, który w przyszłości opuści nieuprawniony wyznaczoną mu dzielnicę mieszkaniową, będzie karany śmiercią. Tej samej karze podlega ten, kto takim żydom udziela świadomie schronienia lub im w inny sposób pomaga (np. przez udostępnienie noclegu, utrzymania, przez zabranie na pojazdy wszelkiego rodzaju itp.). Osądzenie nastąpi przez Sąd Specjalny w Warszawie. Zwracam całej ludności Okręgu Warszawskiego wyraźnie uwagę na to nowe postanowienie ustawowe, ponieważ odtąd będzie stosowana bezlitosna surowość. Warszawa, dnia 10 listopada 1941. (-) Dr Fischer Gubernator Translation: Announcement Regarding: Death penalty for illegally leaving the Jewish residential district. Recently, in many documented instances, Jews, who have left the residential districts designated for them, have spread typhus. To safeguard the population against this dangerous threat, the General Governor has ordered that any Jew, who in the future illegally leaves the residential district designated for him, will be punished by death. The same punishment will apply to whoever consciously shelters Jews mentioned above or in any other way assists them (for instance, by providing overnight accommodation, or sustenance, by giving a ride in any kind of vehicle, etc.) The sentence will be imposed by the Special Court in Warsaw. I explicitly draw the attention of the whole population of the Warsaw District to this new regulation since henceforth it will be applied with merciless severity. Warsaw, 10 November 1941 (-) Dr Fischer Governor
context_page_description: The occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II (1939–1945) began with the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, and it was formally concluded with the defeat of Germany by the Allies in May 1945. Throughout the entire course of the occupation, the territory of Poland was divided between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both of which intended to eradicate Poland's culture and subjugate its people. In the summer-autumn of 1941, the lands which were annexed by the Soviets were overrun by Germany in the course of the initially successful German attack on the USSR. After a few years of fighting, the Red Army drove the German forces out of the USSR and crossed into Poland from the rest of Central and Eastern Europe.
  Sociologist Tadeusz Piotrowski argues that both occupying powers were hostile to the existence of Poland's sovereignty, people, and the culture and aimed to destroy them. Before Operation Barbarossa, Germany and the Soviet Union coordinated their Poland-related policies, most visibly in the four Gestapo–NKVD conferences, where the occupiers discussed their plans to deal with the Polish resistance movement
context_section_description: Following the invasion of Poland in 1939 most of the approximately 3.5 million Polish Jews were rounded up and put into newly established ghettos by Nazi Germany. The ghetto system was unsustainable, as by the end of 1941 the Jews had no savings left to pay the SS for food deliveries and no chance to earn their own keep. At the 20 January 1942 Wannsee Conference, held near Berlin, new plans were outlined for the total genocide of the Jews, known as the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". The extermination program was codenamed Operation Reinhard.
  Three secret extermination camps set up specifically for Operation Reinhard; Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor. In addition to the Reinhard camps, mass killing facilities such as gas chambers using Zyklon B were added to the Majdanek concentration camp in March 1942 and at Auschwitz and Chełmno.
caption: 1941 announcement of death penalty for Jews caught outside the Ghetto, and for Poles helping Jews
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging", "Image DateTime": "2007:05:18 11:01:27", "Image ExifOffset": "110", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF SubSecTime": "250", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "716", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1111"}