Wearing the Letter “P”. Honoring the Women of Poland during WWII

The outbreak of World War II and the entry of German troops into Poland on September 1, 1939 began a devastation of such catastrophic proportions that after the war, at the Trial of War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, the Nazi defendants were charged with planning and executing war crimes and the practice of "total war" which included methods of combat and of military occupation that was in direct conflict with the laws of war.  Their actions against civilian populations were not justified by military necessity. 1

Prior to the invasion, in his talk to his commanding generals in August of 1939, Hitler stated he had ordered his Death Head Units "to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language...Poland will be depopulated and colonized with Germans." 2 

During the five long years of German occupation, the citizens of Poland were subject to inhumane acts and unspeakable atrocities.  The Germans herded the Jews into ghettos where they slowly starved to death and those who survived were systematically murdered in the infamous gas chambers of Auschwitz, Belzec, Majdanek, and Treblinka that they built on Polish soil. The Siti and Roma gypsies shared a similar fate. And amidst all the chaos, all the death, destruction and inhuman acts, the Germans were carrying out a policy of economic exploitation, a policy to keep Hitler's war effort going at top speed: everyone had to work for the interest of the Third Reich.

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German propaganda poster enticing Polish women to volunteer for agricultural work work in Germany. Note the letter "P" patch attached to right side of the sweater worn by the Polish woman.  Photo: Hrabia tytus.pl 

For the people of Poland, working for the Reich became compulsory. Laborers were needed in Germany in all aspects of agriculture and industry to replace the workers who had been called up into Hitler’s military branches. When propaganda failed to bring in the needed number of volunteer workers, the people of Poland were rounded up while sitting at the movies, coming out of church, or walking down the street. Entire city blocks and entire country villages were surrounded, the victims held in temporary arrest until everyone could be examined as a potential worker for Germany.

← Photo depicting round up of individuals at Evangelical Reformed Church in Warsaw located on Solidarność Street.    Wkipedia.pl photo

Those who met the criteria were forcibly and promptly shipped to German territories against their will.  

The German war economy was achieved by the impressment and deportation of millions of individuals from their homeland into Germany against their will and  forced to work for the benefit of the German Reich.

Marked with the letter “P” for  Pole, they were exploited for their labor where they died from abuse, hunger, physical illness and suicide.

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   Footnotes:
​  1 Trial of War Criminals before the  International Military Tribunal Nuremberg, Germany Volume 
  2 Document L-3 Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume 8

     The story of the girls and women of Poland who were forcibly taken from their homes in Poland, sent to Germany and exploited for their labor during World War II can be found in the book: Wearing the Letter P: Polish Women as Forced Laborers in Nazi Germany 1939-1945. Hippocrene Books, Inc.

https://www.hippocrenebooks.com/store/p400/Wearing_the_Letter_P%3A_Polish_Women_as_Forced_Laborers_in_Nazi_Germany%2C_1939-1945.htm

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