Cops seize 300 Nazi-German documents put online for sale
Nearly 300 Nazi-German documents have been seized by Polish cops after being illegally put online for sale.
The documents from the Gestapo, Hitler Youth and the Nazi Party were recovered in the Polish capital Warsaw where they were being sold for 59,000 PLN.
The papers released by police are emblazoned with letterheads showing the name National Socialist German Workers’ Party accompanied by Swastikas, and end with the salutation ‘Heil Hitler.’
Produced between 1939 and 1945, the documents contain information about operations carried out by Germans during the occupation of the city of Łódź against civilians and about damages inflicted on the city.
On some of the papers released by police, letterheads show the name National Socialist German Workers’ Party accompanied by Swastikas, and end with the salutation ‘Heil Hitler.’
One of the papers stamped with the Nazi eagle and signed by an NDSAP district chief in Łódź begins: “I regret to inform you that the above matter has been …”.
One stamped with the Nazi eagle and signed by an NDSAP district chief in Łódź begins: “I regret to inform you that the above matter has been …”.
The rest of the sentence has been cropped out of the photograph but the subject refers to a local ‘cash manager’.
After Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, the city of Łódź was taken over on September 8, 1939.
After Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, the city of Łódź was taken over on September 8, 1939.
On the orders of Adolf Hitler the city was renamed Litzmannstadt and was planned as a German industrial city.
By the end of the year, around 40,000 Germans had moved into Łódź and most of the Polish population were put to forced labour.
The Germans soon established the Łódź Ghetto in the city and populated it with more than 200,000 Jews from the Łódź area.
The Germans soon established the Łódź Ghetto in the city and populated it with more than 200,000 Jews from the Łódź area.
As Jews were deported from Litzmannstadt for extermination, others were brought in. Several concentration camps arose in the city's vicinity for the non-Jewish inhabitants of the region, among them the infamous Radogoszcz prison.
Due to the value of the goods that the ghetto population produced for the German military and various civilian contractors, it was the last major ghetto to be liquidated, in August 1944.
The Soviet Red Army entered the city on 18 January 1945. Most of the German population fled the city for fear of the Soviet Red Army.
Police spokeswoman Edyta Adamus said that the documents were of “significant importance for research into the period of our country's recent history.”
Warsaw police press spokeswoman Edyta Adamus said that because the documents recovered by officers were now the subject of a criminal investigation, full details of the contents could not yet be revealed.
But she added that they were “of significant importance for research into the period of our country's recent history.”
A man, who claims he bought the documents at a market, is now being questioned and could face up to eight years' in jail for failing to hand the papers over to the relevant authorities and for trying to sell them illegally.
