Valley of Death (Bydgoszcz)

Memorial to those murdered in the Valley of Death

The Valley of Death (Polish: Dolina Śmierci ) is located in Fordon , a district of Bydgoszcz ( German : Bromberg ) in the north of Poland. During the Second World War , mass executions of Polish civilians took place here.

history

Teacher from Bydgoszcz on the way to the execution in the Fordon "Valley of Death" (November 1, 1939)

Between the beginning of September and November 1939, mass executions of up to 5,000 Polish and Jewish residents from Bydgoszcz and the surrounding area were carried out in the Valley of Death in Fordon as part of the Tannenberg enterprise , which was prepared before the attack on Poland and before the Bydgoszcz Bloody Sunday . Between the end of September and the end of October 1939 alone, 1,400 to 3,000 people were shot. Most of the victims were teachers, civil servants, intellectuals and priests. The executions were carried out by the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz , who was commanded by Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben , and the Gestapo Einsatzkommando 16 . The victims were recorded in the so-called special wanted book of Poland .

The main culprits were Ludolf von Alvensleben and Jakub Löllgen , the other mass murderers involved in the crimes:

• Sturmbannführer : Sparmann, Meier, Schnugg;
• SS man : Baks;
• Ethnic German self-protection: Wilhelm Neumann, Herbert Beitsch, Otto Erlichmann (Nazi mayor of Fordon), Walter Gassmann.

Other mass graves in the vicinity of Bydgoszcz are in Tryszczyn and Borówno .

Web links

Commons : Valley of Death (Bydgoszcz)  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jürgen Matthäus, Jochen Böhler and Klaus-Michael Mallmann: War, Pacitication, and Mass Murder, 1939. The Einsatzgruppen in Poland (= Documenting Life and Destruction. Holocaust Sources in Context, Vol. 7). Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, ISBN 978-1-4422-3142-9 (e-book), pos. 73.

Coordinates: 53 ° 9 ′ 23 ″  N , 18 ° 8 ′ 5 ″  E