These Polish women led into the woods by German Ordnungspolizei won’t be coming back.
These Polish women led into the woods by German Ordnungspolizei won’t be coming back. The one in the foreground, wearing white, patterned coat, is Janina Skalska, Polish Red Cross worker. She's 39, the date is 21 June 1940, the coat is similar to the one in the pre-war photograph, but if you could see her face, the expression would be entirely different. The AB Aktion was a German plan to decapitate the Polish nation – and Palmiry, a village near Warsaw, became one of the blocks for the axe. It is in its woods that between December 1939 and July 1941 at least 2,000 prominent Poles were brutally murdered. It usually happened in the mornings: the pits, dug by Hitlerjugend and Baudienst youth the day before, were waiting for the people from Pawiak and other prisons. Blindfolded victims were lined up on the longer side, and the execution squad shot them into the gaping graves. There must have been crying, prayers and begging – but they counted for nothing and changed nothing. A...