"Sonderfahndungsbuch Poland. Special Book of the Wanted in Poland"
We encourage you to become acquainted with the publication "Sonderfahndungsbuch Poland. Special Book of the Wanted in Poland" (Introduction and Compilation by Grzegorz Bębnik), which is available for purchase in our museum shop. The book is a unique primary source publication – a reprint of the book containing the names of Poles sought after by the German invaders, published during the occupation.
Rarely does a book's publication equate to a death sentence for specific individuals. Such was the case with "Sonderfahndungsbuch Poland." The history of this book is tied to the intention of capturing and neutralizing (eliminating) particularly active Polish social and political activists, who were deemed enemies by the authorities of Nazi Germany.
The publication was a consequence of the practice of compiling various registers that had been used up to that point. Such documents were meant to aid in locating individuals wanted for committing crimes or determining the whereabouts of suspects, all in the interest of maintaining order. These types of lists were given to German police units that entered Poland in September 1939.
Germany quickly realized that these list formats were insufficient, prompting the decision to publish a comprehensive document in October 1939. The book was published, as suggested by its entries, between the fall of 1939 and the beginning of April 1940.
This was no ordinary book. Its creation is part of the tragic context of the first months of World War II. The publication of this book led to dramatic consequences, including numerous arrests and mass murders. In the early months of the occupation, Polish citizens, including intellectuals and socio-political activists, fell victim to these actions.
The book contains personal data of nearly 8.8 thousand individuals – citizens of the Second Polish Republic and the Free City of Gdańsk. Many pages remained empty, leaving space for additions to be made after the book's publication, which also reveals the criminal intent of the German occupiers.
We encourage you to acquire the publication and familiarize yourself with its content. It is available in the MSWW shop, located on level -3 of the museum building.
"Sonderfahndungsbuch Poland. Special Book of the Wanted in Poland", Introduction and Compilation by Grzegorz Bębnik, Katowice–Warsaw 2019, pp. 216.
