- published: 10 Sep 2015
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The Wąsosz pogrom was the mass murder of Jewish residents of Wąsosz in Nazi German occupied Poland that took place on July 7, 1941, during World War II.
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the village of Wąsosz (Podlaskie Voivodeship) was taken by the Germans in the second week of the war. At the end of September, in accordance with the German–Soviet Boundary Treaty, the area was transferred by the Nazis to the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East two weeks earlier, on September 17, 1939, pursuant to the secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The Red Army overran 52.1% of territory of Poland with over 13,700,000 inhabitants. The Soviet occupation zone included 5,1 million ethnic Poles (ca. 38%), 37% Ukrainians, 14,5% Belarusians, 8,4% Jews, 0,9% Russians and 0,6% Germans. There were also 336,000 refugees who escaped to eastern Poland from areas already occupied by Germany – most of them Polish Jews numbering at around 198,000. Soon thereafter, the Soviet secret police began spreading terror throughout the region. Polish prisoners of war were massacred. In less than two years the Soviet NKVD conducted mass deportations of up to 1.5 million ethnic Poles to Siberia, with some of the local people collaborating with them, including some Jews who formed armed militias. There were also instances of Jewish Communists denouncing ethnic Poles to the Soviets.
Wąsosz [ˈvɔ̃sɔʂ] (German: Herrnstadt) is a town in Góra County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district (gmina) called Gmina Wąsosz. Prior to 1945 it was in Germany.
It lies approximately 17 kilometres (11 mi) south-east of Góra, and 53 kilometres (33 mi) north-west of the regional capital Wrocław.
As at 2006, the town has a population of 2,828.
Media related to Wąsosz at Wikimedia Commons
Coordinates: 51°33′N 16°42′E / 51.55°N 16.7°E / 51.55; 16.7