The Island on Bird Street

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of religious discrimination, graphic violence, and death.

Nazi Germany under dictator Adolf Hitler launched a surprise attack and invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Previously, Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia, Austria, and the Sudetenland, but he wanted even more territorial expansion for his goal of more “living space” for Germans, whom he considered superior to other ethnicities and groups. This event, along with Great Britain and France’s declaration of war against Germany on September 3, 1939, is considered the start of World War II in Europe. German and Soviet forces defeated Poland within the month, and the country was subsequently not just occupied by Germany but divided. The western part of Poland became part of the Greater German Reich. The eastern part went to the control of the Soviet Union. The Nazis then subjected Polish citizens—whether Jewish or not—to horrifying and brutal attacks in efforts to remove or oppress all Polish people and rid the land of Polish culture.

German and Soviet forces murdered Polish leaders, including military officers, teachers, priests, and academics. They sought out and destroyed Polish underground and resistance members. German policy, in particular, established that Polish people should serve as peasant farmers and workers for the Germans who came to resettle there.