Exhibition | Oppression and Self-assertion | War and Occupation | Conflicts and Rapprochements
The Invasion
| Forced Labor
| Colonization, Deportation, Extermination
Genocide
| Resistance and Self-assertion
The End of the War
| Expulsion of the Germans
| Expulsion of the Poles
The war ended with Germany's surrender on 8 May 1945. But Poland was left with innumerable victims and massive destruction: five to six million Poles were killed in the war. One in every six Poles died in World War Two as a result of war and occupation.
Polish soldiers fought on many fronts during the war, and Poles participated in the capture of Berlin in 1945, as well as the advance into Germany by the Western Allies. Polish units under British command were assigned an occupation area in Northwestern Germany, a zone which included a large number of Polish DPs (displaced persons), who had until then been interred in camps in Emsland.
As soon as the war was over, Polish courts began to look into Germany's war crimes and many Nazi war criminals were sentenced to prison or death. About 50,000 German soldiers were held in Polish prisoner-of-war camps until 1950.
