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The National Remembrance Institute (IPN) intends to explain the circumstances behind one of the tragic episodes of World War II-the events that took place Sept. 3, 1939 in Bydgoszcz and went down in history as "Bloody Sunday." They included an attack by German saboteurs on the withdrawing Polish troops. The attack was fought off; in an act of revenge, having seized Bydgoszcz, the Germans committed mass murders of Poles.
The case of Bloody Sunday has recently become the topic of heated historical debate. According to some accounts, the events did not involve German sabotage at all, but only an outbreak of panic resulting in uncontrolled shooting in the city streets. Later, lynching laws were carried out on the German residents of Bydgoszcz who were accused of shooting soldiers. According to the IPN, these historical controversies need to be clarified.
A several-thousand-member German minority, influenced by Nazi ideology, resided in Bydgoszcz before 1939. After the attack on Poland, the Third Reich needed a propaganda trump card in the form of a German "uprising." Groups of saboteurs dressed in Polish military, police and railway personnel uniforms were transported to Bydgoszcz. On the morning of Sept. 3, the saboteurs began shooting at crowds of refugees simultaneously in 50 spots around the city.
After a momentary shock, the commanders of the Polish army counteracted. Military patrols supported by civilians suppressed the sabotage. About 200 Germans and 300 Poles died in the fighting. All detainees were released. Having seized Bydgoszcz, the Germans arrested several thousand Poles and sent them to concentration camps. A total of 1,500 Poles were executed.
Recently, Prof. Włodzimierz Jastrzębski from the Bydgoszcz Academy stated that no sabotage had taken place, only "panic and psychosis of a defeat which lead to pogroms of the German population."
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