Bialystok District ( German: ''Bezirk Bialystok'') was an administrative unit of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

created during the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

invasion of the Soviet Union. It was to the south-east of

East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...

, in present-day northeastern Poland as well as in smaller sections of adjacent present-day

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

and

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

. It was sometimes also referred to by the designation South East Prussia ( German: ''Südostpreußen'' - see the map below) along with the Regierungsbezirk Zichenau, although in contrast to the latter, it was not incorporated into, but merely attached to East Prussia. The territory lay to the east of the Molotov–Ribbentrop line and was consequently occupied by the Soviet Union and incorporated into the

Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, Byelorussian SSR or Byelorussia; ; ), also known as Soviet Belarus or simply Belarus, was a Republics of the Soviet Union, republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 19 ...

. In the aftermath of the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the westernmost portion of Soviet Belarus (which, until 1939, belonged to the Polish state), was placed under the German Civilian Administration ('' Zivilverwaltungsgebiet''). As Bialystok District, the area was under German rule from 1941 to 1944 without ever formally being incorporated into the

German Reich German ''Reich'' (, from ) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The ''Reich'' became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty entirely from a continuing unitary German ''Volk'' ("na ...

.Marcin Markiewicz
Bezirk Bialystok
(in) ''Represje hitlerowskie wobec wsi białostockiej'', (PDF file, direct download 873 KB) Biuletyn IPN nr 35-36 (12/2003-1/2004), . Internet Archive. The district was established because of its perceived military importance as a

bridgehead In military strategy, a bridgehead (or bridge-head) is the strategically important area of ground around the end of a bridge or other place of possible crossing over a body of water which at time of conflict is sought to be defended or taken over ...

on the far bank of the

Neman Neman, Nemunas or Niemen is a river in Europe that rises in central Belarus and flows through Lithuania then forms Lithuania–Russia border, the northern border of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia's western exclave, which specifically follows its s ...

. Germany had desired to annex the area even during the First World War, based on the historical claim arising from the Third Partition of Poland, which had delegated Białystok to

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

from 1795 to 1806 (see New East Prussia). In contrast to other territories of Eastern Poland which were permanently annexed by the Soviet Union following the Second World War, most of the territory was later returned to Poland.

History

Administration

After the start of

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...

against the Soviet Union, the invading Wehrmacht soldiers murdered 379 people, 'pacified' 30 villages, burned down 640 houses and 1,385 industrial buildings in the area.Marcin Markiewicz
''"Represje hitlerowskie wobec wsi białostockiej" (Nazi Repressions Against the Białystok Countryside)''
in Bulletin of the

Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecutio ...

(Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej), issue: 121, pages: 65-68. Police Battalion 309 burned about 2000 Jews in Great Synagogue, Białystok on 27 June 1941. The first decree for the implementation of civil administration in these newly occupied territories was issued on 17 July 1941. It was announced that the Bialystok district would implement civil administration at a time to be determined. On 22 July, Hitler announced that from 1 August, Erich Koch would take over the Bialystok district and demarcate the borders of the district. The borders of this area ran from the southeastern protrusion of

(the Suwalki triangle) following the

Neman River Neman, Nemunas or Niemen is a river in Europe that rises in central Belarus and flows through Lithuania then forms Lithuania–Russia border, the northern border of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia's western exclave, which specifically follows its s ...

up to Mosty (excluding

Grodno Grodno, or Hrodna, is a city in western Belarus. It is one of the oldest cities in Belarus. The city is located on the Neman, Neman River, from Minsk, about from the Belarus–Poland border, border with Poland, and from the Belarus–Lithua ...

), including

Volkovysk Vawkavysk or Volkovysk is a town in Grodno Region, in western Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Vawkavysk District. It is located on the and rivers, roughly from the city of Grodno and from Minsk, the national capital. As o ...

and

Pruzhany Pruzhany is a town in Brest Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Pruzhany District. The town is located at the confluence of the Mukha River and the Vets Canal, where the Mukhavets River rises. As of 2025, it has a popu ...

up to the

Bug River The Bug or Western Bug is a major river in Central Europe that flows through Belarus (border), Poland, and Ukraine, with a total length of .Brest-Litovsk and then following the border of the

General Government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...

to East Prussia. Bialystok District was established on 1 August 1941. It was simultaneously excluded from the operational zones of the German Army in the Soviet Union. At the same time, some small areas to the east of the 1939–1941 German-Soviet border were incorporated into the East Prussian district of Scharfenwiese (now

Ostrołęka Ostrołęka (; ) is a small city in northeastern Poland on the Narew river, about northeast of Warsaw, with a population of 51,012 (2021) and an area of . It is the capital of both Ostrołęka County and Ostrołęka City County in the Masovian V ...

). With this the city of Scharfenwiese henceforth held more hinterland to the east. On 1 August, Erich Koch took over the Białystok district and subsequently, on 15 August, he was appointed as Chief of Civil Administration (''Chef der Zivilverwaltung'') of Bialystok District. During this period, he also was the ''

Gauleiter A ''Gauleiter'' () was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a ''Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany, Gau'' or ''Reichsgau''. ''Gauleiter'' was the third-highest Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party, rank in ...

'' of the Gau East Prussia, '' Oberpräsident'' of the Prussian Province of East Prussia, and '' Reichskommissar'' in ''

Reichskommissariat Ukraine The ''Reichskommissariat Ukraine'' (RKU; ) was an administrative entity of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944. It served as the German civilian occupation regime in the Ukrainian SSR, and ...

''. Day-to-day activities were handled by his permanent deputy head of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...

, East Prussia, Waldemar Magunia from 15 August 1941 to 31 January 1942. He was replaced from 1 February 1942 to 27 July 1944 by Friedrich Brix, Landrat (District Mayor) of Tilsit. In addition, SS and security forces were under the direct command of the

SS and Police Leader The title of SS and Police Leader (') designated a senior Nazi Party official who commanded various components of the SS and the German uniformed police (''Ordnungspolizei''), before and during World War II in the German Reich proper and in the o ...

(SSPF) of the District. This officer commanded all SS personnel and police in his jurisdiction, including the ''

Ordnungspolizei The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (''Orpo'', , meaning "Order Police") were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly of power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favour of t ...

'' (Orpo; regular uniformed police), the SD (

intelligence service An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of info ...

) and the SiPo (security police), which included the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

(

secret police image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression. Secre ...

). The commanders were SS-'' Standartenführer'' Werner Fromm (January 1942 – January 1943), SS-''

Brigadeführer ''Brigadeführer'' (, ) was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) that was used between 1932 and 1945. It was mainly known for its use as an SS rank. As an SA rank, it was used after briefly being known as '' Untergruppenführer'' in ...

'' Otto Hellwig (May 1943 – July 1944) and SS-''

Oberführer __NOTOC__ ''Oberführer'' (short: ''Oberf'', , ) was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) dating back to 1921. An ''Oberführer'' was typically an NSDAP member in charge of a group of paramilitary units in a particular geograph ...

'' Heinz Roch (July – October 1944). The SSPF reported to the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) of ''Russland Mitte'' (Central Russia) headquartered in

Mogilev Mogilev (; , ), also transliterated as Mahilyow (, ), is a city in eastern Belarus. It is located on the Dnieper, Dnieper River, about from the Belarus–Russia border, border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and from Bryansk Oblast. As of 2024, ...

until July 1943 and thereafter in

Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...

. This was SS-''

Obergruppenführer (, ) was a paramilitary rank in Nazi Germany that was first created in 1932 as a rank of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) and adopted by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) one year later. Until April 1942, it was the highest commissioned SS rank after ...

Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, Eirik, or Eiríkur is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-N ...

(May 1941 – June 1944) and then SS-''Obergruppenführer'' Curt von Gottberg (June – August 1944). The center of administration for the district was the Polish city of

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the List of cities and towns in Poland, tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Biał ...

. The area had a population of 1,383,000 inhabitants, which included 980,000 (70.9%) ethnic

Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...

, 200,000 (14.5%)

Belarusians Belarusians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Belarus. They natively speak Belarusian language, Belarusian, an East Slavic language. More than 9 million people proclaim Belarusian ethnicity worldwide. Nearly 7.99&n ...

, 120,000 (8.7%)

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

, 80,000 (5.8%)

Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...

, and 2,000 (0.1%) ethnic

Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...

. The district was divided into eight county-level administrative units, called ''district police stations'' (, ). These were the police stations Białystok (Kreiskommissariat Nikolaus), Bielsk-Podlaski (Kreiskommissariat Tubenthal), Grajewski (Kreiskommissariat Piachor, then Knispel), Grodno (Kreiskommissariat Plötz), Łomża (Kreiskommissariat Gräben), Sokolski (Kreiskommissariat Seiler), Volkovysk (Kreiskommissariat Pfeifer) and the city of Białystok. Shortly after the front passed, engineer Czesław Chaniawko (delegated by the Belarusian pro-German circles) arrived from Warsaw to Białystok, who led to the establishment of the Belarusian National Committee. The next chairman of the committee was Teodor Ilyashevich, who later also headed the Belarusian Union (established in the first half of 1943 from the transformation of the Belarusian Committee). The committee mainly focused on Belarusian intelligentsia, and a significant part of the Orthodox clergy cooperated with it. He undertook intensive propaganda activities and in the fields of education and culture, and at the end of March 1942 he published the weekly ''Nowaya Daroga'' (). Belarusian activists also took on a number of functions in the strictly subordinated to German administrative authorities, including becoming mayors in Białystok (Wasyl Łukaszyk), Bielsk Podlaski (Jarosław Kostycewicz) and Narewka (Piotr Kabac).

Nazi repressions

Until the end of July 1941, the city of Białystok was under controlled by ''

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

'', it was then subordinated to the civil administration. Shortly before the handover, General Max von Schenckendorff, commander of Army Group Centre Rear Area ordered the Order Police battalions, which were part of Police Regiment Centre, to embark on pacification operations against civilians in the Białystok district. On 25 July 1941, police units commanded by Colonel Max Montua forced 183 families from the villages of Budy,

Pogorzelce Pogorzelce is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Białowieża, within Hajnówka County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland, close to the border with Belarus. It lies approximately west of Białowieża, east of Hajn� ...

, and Teremiski in the

Białowieża Forest Białowieża Forest is a large forest complex on the border between Poland and Belarus. It is one of the last and the largest remaining part of the immense primeval forest that once stretched across the European Plain. The forest is home to more ...

. They were forcibly moved to

. The next day, they drove 1,240 people out of the villages around Narewka. In the following days, further populations from the towns of Leśna, Mikłaszew, Olchówka and Zabrod were made to leave. Another 1133 people were displaced to the vicinity of Zabłudów. The brutal Police Battalion 322 burned 12 Polish and Belarusian villages, shot 42 people in the Lacka Forest near Waniek and more in the Osuszek forest near the village of Piliki.

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...

visited the newly formed Bialystok District on 30 June 1941 and pronounced that more forces were needed in the area, due to potential risks of partisan warfare. The chase after the Red Army's rapid retreat left behind a security vacuum, which required the urgent deployment of additional personnel. Scrambling to meet this "new threat", Gestapo headquarters formed ''Kommando SS Zichenau-Schroettersburg'' which departed from sub-station Schröttersburg (

Płock Płock (pronounced ), officially the Ducal Capital City of Płock, is a city in central Poland, on the Vistula river, in the Masovian Voivodeship. According to the data provided by Central Statistical Office (Poland), GUS on 31 December 2021, the ...

) under the leadership of SS-''Obersturmführer'' Hermann Schaper (born 1911) with express mission to murder Jews, communists and the NKVD collaborators across the local villages and towns. On 3 July additional formation of ''Schutzpolizei'' arrived in Białystok, summoned from the General Government. It was led by SS-''Hauptsturmführer'' Wolfgang Birkner, veteran of ''Einsatzgruppe'' IV from the Polish Campaign of 1939. The relief unit, called ''Kommando Bialystok'', was sent in by SS-''Obersturmbannfuhrer'' Eberhard Schöngarth on orders from the

Reich Security Main Office The Reich Security Main Office ( , RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and , the head of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS). The organization's stat ...

(RSHA), due to reports of Soviet guerrilla activity in the area with Jews being of course immediately suspected of helping them out. Urban, Thomas
"Poszukiwany Hermann Schaper"
Rzeczpospolita, 01.09.01 Nr 204 The first stage of the Nazi persecutions mainly involved applying collective punishment to various villages where any form of real-or-imagined threat had been identified. Terror operations were enacted to prevent assistance to independence movements but mostly to round-up and persecute local Jews. Targeted buildings were being destroyed, possessions robbed, communities mass murdered or sent to labor camps or prisons. SS-''Gruppenführer'' Nebe reported to Berlin on 14 November 1941 that, up to then 45,000 persons had been eliminated. The situation of the local population did improve after the Raid on Mittenheide. The Germans introduced the policy of finding and forcing anyone who could be of German ancestry, even based on the "pure German looks" in some cases, to accept the German ancestry card (usually 4th category "The Traitors of the German Nation," in spite of the ominous-sounding name, it meant elevation above the rest of the population). The Germans were harkening back to the times of the New East Prussia. On 1 November 1941, the city of

(location of the Grodno Ghetto set up at the same time) including its surroundings, were transferred from the

Reichskommissariat Ostland The (RKO; ) was an Administrative division, administrative entity of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945. It served as the German Civil authority, civilian occupation regime in Lithuania, La ...

to Bialystok. Already on 27 June 1941, a camp for Soviet prisoners of war was established in Bialystok named Stalag 57. On 1 August 1942, it was renamed Stalag 316. It was located in the former barracks of the 10th Lithuanian Uhlan Regiment at 70 Kawaleryjska Street. It was the first one of its kind, except for the makeshift camp that was set up in September 1939 in the building of the Secondary School No. 6. Up to twelve thousand people could stay there at one time. Prisoners were used for construction works at the nearby "Krywlany" airport. Tens of thousands of people passed through the camp, of which approximately 3,000 were killed. After its liquidation in 1943, a transit camp was set up there for the Jewish population. Several other camps were also established: a transitional camp for people taken to forced labor into the Third Reich consisting of 3 barracks, a penal camp in Starosielce located in the triangle between the railway lines Białystok - Ełk and Białystok - Warsaw, and the "Zielona" penal camp located between Zaścianki and the Skorupa district where people were arrested for violating German regulations, such as being late for work or alcohol abuse. Following the German occupation, most Jews had been rounded up and forced into some 60 ghettos throughout the District. On 2 November 1942 Nazi SS and police forces, in a coordinated operation with help from the local gendarmerie, suddenly encircled and quarantined all the ghettos. Between November 1942 and February 1943, approximately 100,000 Jews in the District, including some 10,000 from Bialystok proper, were sent to the

Treblinka Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the Treblinka, ...

and

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

death camps. The final liquidation of the Bialystok Ghetto took place in August 1943, when the remaining 30,000 Jews there were sent to be murdered.

Resistance

The

Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...

operated within the Białystok region. Aside from attacking the occupying forces, it ran intelligence and propaganda networks and collected a V2-rocket, parts of which were transported to London. The

National Armed Forces National Armed Forces (; NSZ) was a Polish right-wing underground military organization of the National Democracy (Poland), National Democracy operating from 1942. During World War II, NSZ troops fought against Nazi Germany and Gwardia Ludowa, c ...

branch was established in the region, with the initiative to establish the NSZ came from the Military Organization Lizard Union. The Lizard Union envoy, 2nd Lt. Feliks Mazurek, pseudonym "Zych", began talks with representatives of the Armed Confederation. As a result of the talks, the

branch was established in the region. Initially, the ranks of this organization included the Białystok ZJ and KZ Districts, as well as small groups from the Eastern Combat Organization, the Defenders of Poland Command, the Union for the Reconstruction of the Republic, and the Home Army. During the night of 15–16 August 1943, the Białystok Ghetto Uprising began. This was an insurrection in Poland's Białystok Ghetto by several hundred Polish Jews who began an armed struggle against the German troops finishing off the liquidation of the people still living in the Ghetto. This Ghetto's victims were ultimately destined for the

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Mas ...

. It was organized and led by Antyfaszystowska Organizacja Bojowa, an organisation that was part of the Anti-Fascist Block, and was the second largest

ghetto uprising The ghetto uprisings during World War II were a series of armed revolts against the regime of Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1943 in the newly established Jewish ghettos across Nazi-occupied Europe. Following the German and Soviet invasion of P ...

, after the

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the gas chambers of the ...

, in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. On 20 October 1943, the southern border between the East Prussian district Sudauen (

Suwałki Suwałki (; ; or סוּוואַלק) is a city in northeastern Poland with a population of 69,206 (2021). It is the capital of Suwałki County and one of the most important centers of commerce in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. A relatively young ci ...

) in the Province of East Prussia and the Bialystok District was adjusted and moved back to the northern side of the Augustów Canal. Bezirk Bialystok

In January 1944, the region's Home Army began participating in Operation Tempest launching a series of uprisings throughout Białystok. In July and August 1944, the territory of Bialystok District was taken over by the Red Army up to the Narew-Bobr line. The government seat for the Chief of Civil Administration was then moved to Bartenstein. In January 1945, the Red Army overran the last areas of Bialystok District, namely the remaining parts of the districts Łomża and Grajewo, driving the Germans completely out of the territory. At the end of May 1944, the Government Delegate for the Białystok Voivodeship, Józef Przybyszewski, a prominent activist of the National Party, arrived in Białystok. The Białystok Voivode settled in the St. Roch's Church, Białystok, St. Roch rectory with Father Adam Abramowicz, who provided him with all-round assistance. Przybyszewski, wanting to strengthen national influence in the ranks of the Home Army, led to the commencement of talks between representatives of the district commands of NOW and NSZ in 1944. The talks led to the unification of both organizations. The talks were facilitated by the situation in the National Armed Forces. The division into NSZ-ZJ and NSZ-AK also affected the District. Boleslaw Kozlowski ("Grot") and Waclaw Nestorowicz ("Kalina"), opponents of Stanislaw Nakoniecznikow ("Kilinski") sided with NSZ-NOW. The envoy of the NSZ-AK Headquarters established a new district command, appointing Captain Waclaw Nestorowicz as acting commander. Meanwhile, in Białystok, Roman Jastrzebski ("Ślepowron"), supported by supporters of Stanislaw Nakoniecznikow ("Kmicic"), took over as commander. There were therefore two district commands of NSZ. The organizational breakdown and chaos reigning in the ranks of this organization facilitated an agreement between the two national organizations, while at the same time giving the NOW activists an advantage.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * Gnatowski M., "Białostockie Zgrupowanie Partyzanckie". Białystok 1994 * * {{Authority control Białystok in World War II Subdivisions of Nazi Germany World War II occupied territories Former government regions of Germany