Zagłada ludności żydowskiej i polskiej w Miechowie widziana oczyma nastolatka. Nieopublikowane wspomnienia Andrzeja Wędzkiego z lat 1939–1945
The extermination of the Jewish and Polish population in Miechów as seen through the eyes of a teenager. Unpublished memoirs of Andrzej Wędzki from 1939–1945

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses an unpublished fragment of the memoir written shortly after the end of World War II by the then 20-year-old student, later Professor Andrzej Wędzki. This document was found in the Poznań Branch of the Archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 2020. After the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Andrzej Wędzki and his family were forced to leave their apartment in the city of Leszno, and via Krakow he reached Miechów. He stayed there from mid-1941 until the end of the war in 1945. Andrzej Wędzki witnessed the persecution and then the murder of a large local Jewish community, which he described in detail in the memoir. This document contains a comprehensive description of the Poles’ attitude towards the persecution of the Jewish and Polish population committed by the Germans. The memoir is an important document showing Germans’ crimes against the Jews in the Miechów region. At the same time the memoir contributes to the discussion on the attitude of the Polish population towards the Holocaust.

• Details
• Contents