They promised freedom, democracy and freedom of choice, and introduced a totalitarian regime based on a fundamentalist religion. They bloodily cracked down on all opposition and moved the country back almost to the Middle Ages. Could it have been foreseen that a revolution against the rule of the Sh
Cursed rise of the people of the earth! - the left-wing idealists encouraged even in the nineteenth century. They probably did not expect the values they fought for to be so distorted and discredited in the next century. And they will take the lives of tens of millions of people. 5. The Great
For the Nazis, a concentration camp prisoner had no value as a human being, but at best as a walking tool. This ruthless organization has perfected a business model based on slave labor and extreme exploitation. She earned a lot, because it turned out that there are many buyers of almost free worker
Criminal groups already in the times of the Polish Peoples Republic had large amounts of money. The gangsters could afford luxuries unavailable to others and pay for allies among state officials. But ... where exactly did they get the money for it? And what did the fall of communism change in these
It was an operation like out of a Hollywood movie. Meticulously planned and perfectly executed despite the surprising twists. How was it possible to make the jump that cost Sweden millions? In the early morning of September 22, 2009, four people stole 39 million Swedish kronor, or more than 16 m
The stories of people who managed to survive the Volhynian slaughter are full of dead bodies and unimaginable human tragedy. When the survivors fled, they had to leave the bodies of their loved ones behind. What happened to the corpses of the people who died at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists?
Ruthless politicians, brutal murders and omnipresent petty crimes. Such a picture of Scandinavia emerges from the pages of crime novels. Literary fiction or replication of the truth of police files? When reading Scandinavian crime novels, the reader may get the impression that Sweden, Denmark or
Saint Wenceslaus would not have become a martyr and patron of the Krakow cathedral if it were not for his brothers morbid lust for power. Prince Bolesław Srogi - the father of our princess Dobrawa - was ready to murder his closest relative to take over the throne. Wenceslaus, who ruled in Prague
When a crowd of armed and determined torturers surrounded the asleep village, the townspeople had little time. Immediately the first shots and screams splitting the darkness rang out. If they wanted to survive, they had to act immediately. These people managed to save their lives and survived the Vo
On August 17, 1944, a group of around fifty Jews was shot in the forest near the village of Siekierno. They were escapees from the labor camp that had just been closed. The crime was committed ... on the orders of a lieutenant of the Home Army. The Świętokrzyskie Mountains were not a safe place.
They gained money for their favorite pastimes - alcohol and gambling - thanks to blackmail, robbery and murder. Their cooperation with the NKVD in the east led to the arrest of a number of high-ranking Home Army officers. They went to the capital as Gestapo agents. What did they manage to do? Th
The Nazis did not even call them people, but parasites. Sterilization will make the nation strong, they initially insisted. But they did not intend to limit themselves to the castration of the disabled. Their goal was to exterminate tens of thousands of Germans physically. The leaders of the Naz
Out of morbid jealousy, they were ready to disfigure and even kill the one who had rejected them. They were brutal, envious, obsessive. But the public did not believe any man could go as far as to act of cowardice ... apparently typical only for women. The pre-war tabloids were full of stories o
A deadly absurdity hangs over the city - recalled one of the inhabitants of Warsaw. The death penalty has become as common as before the war street fines for incorrect sidewalk-to-sidewalk transition. What was the risk of being shot? And has the master race ever shown human reflexes? One of the
Concentration camps ruthlessly deprived prisoners of the will to resist, humiliating them at every step. Exhausted and stripped of hope, they often preferred to commit suicide rather than try to regain freedom. Especially since the penalties for escaping were absolute. And they threatened not only t
In retaliation for the deaths of two Germans, over one hundred Poles were planned to be killed. However, not all of them died. One witnessed his own execution and described it in poignant detail. The first mass public execution in Warsaw was carried out by the Germans in Wawer on December 27, 19
More than 10,000 Polish villages and settlements were affected by various forms of repression by the German occupier. In over 900 localities, German security formations murdered from several to several hundred inhabitants. Over 440 villages in the General Government and the Białystok region were pac
Destroyed villages and cities, millions of murdered and plunder on an unimaginable scale. The enormity of German bestiality that the inhabitants of occupied Poland had to deal with in one infographic. All the data used in the infographic comes from the book by Dariusz Kaliński entitled Balance
Ubiquitous death. Constant sense of danger, hunger and extreme fatigue. Uncertainty about who should be considered the enemy. It was enough to turn many unprepared men into ordinary criminals. Their crimes are reminiscent of the book Bandyci z AK, which is a prize in our competition. In todays c
An orgy of violence wiped out the pre-war world. Buildings, streets and entire social classes have disappeared. People crossed the boundaries of humanity. Doing evil has become trivial. Can I bill for such a large amount of injustice? The scale of the devastation of the war is beyond counting. Is
It all started with the confiscation of a transport of beer, which the Duke of Legnica, Rupert I, sent to Wrocław to his brother Henryk ... Then it was only worse. The beer war in Wrocław ended with the curse and plundering of church property. The dispute between the bishopric and the bourgeoisi
She was at the heart of the most important events of the twentieth century, still trying to find her own way to happiness. Its fate, more dramatic and surprising than the plot of the best novels, could serve as a script for at least a few Hollywood blockbusters. And her origin has become a curse.
On April 20, 1918, Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron, achieved his 79th and 80th aerial victories. Thus, he became the best fighter pilot of the First World War. An Allied bullet hit him a day later. Manfred von Richthofen was born on May 2, 1892 in the Borek estate, which today is
Wolfang Amadeus Mozart Speaking of historical characters who love animals, a topic that is particularly close to my heart and which, in fact, I have dealt with several times in my blog, on the latest issue of the magazine Focus History ( 112, February 2016 ) I found a nice list that inc