Zawada Family History

World War II - 1939 - 1945 - The Family We Left Behind

Joe and Isabel were married on May 27, 1939. However, due to the Great Depression, it would be another six years before they were able to afford a place of their own.

In the midst of The Great Depression, the world was about to enter another World War.

Over in Europe, a man had come to power in Germany. Seething with Germany's loss of The Great War in 1918, by 1919 Adolf Hitler had taken hold of the German Workers' Party and with his power of oration, had begun to persuade hundreds of people at a time that Germany's woes were caused by Jews. By the end of 1920, Hitler's German Workers' Party had been renamed to the National Socialist German Workers' Party and was called Nazi for short. The party had grown to a membership of roughly 3,000 people within one year's time.

Hitler had gone to jail in 1923 for trying to take over the German government, but the court was stacked with Nazi sympathizers, and a life sentence turned into a mere nine months in a plush prison. It was there where he dictated his political beliefs to his secretary, Rudolph Hess. These dictations became known as 'Mein Kampf'.
Hitler had until this point spoke viciously against Jews, but in 'Mein Kampf', the terms "Aryan" and "Master race" come out, indicting non Aryan peoples such as Jews, Czechs, Poles and Russians to be racially inferior.

After Hitler was let out of prison in 1924, he spent the rest of the decade reorganizing the Nazi party to fit within the framework laid out in 'Mein Kampf'.
Then the Great Depression hit, sending tidal waves of financial ruin world-wide. Germany's economy since the end of The Great War had been fragile, and now everything was wiped out.

The German people had had enough. They "were tired of the political haggling in Berlin. They were tired of misery, tired of suffering, tired of weakness. These were desperate times and they were willing to listen to anyone, even Adolf Hitler." - The History Place - The Rise of Hitler.

In January 1933, Hitler was awarded the chancellorship of Germany, and immediately he began his plans for the hostile takeover of most of Europe, as well as his campaign for ethnic purging:

February, 1933 -- Stormtroopers actively create terror by beatings and attacks in Berlin as well as all over Germany.

March 20, 1933 -- Establishment of the first concentration camp in Nazi Germany, Dachau.

April 1, 1933 -- Boycott of Jewish shops and businesses.

April 23, 1933 -- The Gestapo is established.

May 10, 1933 -- Public burning of Jewish and anti-Nazi books.

July 14, 1933 -- East European Jewish immigrants are stripped of German citizenship.

Autumn 1933 -- Jews are banished from art, broadcasting, literature, music, theater, and the press. Jewish lawyers are forbidden to practice law. German-Jewish doctors are permitted to treat only Jewish patients.

October 19, 1933 -- Withdrawal of Germany from the League of Nations.

May 1, 1934 -- "Der Sturmer's" special 14-page issue accuses Jews of using Christian blood in their Passover baking and in other Judaic rituals.

June 30 1934 -- "Night of the Long Knives," the murderous purge of the S.A. (whereby Hitler ordered the murders of colleagues considered to be a threat to the Nazi party. This included top ranking officials of the German army, who had not assimilated to the new Nazi regime.)

August 3, 1934 -- Three days of anti-Jewish rioting in Constantine, Algeria leave 23 Jews killed and 35 wounded. The pogroms are traced to Radio-Berlin and Radio-Stuttgart Nazi broadcasts.

January 8, 1935 -- Citizen are jailed for failing to salute in Strazsund, Germany.

September 15, 1935 -- Basic anti-Jewish racist legislation is passed, "The Nuremberg Laws", whereby "Jews lost their status as German citizens and were expelled from government employment, the professions and most forms of economic activity. They were subject to a barrage of hateful propaganda. Few non-Jewish Germans objected to these steps." - wikipedia.org.

Courtesy of aish.com's headlines from WWII era

Up until this point, the Nazis had left the Polish alone, it seems. Or was it just underreported? In his book "Mein Kampf", Hitler had referred to Poles as "the incarnation of mongrel depravity", and along with other Slovak peoples and the Jews, Hitler vowed to make more living space (Lebensraum) for Germany by annexing surrounding countries and driving out what he saw as lesser races.

How much did Frank Zawada, his wife Victoria, and her Szatkowski family know about Adolf Hitler at this time? Had Frank tried to reach his parents, other siblings, aunts, uncles or cousins back in Poland? Had he even kept in touch?

In 1936, at the age of 64, Frank Sr. fell seriously ill. He had refused to see a doctor for his illness, so whatever he had turned into pneumonia. Frank Zawada Sr. died as a result of this illness, leaving behind a first generation Polish family. Victoria held close ties to the Polish community and had a Polish accent until the day she died. Had she and Frank taught their children about Germany, about the history of Poland and Polish culture, or had they come to the U.S. to forget - to leave all that behind - and not bother their children with their past?

Back in Germany, Hitler's ethnic purging plan was unfolding:

March 7, 1936 -- Germans march into the Rhineland, previously demilitarized by the Versailles Treaty.

April 15, 1936 -- Palestinian Arabs begin a general strike in protest to Jewish immigration. Within a month, 21 Jews are killed in Arab attacks.

October 25, 1936 -- Hitler and Mussolini form the Rome-Berlin Axis.

November 25, 1936 -- Germany and Japan sign military pact.

December 1936 -- 30,000 German Jews and 11,596 Polish Jews have by now been admitted to Palestine.

July 15, 1937 -- Buchenwald concentration camp is opened.

November 25, 1937 -- Germany and Japan sign political and military treaty.

November 30, 1937 -- Reich court deprives parents of children, because they opposed Nazi Socialist ideology.

March 12, 1938 -- Germans enter Vienna, and 183,000 Jews in Austria fall under Nazi control. Within one month, 500 Jews commit suicide.

March 13, 1938 -- With "Anschluss" into Austria, all anti-Semitic laws are immediately applied.

April 26, 1938 -- Mandatory registration of all property held by Jews inside the Reich, valued Jewish property is to be seized within Greater Germany at a value of approximately eight billion Reichmarks.

September 29, 1938 -- Munich Conference, Chamberlain of Britain and Daladier of France agree to German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia.

October 1938 -- Aryanization of Jewish property begins.

October 5, 1938 -- Germans mark all Jews' passports with a large red letter "J" to restrict Jewish immigration to Switzerland, following a request from the Swiss government.

October 28, 1938 -- Polish "Aktion." Thousands of Polish Jews are rounded up and sent back to the Polish border town of Zbonzyn. Poland expels all its German Jewish residents.

November 9, 1938 -- "Kristallnacht": Anti-Jewish riots in Germany and Austria. 300,000 are arrested, 191 synagogues are destroyed, 7,500 shops are looted.

December 1, 1938 -- A fine of One Billion Marks is levied against German Jews for the destruction caused during Kristallnacht.

December 2, 1938 -- First Harwich-England bound train with 200 German-Jewish orphaned children arrives from Holland. Eventually, 50,000 German Jews find safety in Great Britain.

December 13, 1938 -- "Aryanization" decree is enacted, all Jewish property is transferred to Aryan possession.

Courtesy of aish.com's headlines from WWII era

Hitler's rise to power did not go unnoticed in the United States, but the U.S. was still in the grips of The Great Depression themselves. They did not have the resources to be the world's financial overseer this time. After the Great War, the people of the U.S. just didn't want to get involved again in events happening in other countries.
During the 1920's, the U.S. had developed a sense of aloofness to the rest of the world. People didn't want to be bothered by the troubles of others, or any troubles at all, and so they focused on what fun there was to be had. They focused on American nationalism and consumerism with an exaggerated sort of pride.
As a result, a March 1937 Gallup poll reported that 94% of the U.S. had favored a policy of non-involvement in case of another World War occurring. People just couldn't focus on what was going on in the world outside of their own homes.

However, the media and government had kept an eye on worldly events. At the end of 1938, Time Magazine in the U.S. chose as their Man of the Year, none other than Adolf Hitler.
Sine 1927, Time Magazine had put out an annual issue special feature profile of some person, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse", had influenced world events the most during that year.

What prompted this nomination was The Munich Agreement earlier in 1938, whereby Britian and France had allowed Germany to annex Czechoslovakia as long as he promised to go no further with his land grabbing. The Time Magazine article is a scathing review of Hitler's policies.

Hitler's war path expanded to an invasion of Prague, Czechoslovakia's capital city, in March, 1939. Britian and France gave stern warnings to Hitler that went unacknowledged, but the U.S. still wasn't getting involved.
It wasn't until June, 1939 that Germany's problems came to the doorstep of the American people. The S.S. St. Louis, carrying 930 Jewish refugees from Europe, was turned away by the Cuban government. The refugees then pleaded to the U.S., but what happened next would come back to haunt us later: the United States of America also refused to admit these people. Nine hundred and thirty Jewish refugees were forced to return to face Hitler.

Three months later, the German SS "took twelve prisoners out of Buchenwald and forced them to take poison, and shot them after they had put on Polish uniforms. An SS Officer yelled in Polish into a radio that they had come to invade Germany, and then the SS fled.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler told the Nazi Reichstag that Poland had tried to invade Germany, and the Wehrmacht was returning fire since 5:45 AM. Actually, in a carefully planned and highly mobile attack codenamed Fall Weiss (Case White) planned by Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Brauchitsch, German land, sea, and air forces were moving rapidly into Poland. Poland's army in 1939 was totally unprepared for the new warfare it found itself in. Poland, like many armies, had large cavalry forces. What modern aircraft the Polish Air Force had were caught on the ground." - worldwar2database.com

Poland had just been declared a full country again in 1918, after nearly 150 years of being countryless. Prior to 1918, Poland had been partitioned by invading Russia, Austria and Germany dating back to 1772.

Frank Zawada and his wife, and people of their generation must have been very proud in 1918 when Poland had become a recognized independent country. These people had fled German-occupied Polish lands in their own lifetimes and had lived to see it gain independent statehood.
Now, just twenty-one years later, Germany had invaded Poland again, and had promised to wipe out the "untermensch", or "subhuman" life forms - the Poles and Jews living within Poland.

How did Victoria Zawada and her Szatkowski family take this news? Clearly they were immersed in Polish culture within the U.S. and had to have felt some terror in all of this. What of their families they'd left in Germany? Victoria had come to the U.S. with her entire immediate and part of her extended family - was there anyone else still residing in and around Posen, Germany, which had become Poznan, Poland in 1918?

Frank Zawada, now deceased, had left everyone but a brother behind when he emigrated to the U.S.. Did Frank ever speak of this family with his wife and children? Once again, had he kept in touch with the family he'd left behind?

Much of Europe had sat by and allowed Germany to annex the Rhineland, the Saar Region, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. But now with the invasion of Poland, Britain and France had had enough, and on September 3, 1939, they declared war on Germany.
This did not stop the invasion. In mid-September, the Russians invaded Poland and in October, the Third Reich set up Western Poland as their headquarters.

The area where Frank Zawada grew up was now the main stomping grounds of the Third Reich, which was carrying out ethnic purging of Poles and Jews. This had severe implications for the family that Frank left behind.

Nine days before Germany invaded Poland, "Hitler authorized his commanders, with these infamous words, to kill "without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space [lebensraum] we need". - holocaustforgotten.com.

October 12, 1939 saw the first deportation of Austrian and Moravian Jews into Poland for internment. By October 28, the first Polish ghetto was set up in Piotrkow, Poland to forcibly segregate and house Poles against their wills and under poor conditions.
During this time, young Polish men were forced into the German army and it was forbidden to speak the Polish language. Everyone had to speak German. The invading German army closed all secondary schools and colleges, shut down the Polish press, destroyed and/or confiscated Polish art and places of Polish culture, burned churches and libraries, and changed Polish street names to German names. Polish Catholic priests were arrested and sent to concentration camps immediately.

By early 1940, Hitler had started making his way Eastwards, invading the British Isles, and Northwards, invading Denmark and Norway.

"During the summer of 1940, the SS rounded up members of the [Polish] intelligentsia in the General Government. In this so-called A-B Aktion (Extraordinary Pacification Operation), several thousand [Polish] university professors, teachers, priests, and others were shot. The mass murders occurred outside Warsaw, in the Kampinos forest near Palmiry, and inside the city at the Pawiak prison." - Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust.

Back in Detroit, Joe Zawada had changed his Polish last name to Wades, and his wife Isabel helped tutor him on a civil service exam. Once he passed this exam, Joe went to work for the U.S Department of Defense (DOD) in the Tank Ordinance Command as a Procurement Agent, purchasing parts for military tanks. Joe was 43 years old; too old to join the military, so he apparently did the next thing he could, and got into the Civil military service. Joe did so well that he achieved a level of GS14 (General Schedule, Grade 14, which is the civilian equivalent of a lieutenant colonel).

Wagrowiec is 31 miles (50 km) northeast of Poznan, Poland.
Oswiecim, where Auschwitz is located, is roughly 248 miles (400 km) southeast of Wagrowiec, Poland.

Joe ended up working for the Department of Defense as a Procurement Agent; he achieved a GS14 (General Schedule, Grade 14, which is the civilian equivalent of a lieutenant colonel) and he bought parts for military tanks. This was at the Ordinance Tank and Automotive Command, which became Army Tank and Automotive Command after its move to 26 Mile and Van Dyke roads.
Joe used to take his two sons to work with him sometimes, and let them ride in the tanks.
In 1952, Ford Motor Company bought that property from the military for their Ford Transmission plant, where both my father and his brother ended up working in their adult years.

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