Palmiry massacre
Coordinates: 52°20′N 20°44′E / 52.33°N 20.74°E The Palmiry massacre was a series of mass executions carried out by Nazi German forces, during the Second World War, near the village of Palmiry in the Kampinos Forest, located northwest of Warsaw.
Between December 1939 and July 1941 more than 1700 Poles and Jews – mostly the inmates of Pawiak prison – were executed by the SS and the Ordnungspolizei in the forest glade near Palmiry. The best documented of these massacres took place on 20–21 June 1940, wherein 358 members of the Polish political, cultural and social elite were murdered in a single operation.
Palmiry is one of the most infamous sites of Nazi crimes in Poland, as well as "one of the most notorious places of mass executions" in Poland. Along with the Katyn massacre it has become a symbol of the martyrdom of Polish intelligentsia during the Second World War.
Warsaw was perceived by Nazi leaders as one of the biggest obstacles to their plan to subjugate the Polish nation. After the Nazi invasion of Poland, Warsaw was reduced to a provincial city in the newly created General Government. However, it remained a center of Polish cultural life. Warsaw also headquartered the high command of the Polish Underground State and soon became a stronghold of armed and political resistance against the German occupation. On 14 December 1943 Governor-General Hans Frank noted in his diary:
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