Wola Massacre

Wola massacre
The Wola Massacre Memorial on Górczewska Street at the location of the railway embankment where up to 10,000 people were shot and then burned by the Germans between 5 and 8 August 1944
Location	Wola, Warsaw
Date	5–12 August 1944
Target	Poles
Attack type	Mass murder
Deaths	40,000–50,000
Perpetrators	Nazi Germany

The Wola massacre (Polish: Rzeź Woli, "Wola slaughter") was the systematic killing of between 40,000 and 50,000 people in the Wola district of Poland's capital city Warsaw by German troops and collaborationist forces during the early phase of the Warsaw Uprising.

From 5 to 12 August 1944, tens of thousands of Polish civilians along with captured Home Army resistance fighters were brutally and systematically murdered by the Germans in organised mass executions throughout Wola. The Germans anticipated that these atrocities would crush the insurrectionists' will to fight and put the uprising to a swift end. However, the ruthless pacification of Wola only stiffened Polish resistance, and it took another two months of heavy fighting for the Germans to regain control of the city.

The Warsaw Uprising broke out on 1 August 1944. During the first few days the Polish resistance managed to liberate most of Warsaw on the left bank of the river Vistula (an uprising also broke out in the small suburb of Praga on the right bank but was quickly suppressed by the Germans). Two days after the start of the fighting, SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was placed in command of all German forces in Warsaw. Following direct orders from SS-Reichfuhrer Heinrich Himmler to suppress the uprising without mercy, his strategy was to include the use of terror tactics against the inhabitants of Warsaw. No distinction would be made between insurrectionists and civilians.

Himmler's orders explicitly stated that Warsaw was to be completely destroyed and that the civilian population was to be exterminated.

Professor Timothy Snyder, of Yale University, wrote that "the massacres in Wola had nothing in common with combat ... the ratio of civilian to military dead was more than a thousand to one, even if military casualties on both sides are counted."