The politics, terror, and mass killings of Polish citizens in the Pomeranian province during autumn of 1939 have been discussed by (mostly Polish) historians for decades (e.g. Bojarska 1972; Ceran 2018; Jastrzębski and Sziling 1979; Steyer 1967). One of the ways in which the [Third Reich] took control of local communities was to enact mass killings of selected Poles, especially those who were labelled as intelligentsia (including priests, teachers, politicians, merchants, members of the Polish Western League, policemen, and border guards).

Accordingly, the process was officially labelled Inteligenzaktion (Wardzyńska 2009). Today it is believed that approximately 30,000–35,000 Polish citizens were murdered in the pre‐war Pomeranian province during October and November of 1939 alone (Ceran 2018).

However, the bodies of local intelligentsia were not the only ones who were buried in mass graves in order to cover up the evidence. Very often the very same mass graves were used to hide the remains of disabled people who were also murdered within the so‐called Aktion T4. According to [Fascist] ideology, disabled people embodied worthless life, referred to as Vernichtung von lebensunwertem Leben (e.g., Evans 2004).

Additionally, members of the local Jewish society were murdered during (as it is sometimes called) the Bloody Autumn of 1939 (Bojarska 1972:122–128; Borzyszkowska‐Szewczyk and Pletzing 2010).

Mass killings were frequently well‐planned and coordinated in advance. Special units of security police and Einsatzgruppen, as well as members of the Gestapo, supervised the process of apprehending, imprisoning, and finally executing people at remote settings in order to avoid any witnesses (e.g., Mazanowska 2017).

Local pre‐war German minorities were used to pinpoint which of their neighboring Poles should be eliminated first. These minorities were organized into groups called Selbstschutz Westprussen (Ceran 2014; Jastrzębski 1973, 1974; Lasik 2011; Mazanowska and Ceran 2016). This is why the crimes are sometimes also described in the Polish literature as neighbors’ crimes — local German participants usually knew their Polish victims well.

One of approximately 400 locations of executions committed by [Fascists] during the first few months of the war in the pre‐war Pomeranian province was located on the northern outskirts of Chojnice. It is believed that at least 500 Polish citizens, consisting of local intelligentsia, disabled people from the National Social Welfare Institutions located in Chojnice as well as around 15 members of the local Jewish community, were taken to remote locations and killed in mass executions during October and November 1939.

For this reason agricultural fields, meadows, and forested areas where mass killings were taking place were labeled by citizens of Chojnice and neighboring villages as “Death Valley.” Describing the crimes after the war, Wojciech Buchholc (1947:27; my translation) stated in a deeply phenomenological way that “a certain terror is winded from these sinister fields.”

Although the [Fascists] did their best to avoid anyone witnessing the crimes, some Poles gave eye witness testimonies after the war. One of them, Leon Styp‐Rekowski, survived execution in Death Valley (see more in Buchholc 1947; Grochowski 1947; Lorbiecki 2017) while another witness, Antoni Schüelkie, lived close to one of the spots where the executions took place during autumn of 1939. After the war he recollected (Archive 1 (n.d.); my translation):

approximately 500 people were shot in this site [Death Valley — my note]. A car was stopping at the road. From this spot the prisoners were led to previously constructed trenches. They were set up along the trench. Ten men were brought in, guarded by two to three [Fascists]. The [Fascists] usually wore military uniforms. Pistols were used during executions. Sometimes the Poles had to undress, sometimes they were shot in clothes. Some of them were shot from back, other times Poles saw the faces of the [Fascists].

Other witnesses were present at subsequent killings in Death Valley that occurred at the very end of the war. For example, in the second half of January 1945, a witness named Jan Grunt claimed that a column of approximately 600 Polish prisoners was killed in Death Valley and their bodies burned in order to cover up the evidence (Buchholc 1947:70). The witness testified to “a terrible smell of burning” wafting over the town (Buchholc 1947:70; my translation).

[…]

For those relatives of the victims killed in Death Valley the site is an important aspect of life and memorial practices. On the other hand, there are many citizens of contemporary Chojnice who did not lose their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents during the mass killing on the outskirts of the town. The value they attach to the site and the way the site is used were also the subject of our ethnographic inquiries and our results show that there are many ways in which Death Valley is “alive.”

(Emphasis added.)

See also: An archaeology of the Pomeranian Crime of 1939: collecting the material evidence

Death and life Valley. Environmental memory of the Pomeranian crime of 1939 in Chojnice

“The dead are sleeping here” — the history, archaeology and ethnography of Chojnice’s Death Valley