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The Danish resistance in World War 2, is little known outside of Denmark, but included some very active assassins.Denmark played no significant role in terms of the outcome of World War 2, but its various aspects in world war 2 are very interesting nevertheless. Denmark was defeated in a laughable 2–4 hours of fighting on the 9th of April 1940, which is depicted very accurately in the movie 9th of April. The fighting was done almost entirely by a single cyclist-infantry platoon.A light motorcycle mounted machine-gun, preparing to stop the entire German invasion.What happened next was that Denmark was occupied by Germany, who used Denmark as a staging ground for invading Norway, who put up a considerable resistance compared to what we did.Shamefully, over 12,000 Danish people volunteered for the Waffen-SS of which 6,000 were accepted and most served in “Frikorps Danmark”. 2,000 Danish people died on the eastern front.Danish Waffen-SS recruitment center. Poster reads: “Fight under the Danish flag, Freecorps Denmark, against Bolshevism”Back home, Denmark received an incredibly mild occupation. The Danish communist party wasn’t even banned until June 1941. So for about a year the Danish communists were actually legal, while banned everywhere else. Denmark was allowed the illusion of democracy and friendship with Germany, and the Danish social democratic government stayed in power.Initially there was little to no resistance to the German occupation, the Danish communists were aware that they would be a future enemy of Germany, however they played along and even published a paper blaming the UK and France for the beginning of WW2 in order to appease the Germans. In secret however, they were preparing for an underground movement. The Danish communist party didn’t do their appeasement on their own accord, but had received instructions from the Soviet Union to play nice with Germany in 1940, so they didn’t suffer the fate of other communist parties in Europe.From June 1941, the communist party became illegal, however nearly none of the leadership was arrested. Instead the Danish government helped the Germans round up less important communists. It should be noted that the Germans had asked for just a few, but the Danish government actually over-delivered on random members who were killed.Communist Party HQ in Copenhagen 22. June 1941, the police showed up to arrest the leadership, but they had already gone into hiding.Following the invasion of the USSR many people were expecting the defeat of the Soviet Union, and still little happened in 1941. By 1942 however, the Danish communist party had used its preparations well, and formed the resistance group KOPA (Kommunistiske Partisaner - Communist Partisans) which was the first big organized resistance group.However, it should be noted that the very first resistance group was The Churchill Club, Danish conservative youth patriots, who tried to sabotage various German activities, starting already in 1940. The group were 11 young boys and men between 14–26. They were arrested and their activities stopped in 1942. Interesting note is that they actually met with Mr. Churchill in 1950 when he visited Denmark.The Churchill Club, Denmark’s first resistance fighters.Other groups of various size and organization emerged, with the most important other groups being the right-wing Holger Danske (Danish legendary hero), and the social democratic Ringen (The Ring).Holger Danske was formed in 1943, after it became clear that Germany would lose the war. They operated mostly in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark in this period. KOPA was renamed “BOPA” which basically mean Right-wing Partisans - they were still communists though, but this helped their image somewhat. BOPA and Holger Danske carried out many important sabotage missions during WW2, including blowing up railroads shipping food and iron to Germany, as well as various Danish industries supporting the Germans.During WW2 these groups also started a very large assassination operation. Danish assassins comparative to the size of the resistance were extremely prolific. Most often Danish assassins targeted suspected traitors. One of their primary methods of assassination was knocking on the door of a traitor in the disguise of a deliveryman, and then immediately shooting them when they opened the door.Holger Danske assassinated around 100 targets, while BOPA assassinated at least 20 targets but probably more. Around 400 targets were assassinated in the span of 4 years. With most between 1943–1945. 63 members of Holger Danske and 40 members of BOPA were killed in the same time span.Danish Assassin Bent F. Hviid, committed suicide when caught by Gestapo, he was posthumously awarded the US presidential medal of freedom for his assassinations.The Danish resistance group Ringen, didn’t do much for most of the war, they mainly organized exile Danish people in Sweden, in preparation of retaking Denmark should the fighting break out, they managed to oraganize essentially a full brigade which did help in retaking Copenhagen in 1945. My grandfather was a member of this group, and unfortunately saw some of his friends die to German machine guns in an ambush on Nyhavn in 1945.Several representatives from various resistance groups including Ringen, the communists and various other people, formed the “Freedom Council” which operated out of Sweden. It was supported by the British SOE who helped arm the Danish resistance, including by delivering blueprints to enable Danish bicycle shops to fabricate most of the parts for Stenguns.In 1943, the Danish government resigned in protest over German demands made on Denmark. This led to minor riots and civil protests, but also marked the end of Danish corporation with Germany. In my opinion until this point it would have been fair to say that Denmark was an Axis member, Romania and Finland switched sides in 1944.Perhaps the final Danish resistance group worth mentioning is Studenters Efterretnings Tjeneste (Students Intelligence Service - SET). SET was not very busy with active resistance against Germany, they were highly conservative and anti-communist. Many of their activities actually were directed at the communists rather than Nazis, illegal activities they carried out even after the end of the war, attempting to undermine the political opponents of the conservatives. However, in the grand scheme of things, I think they vindicated themselves, through the actions of October 1943, when they made significant contributions to the saving of Danish Jews of which 92% were smuggled out of Denmark before they could be deported to extermination camps.A Danish jew is smuggled to Sweden on a small fishing boat.In 1944 following the landings in Normandy, Denmark in general rebelled against Germany, this is known as the “People’s uprising”. BOPA blew up the Danish weapons factory Riffelsyndikatet, which had been somewhat important to Germany as it was one of the few factories under no threat of being bombed making weapons. Following that Germany executed several Danish people and the people in turn started a major riot, in which nearly 100 danish civilians were murdered.The public uprising 1944In 1945, Denmark was liberated de-facto due to the German surrender, very little fighting was necessary except a few Nazi fanatics here and there. Ringen and many other resistance groups took to the streets to demobilize the Germans and round up more suspected traitors.BOPA (Communist resistance) in Copenhagen 1945 talking to a member of Ringen.The resistance is the part of Danish history we would like to remember the most. The resistance was not perfect, mistakes were made, and rotten apples were had. But overall, they did good things, resisted Nazism and helped people. I will not pretend like Denmark did more good than bad though, I am not an expert on this subject, but the thousands of Danish SS volunteers out numbered Danish resistance fighters by a fair bit. Danish gestapo members, and other collaborators added to this, several Danish people also got wealthy in WW2 under somewhat suspicious circumstances. But such is war, not white or black, a grey area most of the time.

War in Biafra/Nigerian Civil War 1967 - 1970“All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don't see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder.”Obafemi AwolowoThe Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War, was a three-year, bloody conflict with a death toll numbering more than one million people. Having commenced seven years after Nigeria gained independence from Britain, the war began with the secession of the southeastern region of the nation on May 30, 1967, when it declared itself the independent Republic of BiafraThe ensuing battles and well-publicized human suffering prompted international outrage and intervention.Carved out of the west of Africa by Britain without regard for preexisting ethnic, cultural and linguistic divisions, Nigeria has often experienced an uncertain peace. Following decades of ethnic tension in colonial Nigeria, political instability reached a critical mass among independent Nigeria’s three dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa-Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the southwest, and Igbo in the southeast. On January 15, 1966, the Igbo launched a coup d’état under the command of Major-General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi in an attempt to save the country from what Igbo leaders feared would be political disintegration.Shortly after the successful coup, widespread suspicion of Igbo domination was aroused in the north among the Hausa-Fulani Muslims, many of whom opposed independence from Britain. Similar suspicions of the Igbo junta grew in the Yoruba west, prompting a joint Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani countercoup against the Igbo six months later. Countercoup leader General Yakubu Gowon took punitive measures against the Igbo. Further anger over the murder of prominent Hausa politicians led to the massacre of scattered Igbo populations in northern Hausa-Fulani regions. This persecution triggered the move by Igbo separatists to form their own nation of Biafra the following year.Less than two months after Biafra declared its independence, diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis fell apart. On July 6, 1967, the federal government in Lagoslaunched a full-scale invasion into Biafra. Expecting a quick victory, the Nigerian army surrounded and buffeted Biafra with aerial and artillery bombardment that led to large scale losses among Biafran civilians. The Nigerian Navy also established a sea blockade that denied food, medical supplies and weapons, again impacting Biafran soldiers and civilians alike.Despite the lack of resources and international support, Biafra stood firm refusing to surrender in the face of overwhelming Nigerian military superiority. The Nigerian Army however continued to slowly take territory, and on January 15, 1970, Biafra surrendered when its military commander General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu fled to Cote d’IvoireDuring this civil war, an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people died daily in Biafra from starvation as a result of the naval blockade.How Many Biafran Children DiedVolhynian Massacres[…]We should undertake the great action of the liquidation of the Polish element. As the German armies withdraw, we should take advantage of this convenient moment for liquidating the entire male population in the age from 16 up to 60 years. We cannot lose this fight, and it is necessary at all costs to weaken Polish forces. Villages and settlements situated next to the large forests should disappear from the face of the earth[…]Dmytro KlaczkiwskiThe Volhynian massacres were anti-Polish genocidal ethnic cleansings conducted by Ukrainian nationalists. The massacres took place within Poland’s borders as of the outbreak of WWII, and not only in Volhynia, but also in other areas with a mixed Polish-Ukrainian population, especially the Lvov, Tarnopol, and Stanisławów voivodeships (that is, in Eastern Galicia), as well as in some voivodeships bordering on Volhynia (the western part of the Lublin Voivodeship and the northern part of the Polesie Voivodeship – see map). The time frame of these massacres was 1943−1945. The perpetrators were the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists−Bandera faction (OUN-B) and its military wing, called the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Their documents show that the planned extermination of the Polish population was called an “anti-Polish operation.”The plans of the OUN during the war and the national policy that Yaroslav Stetsko's government intended to introduce the removal of Poles from Volhynia and Eastern Malopolska. It was intended to support provocated peasants riots. Against intelligence they intended the same policy that was implemented by Germans in occupied Poland. It was decided to conduct a policy of facts made and to remove the Polish population from the disputed areas so that, prior to possible international talks on borders, the area to which the OUN-B claimed its claims was ethnically homogeneous. The effect of such decision was also the destruction of the Jews.According to the most likely hypothesis, the decision to genocide of Poles fell on three OUN-B leaders: Dmytra Klaczkiwski, head of the Voluntary OUN-B, Vasily Iwachov, military correspondent OUN-B and Ivan Lytvynchuk, commanding the UPA forces in northeastern Volyn. The latter was the initiator and the most active organizer of mass murders on Poles. Between March and May 1943, after Iwachov's death, the power passed to Kliaczkiwski, who had already decided to start ethnic cleansing all over Volhynia.The organization of the murders, their course, their size, their territorial scope and the motives and motives of this action, give rise to the genocide crime in Wolin in 1939-1945. Crimes were the work of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, reinforced in March and April 1943 by deserters from the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, assisted by the Ukrainian peasantry called Black, self-defense Kuszczów Widdiły and Bezunkky OUN-B service.Following the mass deportations and arrests carried out by the NKVD and after the subsequent German repressions (e.g., deportation to the Reich to forced labor, arrests, detention in camps, and mass executions), by 1943 Poles constituted only 10−12 % of the entire population of Volhynia. Poles became an ethnic group deprived of most of its social activists, intellectuals, and military men. Thus, the Poles did not seek to create conflict situations. On the contrary, they did everything to avoid them. This fact should be stressed because some Ukrainian historians try to dispute it. Contrary to the truth, they suggest that the Volhynian massacres were not the first, but the second stage of a bloody Polish-Ukrainian conflict. According to their version, which has no basis in reality, the first stage began in the spring of 1943 as a “peasant war” (a “Jacquerie”) – spontaneously, and not inspired or controlled by Bandera’s OUN. The war was purportedly declared by the “masses of Ukrainian refugees” from the Chełm region who had fled across the Bug River eastward as early as 1942/1943. In Volhynia they inflamed the anti-Polish sentiments among Ukrainian peasants by telling them about the atrocities Poles had purportedly committed against Ukrainians in the Chełm region. All this is in line with the pro-Bandera propaganda put forward during the last stages of World War II and successfully promoted after the war by émigré Ukrainian nationalist historians associated with OUN-B. The first particularly cruel massacre of Poles took place on February 9, 1943 in the colony of Parośla located 1 km from Sarny. The number of Polish victims exceeded 155. In early 1943 the Ukrainian auxiliary police in Volhynia and Podole had nearly 12 thousand members. In March and April approx. 5 thousand of them deserted from the German service taking weapons and ammunition. Many of them had previously participated in murdering Jews of Volhynia. Majority of the deserters joined UPA, and many of them became commanders. From that moment on the number of initially sporadic massacres of Poles increased. The OUN-UPA terror assumed a mass scale in the summer and fall of 1943. The massacres of Poles initiated in the Sarny, Kostopol, Równe, and Zdołbuny counties spread across to Dubno and Łuck counties in June 1943. In July of that year they affected the Kowel, Włodzimierz Wołyński, and Horochów counties, before spreading further still to Luboml county in August. The month of July 1943 proved particularly tragic, with the Sunday of July 11, 1943 being especially bloody. At the crack of dawn that day UPA detachments (often actively supported by local Ukrainians) simultaneously surrounded and attacked 99 Polish villages in the Kowel, Włodzimierz Wołyński, and Horochów counties, as well as in a part of Łuck county. Ukrainians ruthlessly slaughtered Polish civilians and destroyed their homes. Villages were burned to the ground and property was looted. Researchers estimate that on that day alone the number of Polish victims may have amounted to some 8,000 people — mostly women, children, and the elderly. The perpetrators used bullets, axes, pitchforks, knives, and other weapons. Many Poles were killed in churches. Attacks on churches were indeed common, as the Bandera followers wanted to murder as many Poles as possible. On “Bloody Sunday” of July 11, the Ukrainians killed approx. 200 parishioners in the church in Poryck. Furthermore, Polish parishioners died in the churches in Krymno and Kisielin (approx. 40 and 80 victims respectively). Poles had to abandon their homes and seek shelter in the cities and towns which had posts of Hungarian and German troops. It was an irony that in order to escape from the UPA Poles had to seek protection from their oppressors: firstly from the Germans, and during 1944−1945 from the Soviets. The Germans deported Polish escapees to the Reich to forced labor. To escape the massacres some escapees tried to get to the General Government, particularly to the Lublin District. Finally, a small number of Poles created self-defence centers to protect themselves, with the most well-known ones located in Przebraże (where 10,000 Poles defended themselves), Huta Stepańska (600 Poles dead), Zasmyki, Dederkały, and Ostróg. Due to the lack of arms, ammunition, and a cadre of commanders most of the approx. 100 Polish self-defence centers were defeated. The tragic events of 1943 in Volhynia had a significant influence on the development of the Polish underground, including the formation of the largest partisan unit of the occupation period, that is, the 27th Volhynian Infantry Division of the Home Army. Formed within the framework of Operation Tempest (January−February 1944), the division had up to 7,000 soldiers. Initially (that is, until mid-March 1944) the division fought against the UPA to protect the surviving Polish population as well as against the German Army. Thereafter, it joined the Red Army in frontline combat against German and Hungarian troops. Moreover, several thousand Poles (mostly in Polesie Wołyńskie) fought in the ranks of Soviet partisan units, where Poles sought help and protection from the UPA for their families. For these same reasons, in the summer of 1944 at least several thousand Poles joined the “destruction battalions” — Soviet auxiliary military police subordinate to the NKVD. It remains uncertain as to what extent those destruction battalions formed in early 1945 protected Poles against the UPA and to what extent they provoked the UPA to carry on with its campaigns.Until December 1942 there were murders on individuals and Polish families.The victims were mainly Poles employed in the German agricultural and forestry administration, and then rural population, mainly in the eastern districts of Volhynia. For the first mass murder of the slaughter of the Volhynia, Polish Institute of National Remembrance recognizes the massacre on February 9, 1943 in the Polish colony of Parosla Pierwsza . UPA unit of Hryhorij Perehijniak murdered 173 Poles there. On the night of 26 March 27, 1943 UPA units subordinated to Ivan Lytvynuk "Dubov" killed at least 179 people in Lipniki. April 23, 1943 UPA's unit under personal command of "Dubowy" killed about 600 people in Janowa Dolina. At that time, the greatest crime occurred in the UPA districts under Lytvynchuk and Petrov Olijnik, mainly in the Sarny, Kostopol and Krzemieniec districts.May 12 in the district of Sarny burned villages Ugly Konstantynówka, Thistles, Ubereż. On May 24, 170 people were murdered in the village of Niemodlin in the Kostopolskie district. On the night of 24th and 25th May 1943, all mansions and manors were burned in the district of Wlodzimierz. On May 28th, a 600-person UPA unit burned the village of Staryki and killed all its inhabitants. Until July 1943 in the horochowski district was attacked in 23 Polish villages, in the district of Dubień - 15 in the district of Wlodzimierz - in 28 villages. The wave of seizures that began in the east of Volhynia was systematically moving westward. The extermination of the Polish population in May-June 1943 spread to the districts of Dubno, Luck and Zdolbunow, and in July 1943 covered all the lands of Volhynia outside the Lubomel district.Most of the pogroms took place on Sundays in the summer of 1943. The Ukrainians used the fact that the Polish population was gathering at churches, so the churches were often surrounded, and the faithful were often cruelly tortured before death (eg. dismembering people with hand woodsaws, splitting eyes, burning alive).On July 15 (having incorrect information that the anti-Polish action is planned for July 20), the Home Army planned to carry out an anti-Ukrainian action, which would eliminate the OUN-B activists, and would have to thwart Ukrainian action. Total surprise was the earlier start of action by Ukrainians.Previously, the Polish underground tried to negotiate with UPA to stop the wave of murders. Initial talks with local SB OUN commander Szabatura was conducted in the vicinity of Świnarzyna on July 7, 1943. At the next meeting on July 10, On 7 July 1943, Zygmunt Rumel, polish officer and poet, commander of the 8th Volhynia District of Bataliony Chłopskie (BCh, Polish Farmers' Battalions) together with officer Krzysztof Markiewicz (aka Czort), both dressed in military uniforms, aided by guide Witold Dobrowolski, contacted the Ukrainians. They were officially representing the Polish government. Markiewicz knew the Szabatura from school days; In a gesture of good will the Poles resigned from the armed insurgency. Upon arrival at the meeting place (Kustycze village) all three were detained by Ukrainians, then tortured and killed, (actually Rumel was tied to four horses and his body was ripped apart)Bloody Sunday - July 11, 1943The following day, July 11, 1943, is regarded as the bloodiest day of the massacres, with many reports of UPA units marching from village to village, killing Polish civilians. On that day, UPA units surrounded and attacked Polish villages and settlements located in three counties - Kovel, Horochow, and Wlodzimierz Volynski. Events began at 3:00 am, leaving the Poles with little chance to escape. After the massacres, the Polish villages were burned to the ground. According to those few who survived, the action had been carefully prepared; a few days before the massacres there had been several meetings in Ukrainian villages, during which UPA members told the villagers that the slaughter of all Poles was necessary. Altogether, on July 11, 1943, the Ukrainians attacked 167 towns and villages. Within a few days an unspecified number of Polish villages were completely destroyed and their populations murdered. In the Polish village of Gurow, out of 480 inhabitants, only 70 survived; in the settlement of Orzeszyn, UPA killed 306 out of 340 Poles; in the village of Sadowa out of 600 Polish inhabitants only 20 survived; in Zagaje out of 350 Poles only a few survived.This wave of massacres lasted 5 days, until July 16. UPA continued the ethnic cleansing, particularly in rural areas, until most Poles had been deported, killed or expelled. These actions were conducted by many units, and were well-coordinated and thoroughly planned.In August 1943, the village of Gaj (near Kovel) was burned and some 600 people were massacred, in the village of Wola Ostrowiecka 529 people were killed, including 220 children under 14, and 438 people were killed, including 246 children, in Ostrowki . In September 1992 exhumations were carried out in these villages, confirming the number of dead. Ukrainian attackers limit their actions to villages and settlements, and did not strike the towns or settlements.In late September 1943, the commandant "Lysyi" wrote to the OUN headquarters: "On September 29, 1943, I carried out the action in the villages of Wola Ostrowiecka, and Ostrówki. I have liquidated all Poles, starting from the youngest ones. Afterwards, all buildings were burned and all goods were confiscated". On that day in Wola Ostrowiecka 529 Poles were murdered (including 220 children under 14), and in Ostrówki, the Ukrainians killed 438 persons (including 246 children). In the second half of 1943, the UPA carried out a split of the lands remaining after the destroyed Polish settlements and lands owned by the Soviet authorities after 1939, and from June 1941 under the German administration, between the Ukrainian peasants.After a period of relative calming in October-November 1943, towards the end of the year, especially during the Christmas holidays in the whole of Volhynia, there was a new wave of anti-Polish actions by armed Ukrainian nationalists. UPA groups, assisted by the local Ukrainian population, hit the Polish population and self-defense bases in the counties of: Równino, Łucki, Kowale and Wlodzimierz (so-called "bloody celebrations").On the beginning of 1944 with the withdrawal of German garrisons fleeing the approaching Red Army, UPA troops and OUN militants attacked the defenseless Polish population on February 2nd 1944, 129 refugees from Łanowiec were murdered on the road between Kuśkowce Wielkie and Śniegorówka. On February 13, a total of 140 Poles were killed in several towns near Wolsztyn. In the same month in the convent in Wiśniowiec, the SB OUN boycott murdered about 300 people, mostly women and children.In the spring of 1944 UPA troops transferred their weight to Lviv and Podole, more than the population of Poles living in Volyn. In addition, on the left bank of the Bug, there was an escalation of partisan Polish-Ukrainian fights.Ukrainian nationalists also murdered Jews and Ukrainians unfavorable to the UPA or helping the Poles and liquidated collaborators from the first Soviet occupation of 1939-1941. Many victims were also among mixed marriages. According to the calculations in Volhynia in the years 1941-1945, 846/847 Ukrainians, 1210 Jews, 342 Czechs, 135/136 Russians and 70 other nationalities died from the hands of Ukrainian nationalists. However, these data are incomplete.Partisans loyal to Bandera's OUN have murdered tens of thousands of Ukrainian compatriots suspected of being linked to Borowec or Melnik. Although no one has yet examined this issue, probably in 1943 UPA also murdered as many Ukrainians as Poles.On the other hand, in the retaliatory actions of the Polish side in Volhynia, about 2-3 thousand Ukrainians were killed.The victims of ethnic cleansing were also a small community of Polish Armenians in Galicia, murdered for their attachment to Polishness (it was remembered that Armenian Orthodox Archbishop Jozef Teodorowicz was strongly in favor of joining Lwow to Poland). On April 19-21, 1944, about 500 Polish Armenians and Poles were murdered in Kuty on Czeremosz, on Pokucie (called the small capital of Polish Armenians).The precise number of those killed in the massacre of Poles Volhyn encountered difficulties over the years. One reason was, that some towns or villages were razed to the ground, and all of citizens were murdered. Murders were made in areas engrossed in guerrilla warfare and chaos, so often no crimes were documented. Many witnesses who survived the slaughter had fled from the area of Volhynia or were deported to the Reich, whereupon they later scattered across Poland and the world. In the PRL, no crimes were prosecuted in Volhynia as a consequence of the loss of the Kresy in favor of the USSR, and the private collection of crime certificates was no authorized until 1980s.The number of 50-60 thousand Poles killed in Volhynia is currently considered the most viable by Polish historians, of which 15000 were killed until July 1943, while 17000 were killed in July 1943.Pogroms in Eastern Galicia[…]In view of the progress of the Bolsheviks on the Eastern Front, the decommissioning of the Polish element should be accelerated. Eradication of action should be carried out on the following terms: Polish villages to be burned, and their population cut in the trunk .... Seizures occur in the city in broad daylight, not at night. In the mixed villages, the Polish population should be eliminated, while the homesteads should only burn in such cases if they are 15 meters away and if there is no risk of fire spreading to neighboring Ukrainian buildings. The Ukrainian population will receive instructions on where to group during the robbery ..., the order is recommended for every Ukrainian murdered either by Poles or Germans to lose 100 (one hundred) Poles.[…](UPA order seized by the Lviv AK)In August 1943 at the 3rd OUN(B) Congress the Volhynia delegation proposed for its part the repetition of the slaughter of Volhynia in Eastern Malopolska. The congress probably decided to murder the Polish population in Eastern Małopolska or, more likely, left the decision of the UPA commander Roman Shuchevych. Decisions on the launch of "anti-Polish action" were taken in December 1943. The motive for the decision was to convince the inevitability of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict over the controversial lands after the end of the war and to settle their territorial status by the international peace conference analogously to the situation after the end of the First World War. In order to prevent possible plebiscites of the population in ethnically mixed areas, it was decided to remove the Polish population from these lands.In March 1944, main UPA Command issued an order to expel Poles since April from Eastern Galicia under the threat of death. In the case of Poles remain in place men were about to be killed and their huts and assets burned. In practice, this restriction was mostly not respected at all and the UPA units also murdered women and children, and it is not known if a member of the UPA has been accused of this. In the case of Eastern Malopolska, the massacres were usually preceded by bullying and calls to leave the place of residence under the threat of death. Many Polish families residing in these areas did not obey such calls, as this would result in irretrievable loss of residence and life achievements.Since mid-1943, anti-Polish sentiments began to rise among Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia, and opressive depolonization actions were intensified. There was a wave of individual killings, often of prominent people in the Polish community - representatives of the intelligentsia, former soldiers and policemen, priests and foresters.In September 1943 widespread murder of whole families has been commonplace, often carried out with particular cruelty. Mass suicide began, and most of them were part of UPA units attacking at Volhynia. One of the earliest towns attacked by UPA was Netreba, near the German-controlled Grenzschutz border of the General Government and the Reich Commissar of Ukraine. October 8, 1943, the village was saved of destruction by Grenzschutz. 17 Poles died. On Christmas Eve, in Kruhów in the district of Krągowskie, the pretenders of the carolers killed 15 Poles, including a self-defense commander and two Ukrainians. In total, in various UPA raids in 1943, died between 1000 and 3000 people, mostly civilians. The Ukrainian underground fought especially Poles in the forest service, which was regarded as an obstacle to forest control. At the beginning of 1944 a total of 73 forest guards and grooms with their wives and children were murdered. The next attack on the forester lodges took place at night from 3 to 4 February 1944 in the districts of Brodzki, Kamionecki and Sokol, while simultaneously attacked in 120 places.On the night of January 15, 1944, village Markowa was assaulted in the Podhajec district. Although the perpetrators were armed with firearms, they murdered axes. 55 people died. January 22 at. At 19.00, about one hundred arrivals arrived in sleighs to the village of Buszcze (Brzeg district). The assassins split in groups and murdered 23 residents, thirteen were wounded.Since February, the number of attacks has started to rise rapidly, especially in the Rohaty district of Stanislawow voivodship: 19 people were killed in Bołszowiecka Sloboda, in Firlejów 75 people, in Fraga 33 Poles. Escalation also took place in the Tarnopol voivodship, where 11 people were murdered in Horodnica, 20 people in Czyżów, 60 people in Bokowo, 8 people in Slobodka Wasylkowiecka, and 9 people were murdered in Burkanowo, 15 people in Hadyńkowice and in Wasylkowie 30. February 2, 1944 several hundred attackers attacked the Hanaczow, in the Przemysl district, killing 63 people and injuring about a hundred. On the night of 22nd to 23rd of february, UPA's troops arrived from Volhynia and killed 131 Poles in Berezowica Mala near Zbaraż. On February 28, the UPA attacked Korosciatyn along with a railway station where railway officials with families and travelers were axed. At the same time surprised Poles were also killed in the village. 156 people were killed in the attack. The succour came with the Polish partisan detachment and stopped bloodshed. The Ukrainian population also participated in the raid, and a great role in saving the locals was self-defense, which, after initial surprise, was resisting. In March 1944 attacks on Polish villages were continued. On March 9, 1944, 24 houses were burned in Szerokie Pole, killing 58 people. Also in March, the UPA attacked the village of Huta Wierchobuzka, where about 100 people were killed, and the survivors evacuated four times. On the night of March 24th, in Bialystok, 80 people were murdered. On the night of March 30th and 31st of March 102 people were killed in Sheshory and on March 28th 140 people in Volkhovka. In the bestial way - ripping up the belly, cutting off the heads - were dealt with 112 Poles in the Plaucza Wielka. The wave of attacks began to move westward to the territory of the Lviv region. On March 25, the Jahoda's UPA unit, in cooperation with the Ukrainian auxiliary police, murdered 141 Poles in Wasyl (Rawa Ruska). Over 100 people were also killed in Belza (Sokal district) when UPA troops retreating from Volhynia attacked the town. In April the number of attacks on Poles has increased. The Hajdamaky Upa unit and the OUN militia attacked the landlord, smoked 52 farms and killed 40 Poles, and two days later, April 4, the same forces attacked several Polish colonies near the Perkozów. In the district of Kamioneckie, Stanislawow voivodship (killed 15 people), Strychanka (killed 5 people), Lisko (killed 18 Poles), Jazienica Polskiej (killed 16 people), Horpin (died 31 people) in the district of Stryjski, Stanislawowski voivodeship several Polish families were killed in Zulina. In the Zolkiew district, UPA attacked villages: Fujna, Wola Wysocka, Wiązowa, Lipina, Janówka, Majdanek, Żabzy, Macoszyn, Skwarzawa, Mosty and Zameczek. April 7, 1944 SS-Galizien sub-unit, or deserters from this unit murdered 22 people in Chatki village. The culmination of slaughter took place in Passion Week. On Easter night from 9th to 10th of April, murders took place from Hanaczow in the north to the village in the south of the province Stanyslawow. In Tomaszowce 300 farms were burned and 40 Poles were killed, villages Pniaki, Sokołów and Zady were burnt. On April 12 about 100 Poles were killed in Hucisko. In April 1944, the number of victims was 8,000 people. In the following months, the action was continued, SB OUN militia burned Kupcze, killing 17 Poles, 22 May UPA attacked Zagranne, where cruelly murdered from 120 to 145 people.Widely publicized was the murder of hundreds Polish train passengers around the Zatyla on 16th of June, by "Jastruba" UPA unit. In June, six Polish villages were burned in Ruda district, and 52 Poles were killed in the village of Krasne in the night of 16-17 July. August 19, 1944 SB OUN burned Grabowa village with 10 people. It was also attempted to attack the towns of Dolina, Busk, Lopatyn, Komarno, Chyrow.At the beginning of 1944, the 4th Police Regiment of SS-Galizien was sent to the territory of Eastern Malopolska. OUN leadership quickly recognized the possibility of using the regiment for their own purposes. On February 29, the deputy head of the OUN, "The Brigade" in the UPA staff briefings [64] wrote:On February 23, 1944, a patrol of the 4th SS Police Regiment of SS Galizien appeared in Huta Pieniecka . There was a fight with a self-defense squadron supported by 2 platoon AK from Wierchobuzka Steelworks (Poles thought they were dealing with disguised assailants). Before the breakup, the SS unit protected the UPA "Siromanci" sotnia, which attacked the Poles from the flank. On February 28, 1944, the soldiers of the 4th SS Police Regiment, along with the UPA detachment and paramilitary unit composed of Ukrainian nationalists, under the command of Wlodzimierz Czerniawski, pacified the Polish civilian population. The villagers were driven to their sheds and burned alive. Deaths ranged from 600 to 1500 people [65].UPA unit led by Max Skorupzki ps. "Maks" on March 12, 1944, with the cooperation of soldiers of the same 4 regiment of the police SS, made a raid on Podkamien and Palikrowy nearby. In Palikrowy, 365 defenseless Poles were shot, in the Podkamien a group of self-defense protect a large group of women and children resisted in the monastery. However, he was conquered, and the hiding, who did not manage to escape, were murdered. The attackers were in the area until March 16, 1944, searching and killing hiding civilians. That day the UPA withdrew due to the approaching Red Army.In Chodaczkow Wielki on early 1944 self-defense unit three times prevented a UPA's attack on the countryside. However, it was helpless against SS-Galizien, who in April 1944 entered the village. The assailants set fire to homes and farm buildings, threw grenades into buildings and basements. Runners were thrown into flaming homes. 250 to over 850 people died, almost the entire village burned down, except for the church and the rectory and buildings close to the houses of Ukrainians.As a consequence, according to historians' findings, 20-25 to 40,000 people were murdered mostly Poles. Polish historian Ewa Siemaszko estimates the number of victims at 70,000.

Unfortunately Jews have been persecuted and humiliated by the Arabs since, at least the seventh century.Muhammad, the founder of Islam, traveled to Medina in 622 A.D. to attract followers to his new faith. When the Jews of Medina refused to recognize Muhammad as their Prophet, two of the major Jewish tribes were expelled. In 627, Muhammad’s followers killed between 600 and 900 of the men, and divided the surviving Jewish women and children amongst themselves.The Muslim attitude toward Jews is reflected in various verses throughout the Koran, the holy book of the Islamic faith.“They [the Children of Israel] were consigned to humiliation and wretchedness. They brought the wrath of God upon themselves, and this because they used to deny God’s signs and kill His Prophets unjustly and because they disobeyed and were transgressors” (Sura 2:61).According to the Koran, the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64), have always been disobedient (5:78), and are enemies of Allah, the Prophet and the angels (2:97-98).Jews were generally viewed with contempt by their Muslim neighbors; peaceful coexistence between the two groups involved the subordination and degradation of the Jews. In the ninth century, Baghdad’s Caliph al-Mutawakkil designated a yellow badge for Jews, setting a precedent that would be followed centuries later in Nazi Germany.At various times, Jews in Muslim lands lived in relative peace and thrived culturally and economically. The position of the Jews was never secure, however, and changes in the political or social climate would often lead to persecution, violence and death.When Jews were perceived as having achieved too comfortable a position in Islamic society, anti-Semitism would surface, often with devastating results. On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power.Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in “an offensive manner.” The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by the Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830; and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854­-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Despite the Koran’s prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).On February 5, 1840, Capuchin friar Thomas, an Italian who had long resided in Damascus, disappeared together with his Muslim servant Ibrahim ʿAmāra. The monk was known to have been involved in shady business and the two men were probably murdered by tradesmen with whom Thomas had quarreled. Nonetheless, the Capuchins immediately circulated news that Jews had murdered both men in order to use their blood for Passover.As Catholics in Syria were officially under French protection, the investigation should have been conducted by the French consul per local law. But the consul, Ratti-Menton, allied himself with the accusers and supervised the investigation jointly with the governor-general Sherif Padia; and it was conducted in the most barbarous fashion. A barber, Solomon Negrin, was arbitrarily arrested and tortured until a "confession" was extorted from him, according to which the monk had been killed in the house of David Harari by seven Jews. The men whom he named were subsequently arrested; two of them died under torture, one of them converted to Islam in order to be spared and the others were made to "confess."A Muslim servant in the service of David Harari related under duress that Ibrahim ʿAmāra was killed in the house of Meir Farhi, in the presence of Farhi and other Jewish notables. Most of those mentioned were arrested, but one of them, Isaac Levi Picciotto, was an Austrian citizen and under the protection of the Austrian consul. His citizenship eventually led to the intervention of Austria, England and the United States in the affair.When some bones were found in a sewer in the Jewish quarter, the accusers proclaimed that they were those of Thomas, and buried them accordingly. An inscription on the tombstone stated that it was the grave of a saint tortured by the Jews. Then more bones were found, alleged to be those of Ibrahim ʿAmāra. But a well-known physician in Damascus, Dr. Lograso, refused to certify that they were human bones, and requested that they be sent to a European university for examination. This, however, met with the opposition of the French consul. The authorities then announced that, on the strength of the confessions of the accused and the remains found of the victims, the guilt of the Jews in the double murder was proved beyond doubt.The authorities also seized 63 Jewish children so as to extort the hiding place of the victims' blood from their mothers.News of the atrocities in Damascus aroused the concern of the Jewish world. The first Jewish attempt to intervene in the tragic situation came from Alexandria in the form of a petition addressed to Muhammad Ali, as a result of the initiative of Israel Bak, the Jerusalem printer. At the same time, the Austrian consul Laurin general in Egypt received a report from the Austrian consul in Damascus and also petitioned Muhammad Ali to stop the torture methods used by the investigators.Ali agreed and instructions were accordingly issued to Damascus by express courier. As a result, the use of torture came to an end on April 25, 1840. However, the accusation itself was not rescinded and the investigation against the Jews continued. Laurin tried to influence the consul general of France in Egypt to restrain Ratti-Menton, who was his subordinate, but he was unsuccessful. He then acted in a manner contrary to diplomatic practice by sending the report he had received from Damascus to James de Rothschild, the honorary Austrian consul in Paris. He also requested Rothschild to intervene with the French government.This, however, did not bring any result. In order to alert public opinion in France and around the world, Baron de Rothschild published the report in the press. In Vienna, his brother Solomon Rothschild approached Chancellor Metternich on the issue. The latter reprimanded Laurin, but nevertheless consented to his activity, as it caused embarrassment to the representatives of France in Egypt and Syria. Laurin was then joined by the British consul general in Egypt, as well as by other European consuls, who supported him in his dispute with the French. As a result of his efforts, an order was sent to Damascus on May 3, 1840, requesting protection for the Jews from the violence of Muslim and Christian mobs.In the meantime, Western Jewry had been shocked by what had happened, and vigorous protests were voiced. Western European Jews and, especially, the Jews of France and England, saw signs of a return to the darkness of the Middle Ages. The events also alarmed assimilated Jews, as was evident from their reactions, even of such Jews as the young Lasalle, who had completely broken away from Judaism. Enlightened non-Jews also protested against the accusation through the press and mass meetings.A Jewish delegation, whose members included Moses Montefiore, his secretary Louis Loewe, Adolphe Crémieux and Solomon Munk, left for Egypt and was received by Muhammad Ali. The delegation requested that the investigation should be abandoned by the Damascus authorities and transferred to Alexandria for judicial clarification or that the case be considered by European judges. This request was not granted as war was imminent between Egypt and Turkey. Both Muhammad Ali and the French wished to prevent an investigation into the events in Damascus.The Jews, whose first concern was the release of their coreligionists, decided to accept the simple liberation of the prisoners without any judicial declaration of innocence. In the end it was, however, explicitly stated that their liberation was an act of justice and not merely a favor granted by the ruler. The liberation order was issued on August 28, 1840, and those prisoners who were still alive in Damascus were saved.Montefiore and his delegation left Egypt for Constantinople, where they appealed to the sultan for the publication of a firman which would proclaim blood libels fallacious and prohibit the trial of Jews on the basis of such accusations. Nevertheless, the Catholics of Damascus continued to tell tourists, for many years, about the saint who had been tortured and murdered by the Jews, and how the Jews had been saved from the gallows by the intrigues of Jewish notables from abroad. The Damascus Affair also aroused Jewish awareness of the need for intercommunal cooperation, finally resulting in the establishment of the Alliance Israélite Universelle.What caused extraordinary anxiety among the Jews of the West in 1840 was not only the danger facing their co-religionists in the Middle East but also, and probably even more, the fact that the accusation of ritual murder in Damascus was initially accepted as proven fact by almost the entire press in the constitutional states of Continental Europe. Typical was a report appearing in innumerable newspapers in April declaring:"Today the truth is known: of the nine accused [Jews] … seven are united in admitting everything … the body [of Father Thomas] was suspended head down; one [of the Jews] held a tub to collect the blood while two others applied pressure to facilitate the flow. Then, once the source of blood had dried up, all of them, maddened, threw themselves on the corpse, cutting it to bits."In England, such reports were treated with greater skepticism, but the country's leading newspaper, The Times, persistently advanced the thesis that given the prima facie case against their religion, the onus of disproving the ritual murder charge fell squarely on the Jews. The Times, like the influential German Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung, now extensively reproduced the arguments frequently elaborated upon in Christian polemics since the 13th century that passages in the Talmud prescribed the sacrifice of Gentiles. Thus, an editorial article in The Times in June 1840 declared:"[The affair is] one of the most important cases ever submitted to the notice of the civilized world … Admitting for the moment [the accusation to be true] … then the Jewish religion must at once disappear from the face of the earth … We shall await the issue as the whole of Europe and the civilized world will do with intense interest."Adding still further to the sense of embattlement and shock that now overtook large segments of European Jewry was the situation that had developed in France by the summer of 1840.Not only was the charge of ritual murder emanating from the French diplomatic delegation in Damascus persistently and vociferously supported by the entire ultramontane Catholic press led by the influential daily l'Univers but, making matters much worse, the French premier, Adolphe Thiers, likewise gave his – albeit more guarded – backing to the consul in Syria, the Comte de Ratti-Menton. (Replying in June to critics in the Chamber of Deputies he declared, for example, that "you protest in the name of the Jews and I protest in the name of a Frenchman who until now has carried out his duties with honor and loyalty.")It was in the wake of the debate in the French parliament that the representative bodies of Jewry in France and Britain, the Consistoire Central and the Board of Deputies, took the difficult decision to dispatch the high-level delegation led by Adolphe Crémieux and Moses Montefiore to the Middle East.It had become all too clear, stated one prominent member of the Anglo-Jewish community, that at stake was "whether the flame of persecution … lighted up in the East … be so fed with bigotry that it shall increase … and go forth like some monster, destroying and to destroy, until the very name of Jew should be heard only with horror and disgust and their persons shall sink under cruelty, oppression and contempt … It is not merely … for humanity [and] our oppressed brethren that we are called upon to act; it is our own battle we fight."Jewish historiography (as typically in the above entry) tended to downplay severely the extent of the verbal battering unleashed against the Jews in Europe during the course of 1840, and likewise generally ignored the fact that two radically opposed versions of the Damascus Affair were passed down to posterity and to a large extent have continued to follow their own separate courses until today.In the Jewish narrative the crisis for the most part culminated in a "happy ending," with the release of the surviving prisoners in Damascus; the issue of the firman by the Sultan in Constantinople repudiating the ritual murder myth; and the triumphant return home of Montefiore and Crémieux. However, from very early on, an alternative Judeophobic version of the affair was put into circulation. In 1846 a two-volume book was published in Paris, written by Achille Laurent (almost certainly a pseudonym), Relation historique des affaires de Syrie depuis 1840 jusqu'en 1842, which contained the complete protocols of the interrogation undertaken by the local and French authorities in Damascus during their investigation of the (alleged) murder of Father Thomas and Ibrahim 'Amara, as well as a large collection of documents marshaled to reinforce the thesis that the ritual murder is prescribed by Judaism (or at least practiced traditionally by some Jewish sects).The entire collection clearly emanated from the coterie which had manned the French consulate in 1840, and thus could be seen as something close to an official publication. Containing as they did a series of confessions describing in great detail how and why the Jews of Damascus had committed the murders – but omitting all mention of the extensive use of torture – the protocols once in the public domain acted over time as an effective counter-weight to the version of the affair preserved in Jewish historiography and collective memory.In the coming years and decades, the protocols were published in various editions in German, Italian,abic, and Russian. The idea that the ritual murder case had been conclusively proved in Damascus and the prisoners only released for political reasons or because of bribery now became a key theme repeated at length in an extensive series of antisemitic journals and books, ranging from the Jesuit Civiltà Cattolica to Der Stuermer, and from Gougenot des Mousseaux's Le juif, le judaïsme et la judaïsation des peuples chrétiens to August Rohling's Talmudjude and to Henri Desportes' Le mystère du sang chez les juifs de tous les temps. In 1986 Mustafa Talas, the Syrian minister of defense, issued yet another edition of the protocols together with numerous documents related to the case.The idea that the ritual charge had been authenticated conclusively in Damascus in 1840 is repeated from time to time in Arabic-language media and by diplomats representing various Arab states. The tomb (allegedly) housing Father Thomas' remains still stands in the Franciscan Terra Sancta church in Damascus and carries the statement that he was "murdered by the Jews on February 5, 1840."The situation of Jews in Arab lands reached a low point in the 19th century. Jews in most of North Africa (including Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Morocco) were forced to live in ghettos. In Morocco, which contained the largest Jewish community in the Islamic Diaspora, Jews were made to walk barefoot or wear shoes of straw when outside the ghetto. Even Muslim children participated in the degradation of Jews, by throwing stones at them or harassing them in other ways.The frequency of anti-Jewish violence increased, and many Jews were executed on charges of apostasy. Ritual murder accusations against the Jews became commonplace in the Ottoman Empire.As distinguished Orientalist G.E. von Grunebaum has written: "It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizeable number Jewish subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have attained to high rank, to power, to great financial influence, to significant and recognized intellectual attainment; and the same could be done for Christians. But it would again not be difficult to compile a lengthy list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted forced conversions, or pogroms."The danger for Jews became even greater as a showdown approached in the UN. The Syrian delegate, Faris el-Khouri, warned: “Unless the Palestine problem is settled, we shall have difficulty in protecting and safeguarding the Jews in the Arab world.”More than a thousand Jews were killed in anti-Jewish rioting during the 1940’s in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria and Yemen. This helped trigger the mass exodus of Jews from Arab countries.Peoples subjected to Muslim rule usually had a choice between death and conversion, but Jews and Christians, who adhered to the Scriptures, were usually allowed, as dhimmis, to practice their faith. This “protection” did little, however, to insure that Jews and Christians were treated well by the Muslims. On the contrary, an integral aspect of the dhimma was that, being an infidel, he had to acknowledge openly the superiority of the true believer — the Muslim.In the early years of the Islamic conquest, the “tribute” (or jizya), paid as a yearly poll tax, symbolized the subordination of the dhimmi.Later, the inferior status of Jews and Christians was reinforced through a series of regulations that governed the behavior of the dhimmi. Dhimmis, on pain of death, were forbidden to mock or criticize the Koran, Islam or Muhammad, to proselytize among Muslims, or to touch a Muslim woman (though a Muslim man could take a non-Muslim as a wife).Dhimmis were excluded from public office and armed service, and were forbidden to bear arms. They were not allowed to ride horses or camels, to build synagogues or churches taller than mosques, to construct houses higher than those of Muslims or to drink wine in public. They were forced to wear distinctive clothing and were not allowed to pray or mourn in loud voices — as that might offend Muslims. The dhimmi also had to show public deference toward Muslims; for example, always yielding them the center of the road. The dhimmi was not allowed to give evidence in court against a Muslim, and his oath was unacceptable in an Islamic court. To defend himself, the dhimmi would have to purchase Muslim witnesses at great expense. This left the dhimmi with little legal recourse when harmed by a Muslim.By the twentieth century, the status of the dhimmi in Muslim lands had not significantly improved. H.E.W. Young, British Vice Consul in Mosul, wrote in 1909:"The attitude of the Muslims toward the Christians and the Jews is that of a master towards slaves, whom he treats with a certain lordly tolerance so long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension to equality is promptly repressed."In 1941, Haj Amin al-Husseini the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem fled to Germany and met with Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joachim Von Ribbentrop and other Nazi leaders. He wanted to persuade them to extend the Nazis’ anti-Jewish program to the Arab world.The Mufti sent Hitler 15 drafts of declarations he wanted Germany and Italy to make concerning the Middle East. One called on the two countries to declare the illegality of the Jewish home in Palestine. Furthermore, “they accord to Palestine and to other Arab countries the right to solve the problem of the Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries, in accordance with the interest of the Arabs and, by the same method, that the question is now being settled in the Axis countries.”1In November 1941, the Mufti met with Hitler, who told him the Jews were his foremost enemy. The Nazi dictator rebuffed the Mufti's requests for a declaration in support of the Arabs, however, telling him the time was not right. The Mufti offered Hitler his “thanks for the sympathy which he had always shown for the Arab and especially Palestinian cause, and to which he had given clear expression in his public speeches....The Arabs were Germany's natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely....the Jews....” Hitler replied:Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews. That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine....Germany would furnish positive and practical aid to the Arabs involved in the same struggle....Germany's objective [is]...solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere....In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. The Mufti thanked Hitler profusely.In 1945, Yugoslavia sought to indict the Mufti as a war criminal for his role in recruiting 20,000 Muslim volunteers for the SS, who participated in the killing of Jews in Croatia and Hungary. He escaped from French detention in 1946, however, and continued his fight against the Jews from Cairo and later Beirut. He died in 1974.