This map, produced by the Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation in 1968, shows all the crimes committed in Poland during the Second World War, between 1939 and 1945, by Nazi Germany, led by Hitler.
It is one of the best examples of propaganda used to keep alive the horror of the Nazi invasion of Poland. The map was published in Polish and Russian, but also in German, French and English, indicating that it was intended for international distribution.
The level of detail on the map is shocking, as the legend includes all kinds of atrocities:
- The skull and crossbones mark all of Poland's extermination camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka.
- The fenced turret represents concentration camps. Those marked with a smaller symbol were associated concentration camps. The colours of the turrets indicate the administration to which each one belonged.
- Crosses of different sizes show the number of people killed in each location. A particularly large cross stands in Warsaw to show the huge impact of the Wola massacre and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
- The black crosses on a yellow background mark the locations where prisoners of war were executed.
- The squares with a red star mark the mass graves of Soviet prisoners of war.
- The squares with a yellow cross represent the large prisoner-of-war camps.
- The circles with a red shovel show the forced labour prison camps.
- The circles with a blue Star of David indicate labour camps dedicated to Jews.
In red, at the bottom, it is emphasised that all the points shown on the map represent only those places where there were at least 50 victims, which is only 10% of all those registered at that time by the organisation.
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