October 27, 1938
Germany Orders the Expulsion of Polish Jews
Historical context
On this day, October 27, 1938, the Reich Security Main Office ordered the arrest of Jews with Polish passports. About 17,000 were expelled over the next two days.
Archive record
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- Date
- October 27, 1938
- Verified sources
- 1
- Archive threads
- 4
On this day, the Reich Security Main Office ordered state police offices across Germany to arrest Jews who held Polish passports and to take them at once to the Polish border. The day before, the German government had told Poland that it would expel Polish citizens if Poland did not withdraw a new passport rule.
Police carried out the roundups on 28 and 29 October. The Jewish Museum Berlin records that about 17,000 Jews with Polish citizenship were expelled, most of them to the border town of Zbąszyń. It was the first mass deportation of Jews from the German Reich.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Polenaktion (Polish Action, 1938) · Jewish Museum Berlin · Jewish Museum Berlin View source
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