Action Saybusch

The main purpose of the forcible displacement of Polish nationals was to create space for ethnically German colonists from across Eastern Europe, after the annexation of western Poland into the Third Reich in 1939.

[3] The Action was part of the Adolf Hitler's plan known as Lebensraum which involved Germanization of all Polish areas west of the territory allocated to the General Government.

[3] Displacements of the Poles from Żywiec and surrounding villages and towns was led by the occupation authorities under SS-Obersturmbannführer Fritz Arlt, who replaced Bruno Müller from RKF.

The local Germans "had not diligently carried out the identification and seizure of Polish activists and intelligentsia and thus were not eager to report the actual number of Jews deported.

They were marched and trucked to the so-called transit points in nearby towns of Żywiec, Rajcza, Sucha Beskidzka, and farther away like Końskie and others.

[1][10] The assembly points at railway stations held each time about 1,000 Polish people; who were split into groups of 40 in line with already numbered rail cars.

83 (under Eugen Seim, stationed in Jeleśnia) with approximately 500 soldiers as well as numerous SS, RKF and NSDAP functionaries including Katowice Gestapo officers.

Despite the Nazi propaganda campaign painting a rosy picture of their opulent future, the new hosts were not given the best of lands, which were reserved for the Reichsdeutsche who had served in the Wehrmacht.

[3][10] The Wartheland Gaue officials on their part, lamented the newcomers' cultural backwardness in comparison with most Poles, and their inability to speak proper German.

It was a pilot project meant to be followed by similar actions, but in March 1941 SS-Obergruppenführer Hans Frank, Governor of General Government, objected to further overcrowding of his district.

[1] As a result, from 1942 on, Polish deportees were placed with other farmers in the poorest villages within the same territory of Silesia (Interne Umsiedlung), or sent to one of the new 23 camps called Polenlager, created especially for that purpose.

The displaced Goral farmers who returned to their homes in 1945 often found buildings razed or destroyed and everything else stolen by the settlers escaping the Soviet advance.