[7] On October 27, the police director in Toruń issued an order, which, among other things, imposed on the Polish population the obligation to yield the way to representatives of the German authorities and to bow to them by removing head coverings.

Finally, on September 18, Walter Kiessling, the former lord mayor of Erfurt, who was brought to Toruń by the head of the civil administration of the 4th Army, assumed the office of the city commissioner.

[20] Additionally, until 26 October 1939, a special police commission investigating cases of crimes against Volksdeutsche allegedly committed by Poles operated in Toruń.

[22] Toruń played an important role in the life of the German minority in Pomerania,[23] hosting, among others, one of the branches of the Nazi Party in Poland (Landesgruppe NSDAP – Polen).

In the second half of September, its members joined the ranks of the Selbstschutz, a police-like formation composed of Volksdeutsche, which Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler ordered to organize in the occupied Polish territories.

It was primarily directed against representatives of the Polish intelligentsia, whom Hitler and the Nazis blamed for the policy of Polonization conducted in the Western Borderlands during the interwar period and regarded as the most serious obstacle to the rapid and complete Germanization of those territories.

Its representatives were primarily considered to be: Catholic clergy, teachers, doctors, dentists, veterinarians, retired officers, officials, merchants, entrepreneurs, landowners, lawyers, writers, journalists, uniformed service personnel, graduates of higher and secondary schools, as well as members of organizations and associations promoting Polish identity – primarily the Polish Western Union, the Maritime and Colonial League, the Rifle Brotherhood, the Society of Insurgents and Soldiers, the Riflemen's Association Strzelec, and the Sokół movement.

[35][36] Based on the so-called elaboration on the immobilization, the Polish authorities interned approximately 600 representatives of the German minority from Toruń, Chełmża, and surrounding areas.

[note 4][38][39] Goebbels' propaganda dubbed the evacuation of Toruń Germans as the "death march to Łowicz",[37] and just like in the case of the so-called Bloody Sunday in Bydgoszcz, it presented it as a flagship example of crimes, supposedly perpetrated against Volksdeutsche residing in Poland.

[41][42] Members of the Selbstschutz guarding important communication routes intercepted refugees returning to their homes, especially former Polish Armed Forces soldiers, officials, and teachers.

During a grand assembly for members of the urban and district structures of the "Self-Defense", Alvensleben delivered a speech containing the following words:[46]We will never forget the wrongs done to us on this German soil.

This is where the spiritual instigators of this war are to be found.From October 17th to 21st, a large-scale dragnet took place in Toruń, carried out under the pretext of searching for weapons[47] but in reality targeting "politically uncertain Polish elements".

[56][57] On November 10th, about 50 Polish teachers, who had shown up for a supposed "conference" at the Gestapo headquarters on Bydgoska Street following a summons received two days earlier, were deceitfully arrested in Toruń (six people were quickly released, the rest were detained at Fort VII).

[2][63] Around October 15, all the prisoners from the Okrąglak were transferred to an internment camp (German: Internierungslager), which the occupying authorities organized in Fort VII of the Toruń Fortress.

[59] In the context of the planned roundup of Toruń's intelligentsia, it was also crucial that the fort, unlike the Okrąglak, could accommodate hundreds of prisoners, and its peripheral location allowed their fate to be kept secret.

[68][69] Additionally, the camp staff included individuals such as Wiese (a baker by profession), Karst, Denni Deter, Hoffenicz, Broese, Betinger, Schulz, Heise, and Tobar.

[79] Daily walks were only allowed when Commandant Strauss realized that prolonged confinement combined with poor nutrition was having a detrimental effect on the prisoners' health.

[85] On one occasion, a prisoner who demanded soap and toothpaste due to the dire sanitary conditions was beaten unconscious and then forced to clean the latrines.

[59][67][88] Based on interrogation results[59] (often accompanied by beatings)[89] and the analysis of questionnaires and biographies compiled by the prisoners,[67] the commission decided the fate of each inmate.

[90][91] According to findings by Polish investigators and historians, the commission included individuals such as SS-Sturmbannführer Zaporowicz, camp commandant Strauss, lawyer Kohnert, engineer Wiese, pharmacist Rudi Heininger, car agent Scholtz, gravedigger Pomerenke, carpenter Paul Heise, Landbund president Bachmann, as well as the Heyer brothers (merchants) and the Wallis brothers.

[88] The victims, dressed only in their underwear or lightly clothed at most, were transported to the place of execution in covered trucks belonging to the Toruń-based company Jaugsch.

– memories of Eugeniusz Horak[113]Walenty Kluska and Bolesław Koc, Polish forestry workers working in Barbarka, became important witnesses to the crimes.

Upon learning from him what the gunshots, screams, and singing coming from the place of supposed military drills really meant, both workers attempted to locate the scene of the crime.

Soon, in unit 24 of the forestry, they found trees with traces of bullet holes and graves with shallowly buried bodies, which the Germans tried to conceal with freshly planted saplings.

– official summary of an excerpt from Walenty Kluska's testimony[105]Due to the Germans' efforts to conceal the traces of the crime, the number of victims can only be estimated.

[59][119] The first comprehensive list of victims, containing 260 names, was compiled by Judge Leon Gayda from the District Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Bydgoszcz.

It was published by Tadeusz Jaszowski and Czesław Sobecki in their 1971 book titled The Silent Witness: Nazi Crimes in Toruń's Fort VII and Barbarka Forest.

[65] According to the research by Sziling and Grochowina, 81 identified victims originated from Toruń, 32 from Chełmża, thirteen from Brzeczka, ten each from Grębocin, Skąpe, Skłudzewo, and Złotoria, nine from Gostkowo and Zelgno, eight from Grzywna, seven each from Brzoza and Czarnowo, and six each from Kamionki, Łubianka, and Toporzysko.

In Barbarka, a network of guard posts was established, and signs with inscriptions in German and Polish were set up, prohibiting local residents from entering the forest under the threat of death.

[142] SS-Gruppenführer Richard Hildebrandt, the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia division from 1939 to 1943, was sentenced to death by a Polish court in Bydgoszcz.