Hitler was eager to “prevent Polish assimilation into any parts of the newly conquered territories,”1 as well as to prevent them from developing into a ruling class. Basically, the brutality which the Nazis had brought to occupied Poland was aimed at the liquidation of anyone with leadership capacity, whether the nobility, the clergy, or the intelligentsia.2 Moreover, convinced that the Wehrmacht had treated the Poles too gently, Hitler replaced them with the ruthless SS.3 However, the Germans were by no means the only enemies facing the Poles. Stalin saw the German invasion as an opportunity to acquire Polish territories, while tightening controls over Poland in general. America’s entry into the war on the Allies’ side after the German invasion of Russia strengthened his hand, shifting the balance of power. In addition, the 1941 widely publicized German discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest helped to deepen the long-standing divide between the Poles and the Russians. These graves contained the bodies of 4,321 Polish officers murdered by the USSR.4 The Soviet Union vehemently denied any involvement in these killings.
