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Wilno in the war

22 articles · 1920–1945

Before the war Wilno was the capital of the Wilno voivodeship. The Red Army took it on 19 September 1939, and in October the USSR handed it to Lithuania. The Wehrmacht marched in on 24 June 1941; for close to sixty, perhaps eighty, thousand Wilno Jews this was the beginning of their destruction in the ghetto and at Ponary. On 13 July 1944 the Red Army, supported by the Home Army, took the city, and the NKVD then arrested the Home Army's command. In 1945 Wilno remained in the USSR.

1920

  1. 9 October 1920EventŻeligowski's mutinyOn 9 October 1920 General Żeligowski's division, staging a mutiny on Piłsudski's orders, took Wilno. The dispute split Poland and Lithuania until 1938.

1934

  1. 5 May 1934EventThe extension of the Polish–Soviet non-aggression pactOn 5 May 1934 in Moscow Poland and the USSR extended their non-aggression pact to the end of 1945. Moscow also confirmed it did not dispute Polish Wilno.

1939

  1. 17 September 1939EventThe Soviet invasion of PolandAt dawn on 17 September 1939 the Red Army entered Poland without a declaration of war, carrying out the secret protocol of its pact with Germany.
  2. 17 September – 6 October 1939BattleSoviet invasion of PolandFrom 17 September 1939 the Red Army occupied eastern Poland, resisted by the KOP, Grodno, Lwów and Orlik-Rückemann's group. Fighting went on into October.
  3. 19 September 1939EventGerman and Soviet troops meetThe Red Army took Wilno and met the Wehrmacht near Lwów and Brest. On 22 September Guderian handed Brest over to Krivoshein’s tank brigade.
  4. 10 October 1939EventThe Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance TreatyOn 10 October 1939 Lithuania signed a mutual assistance pact in Moscow. It received Wilno, seized from Poland, but had to accept 20,000 Soviet troops.
  5. 1 November 1939EventThe USSR annexes eastern PolandOn 1–2 November 1939 the Supreme Soviet annexed eastern Poland to the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSRs, citing rigged “elections” of 22 October.

1941

  1. 24 June 1941EventThe Germans take WilnoOn 24 June 1941 the Wehrmacht entered Wilno. That same day Lithuanian “activists” killed Jews in the streets, and the Germans took Jewish and Polish hostages.
  2. 2 July 1941EventThe Ponary massacre beginsOn 2 July 1941 Einsatzkommando 9 reached Wilno. In early July executions of Jews began in the pits at Ponary, and they went on for three years.
  3. 31 August 1941EventThe Great Provocation in WilnoOn 31 August 1941 the Germans staged a “Jewish attack” on soldiers in Wilno. In reprisal thousands of Old Town Jews were rounded up and shot at Ponary.
  4. 6 September 1941EventThe Wilno GhettoOn 6 September 1941 the Germans drove the Jews of Wilno into two ghettos in the Old Town. Thousands detained on the way were shot at Ponary.
  5. 1 October 1941EventThe Yom Kippur actions in the Wilno GhettoOn Yom Kippur, 1 October 1941, Germans and Lithuanians seized thousands of Jews in both Wilno ghettos. By 21 October the whole small ghetto lay dead at Ponary.
  6. 24 October 1941EventThe yellow permits actionOn 24 October 1941 an action began in the Wilno Ghetto against people without yellow work permits. Within a week several thousand of them were killed at Ponary.
  7. 3 November 1941EventActions in the Wilno Ghetto in NovemberOn 3 November 1941 the Germans ordered yellow-permit holders out of the large Wilno ghetto and combed it. Over a thousand people were killed at Ponary.
  8. 3 December 1941EventActions in the Wilno Ghetto in DecemberBetween 3 and 22 December 1941 Germans and Lithuanians took people from the Wilno Ghetto to Ponary three more times. At least 850 people were killed.

1942

  1. 21 January 1942EventThe founding of the FPO in the Wilno GhettoOn 21 January 1942 the United Partisan Organisation (FPO) was founded in the Wilno Ghetto, one of the first Jewish armed resistance organisations in Europe.
  2. 13 April 1942EventThe execution of Anton SchmidOn 13 April 1942 in Wilno the Wehrmacht shot Feldwebel Anton Schmid, a Viennese who had rescued Jews from the ghetto and helped the Jewish underground.

1944

  1. 15 January – 26 October 1944BattleOperation TempestFrom January to October 1944 the Home Army struck the retreating Germans and greeted the Red Army as hosts. The Soviets disarmed its units.
  2. 22 June – 29 August 1944BattleOperation BagrationFrom 22 June to 29 August 1944 four Soviet fronts destroyed Army Group Centre in Belarus and reached the Vistula, the Narew and East Prussia.
  3. 7 July 1944EventOperation Ostra BramaOn 7 July 1944 Home Army units attacked Wilno to take it before the Red Army. The same day the spearheads of the 3rd Belorussian Front reached the city.
  4. 13 July 1944EventThe capture of WilnoOn 13 July 1944 the Red Army, supported by Home Army units, took Wilno. Days later the NKVD arrested the Wilno Home Army command and disarmed its soldiers.

1945

  1. 16 August 1945EventThe Polish–Soviet border agreementOn 16 August 1945 Poland’s Provisional Government and the USSR signed a Curzon Line border deal, leaving Lwów and Wilno in the USSR, and a reparations pact.

People

Born or died here

  • Felix DzerzhinskyChairman of the Cheka, GPU and OGPU (1917–1926), People's Commissar for Internal Affairs (1919–1923) and for Transport (1921–1924), Chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy (1924–1926)