Jagiellonian University
On November 6, 1939, SS-Obersturmbannführer Bruno Müller, ordered about 175 professors and teachers from universities in Krakow, Lublin and Vilnius to come to the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. They thought that they were about to get information from the univesity’s principal about new directives in the wake of the german occupation. But instead, they were informed by Müller that the university had no permission to practise any education. The professors and teachers were arrested in chaotic circumstances and taken to Montelupich prison. Then they were sent to various prisons before finally being sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in late November. The arrest was called Sonderaktion Krakau, and was part of a program called the Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion which aimed to eliminate all potential resistance to the German occupying power. However, the action provoked protests from Mussolini and the Vatican. Therefore in February 1940, the germans released 101 professors older than 40 years. But twelve professors had already died in captivity. Those who were not released were sent to Dachau in March 1940 and finally released in January 1941.
Current status: Preserved with monument (2013).
Address: ul. Golebia 24, 31-007 Kraków.
Get there: Walk from central Krakow.
Follow up in books: Lukas, Richard C: Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944 (2008).
After the Germans attacked the Soviet union in june 1941, a similar action was carried out against polish professors in Lviv. This time there were no doubts on the part of the Germans as to whether they could be murdered or not. In July, some 50 people were murdered for the same reason that those in Krakow had been arrested, considered a threat to German hegemony.