Niepolomice

Just east of Krakow lies a suburb called Niepolomice and there the Germans murdered about 1600 people at two occasions. On August 27, 1942, more than 600 local Jews were shot and buried in mass graves. On December 11, 1943, about 1,000 Poles were shot in the same area, including the mayor of Krakow, Stanislaw Klimecki.

A railway line runs through Niepolomice forest area, and there the Polish home army (Armija Krajowa) tried to kill the Governor-General’s leader Hans Frank when he travelled by train. Frank had been appointed by Hitler as the supreme civilian leader of the General Government (GG) in occupied Poland. Frank set up his office in Krakow and Wawel Castle and instituted a reign of terror. Frank hated not only Jews but also Poles whom he more or less equated with Jews. As governor general, Frank bore overall responsibility for all the acts and murders committed within the GG.

His main goal was to destroy every Jew within GG, enslave the Poles and repopulate GG with Germans. As governor-general, he was also a target of the Polish home army, which compiled a list of German leaders who they sentenced to death in "trials". At the top of the list was Hans Frank. But Frank was well guarded and difficult to get close. On the night of January 30, 1944, Frank travelled in a special train en route to Lviv (now Ukraine). When the train passed through the forest area, an explosive device went of and caused the train to derail but without either Frank or anyone else died.