World War II Diaries

London begins to prepare for enemy air attacks while the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, reshuffles his cabinet, bringing in people who have criticized his policy of appeasement. One of these is Winston Churchill, who is named First Lord of the Admiralty.

Roosevelt, watching events in Europe with alarm, takes the decision to end American diplomatic efforts to persuade Germany to desist from aggression.

The Nazis and Soviets continue to commit atrocities in Poland. The Gestapo arrest 167 professors from the University of Cracow and send them to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, to the north of Berlin. Seventeen of them are tortured to death, including the leading Polish literary critic Ignatius Chrzanowski.

In Poland there is no letup in the public executions carried out by the Soviets and the Germans. The objective is to terrorize the population and dissuade them from any action against the occupiers.

Nazi terror is enforced by a curfew, forcing all inhabitants to be inside their houses from eight at night onwards. Despite the fact that the mass executions and the transport of prisoners in cattle wagons is a daily occurrence, the Polish people are not easily intimidated and throughout the country posters and graffiti denounce the atrocities committed by the invaders.

For Churchill one of the biggest problems of the war is the threat posed by the German submarines in the Battle of the Atlantic. The repeated successes of the U-boats have surprised the British navy, which underestimated the danger of submarines and now orders a news blackout on radio broadcasts.