The Sącz Region in the Second World War

German troops captured Nowy Sącz on 6 September 1939. Occupation brought terror, persecution of the intelligentsia and the destruction of the local Jewish community. In August 1942, the Germans liquidated the ghetto, deporting its inhabitants to the Bełżec extermination camp. Painter Bolesław Barbacki, shot in Biegonice in 1941, was among the victims of earlier executions.

The Polish Underground State developed structures in the Sącz region, including clandestine teaching, sabotage and armed units such as the Home Army's 1st Podhale Rifles Regiment. Couriers maintained routes across the border, and soldiers passed through Nowy Sącz on their way to Hungary. From there they reached the Polish forces forming in France and later in Britain. One operation carried out by the Sącz underground freed Jan Karski, an emissary carrying information between occupied Poland and the Polish authorities abroad.

German occupation of the town ended on 20 January 1945, when Soviet troops entered. The exhibition places the history of resistance alongside the persecution and losses experienced by residents.