back...Instruction by Arthur Greiser ordering that certain names be given to children

During the Second World War, forms of repression by the occupying forces took on a wide variety of forms, affecting many levels of not only public but also private life. For example, the German occupier banned people from being in public spaces by marking park benches, tram carriages or eating establishments with the sign Nur fϋr Deutsche (for Germans only), and marriages between the Polish and German people were banned. Children were also subjected to particular forms of repression.

On 1 November 1941, the Reich Governor of the Wartheland, Arthur Greiser, issued an instruction - citing an order from the Reich Minister of the Interior - ordering that newborn children be given certain names, which were intended by the occupier to be stigmatising and to clearly indicate that the person bearing such a name was a subordinate to the "master race". The instruction was accompanied by a list of acceptable names. Looking through it, one can see that the names were Slavic in character, e.g. Zbigniew or Bogumiła, often very unusual, e.g. Chleb, Ubysław or Wszegniew. The full list of names can be found at the Western Institute under I.Z. Dok. I-48.

In addition to ordering that Polish children be given names from the list indicated, the first subsection of Greiser's instruction also ordered that they be given the names Kazimierz or Kazimiera. In practice, however, the order of the official record was arbitrary. Section three of the document concerned the names given to Jewish children. A copy of Arthur Greiser's instruction can be found in the State Archive in Kalisz under reference 1934.