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Poland World WarII
Profiting from German national resentment of World War
I
peace terms and international aversion to new armed
conflict,
Hitler began driving a new German war machine across
Europe in
1939. His invasion of Poland in September 1939 was the
tripwire
that set off World War II, the most devastating period in
the
history of the Polish state. Between 1939 and 1945, 6
million
people, over 15 percent of Poland's population, perished,
with
the uniquely cruel inclusion of mass extermination of Jews
in
concentration camps in Poland. Besides its human toll, the
war
left much of the country in ruins, inflicting indelible
material
and psychic scars.
Data as of October 1992
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