“Jewish Forced Labourers in the Ammunition Factory of HASAG in Skarzysko-Kamienna during the Second World War”
Professional Background
Alicja Bartnicka (she/her) currently works as an assistant professor of history at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (Poland). Dr. Bartnicka holds a PhD in history and two master's degrees: one in Polish philology and one in history with a specialization in Polish-German studies. Her academic interests include German history, the history of the Third Reich, World War II and the German occupation in Poland, Polish-German and Polish-Jewish relations in the 20th century, totalitarian systems with a special focus on national socialism and Italian fascism, and the history of cinema and the representation of historical trends in film.
Dr. Bartnicka’s writings have been published in numerous academic journals, including Dzieje Najnowsze, Przegląd Zachodni, Prace Historyczne, Przegląd Historyczny, and Przegląd Nauk Historycznych. In 2021, she received honorable mention in the Inka Brodzka-Wald Competition for the best doctoral dissertation in the humanities. A revised and supplemented version of her dissertation will be published as Światopogląd w działaniu. Heinrich Himmler i jego wizja rasowego imperium Trzeciej Rzeszy ("Worldview in action. Heinrich Himmler and his vision of the racial empire in the Third Reich") by the publishing house of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk.
Dr. Bartnicka has been awarded several prestigious fellowships from institutions that include the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst; in 2017/2018 and 2020), the Marion Dönhoff Stiftung, the Brzezie Lanckoroński Foundation, and the Polish Historical Mission in Würzburg. She received a three-year scholarship from the Minister of Science and Higher Education in Poland for young eminent scholars, as well as grants from the National Science Centre in Poland and the research fund of Prof. Theodor Koerner. In summer 2022, Dr. Bartnicka will have a postdoctoral fellowship at Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem.
Fellowship Research
During her fellowship at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Alicja will conduct research on Jewish forced laborers at the HASAG ammunition factory in Skarżysko-Kamienna (Poland) during World War II. HASAG (Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft Metallwarenfabrik) was a German metal goods manufacturer based in Leipzig, Germany, which started producing ammunition for the German army in 1930. During the war, HASAG transferred its activities to the area of the General Government in Poland, where it took over the State Munitions Factory in Skarżysko-Kamienna, a leading manufacturer of munitions in Poland in the interwar period. Initially, the occupation authorities used workers of Polish nationality at the factory but management later transfered Polish workers to factories located within the Third Reich and replaced them with Jewish forced laborers. As the war continued, Jews were transferred to HASAG from Radom, Cracow, Warsaw, Lublin, as well as from ghettos in Łódź and Radomsko and camps at Płaszów and Majdanek.
Dr. Bartnicka aims to publish her findings in a series of articles and a monograph devoted to the subject. She seeks answers to questions regarding the degree of dependency the factory in Skarżysko-Kamienna had on its parent company in Leipzig and the ammunition production that advanced the German military industry during World War II. Moreover, she intends to investigate the numbers of Jews in the labor camp, their work and living conditions, and the system of punishment that caused numerous deaths. Dr. Bartnicka will research questions concerning transfers of Jews to the factory in Skarżysko-Kamienna – where they came from, how many there were, what acts of sabotage they carried out and the manner in which they resisted, as well as the effectiveness and consequences of such resistance. Her research will also include statistics related to the number of Jews forced to work in the HASAG munitions factory of Skarżysko-Kamienna and the fates of those who survived.