33 studies / 54 · Lesser Poland — Dąbrowa County
Szczucin: prisoners and refugees in a burning school
12 September 1939 · Burning people alive and killings during pacifications
Polish prisoners of war and civilians fleeing the war were in the school at Szczucin. Germans surrounded the building and set it on fire. IPN commemorates the event as a crime in which people were burned alive. A historical compilation gives about 40 prisoners murdered and about 30 refugees, but does not establish the method of death of every person. [1] [2] [3]
Editorial account based on the sources listed below. Sources checked: 5 September 2026.
- Victims and toll
- About 40 Polish prisoners of war and 30 civilian refugees according to Tomasz Sudoł.
- Perpetrators
- Soldiers of the German Wehrmacht.
- Documented methods
- setting a school with people inside on fire · murdering prisoners of war and civilian refugees
The school building as a refuge
The history of the Szczucin school records the encirclement and burning of its building on 12 September 1939. Among those killed it names headmaster Jan Kościński. This record links the crime to a specific institution and its employee, restoring a personal dimension to an event that in collective compilations is sometimes reduced to a number alone. [1]
Prisoners and civilians
In an IPN study, Tomasz Sudoł identifies about forty Polish soldiers taken prisoner and about thirty civilians, refugees from the front. Separating the two groups matters: not all people in the school were soldiers. Prisoner-of-war status also means that we are not describing losses suffered in an ongoing clash. [2]
Burning alive in commemorative documentation
An announcement by IPN Kraków concerning anniversary observances in 2022 directly links the ceremony to the Germans' burning of prisoners and civilians in the school. This is institutional confirmation of the nature of the crime being commemorated. It is not, however, a full investigative study and does not describe the fate of every victim. [3]
What we do not add
The sources used here allow the perpetrators, date, place, categories of victims and use of fire to be identified. They do not safely permit reconstruction of all events preceding the arson or the exact sequence of individual deaths. We therefore give an approximate overall toll, not a number of people supposedly certainly burned alive at one moment. [1] [2] [3]
Limits of the findings
Brief institutional sources do not provide a complete division by methods of death. The article does not establish the personal responsibility of a particular commander. [1] [2] [3]
Sources and notes
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redakcja szkoły. Historia szkoły. Szkoła Podstawowa im. Adama Mickiewicza w Szczucinie.
Use of this source: Otoczenie i podpalenie szkoły; śmierć Jana Kościńskiego.
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Tomasz Sudoł. Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu na jeńcach polskich we wrześniu 1939 roku. Biuletyn IPN, 2011.
Use of this source: Data i podział szacunku na jeńców oraz cywilów.
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IPN Kraków. Szczucin. Nowy nagrobek na mogile żołnierza AK Ignacego Boducha „Tarzana”. Instytut Pamięci Narodowej.
Use of this source: Instytucjonalne potwierdzenie zbrodni spalenia ludzi żywcem.
How we assess sources
The evidence base consists primarily of Polish scholarly publications, investigative findings, archives, museums and documented witness accounts. Reliability is assessed through the document’s provenance, scholarly method and the ability to check the finding. Statements by perpetrators and family accounts of perpetrators require especially critical comparison with other material. Two pages from the same institution may repeat one finding; they are not automatically treated as independent confirmation.
Full methodology