The Day the Lecture Hall Fell Silent

 Last week Trump called hundreds of generals and admirals to an extraordinary meeting. There was no purge nor arrests but visiting the Professors' Garden of Jagiellonian University in Kraków a few days afterwards we were reminded of it. From a display in the Garden, we learned about another extraordinary meeting. This one took place on November 6, 1939.

Professors Garden.jpg

Statues of professors in academic gowns in the garden. Jagiellonian University was founded in 1364, and the garden was established soon after, initially as a small subsistence farm.

On that day, University professors were called to a meeting, a lecture about education under the new Nazi regime in Poland. About 180 attended. But it was a trick and there was no lecture. Instead, they were addressed by a Gestapo officer: "The university here has begun the academic year without prior consent from the German authorities. This is an expression of ill will. Furthermore, it is common knowledge that the teachers have always been hostile to German science. Therefore, all but the three women present will be deported to a concentration camp. Any discussion or even speech on this subject is prohibited. Anyone who dares to resist my order will be shot."

Jagellonian - Painting of the Arrests.webp

Painting by Mieczysław Wątorski depicting the events


The Gestapo arrested them all, took them to prisons in Kraków, and from there to concentration camps and prisons in Germany.

Jagellonian - Arrested Profs.jpeg

One of a number of displays in the Professor's Garden memorializing the events 


The arrested professors eventually ended up in concentration camps such as Sachsenhausen and Dachau. Living conditions were brutal: overcrowding, roll calls in freezing weather, disease and chronic malnutrition. Some of the older prisoners died in the camps; others died after their release in February 1940 following international pressure. Of those who survived, many were traumatized forever.

The November roundup, taking place just 2 months after the Nazi invasion and conquest of Poland, was intended to terrorize and decapitate Poland’s cultural and scientific leadership and strike fear within the community. History never repeats itself exactly — but it always tests whether we’ve learned from it. When those in power summon generals or scholars not to listen, but to intimidate and to silence, the shadows of that November morning in Kraków stretch a little longer. Remembering this history shows the importance of defending those who teach and question against similar attacks today in the United States.

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