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• September 1939 marked the beginning of the German occupation (...)
• The task of the elimination (...)
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• A place of execution of the Polish elites (...)
• Many Greater Poland insurgents (...)
• Leon Kmiotek, the commandant (...)

A place of execution of the Polish elites, including insurgents was also Fort VII in Poznań, the first concentration camp on the occupied Polish territories. Among several thousand persons who were murdered there, there was a land-owner, Konstanty Chłapowski. During the Greater Poland Uprising he was the military commandant of Pniewy as well as the organiser and commander of the Pniewy battalion. After Poland had regained independence, he got involved in social and economic activities. He was shot on 29 November 1939 in Dąbrówka near Poznań. At the same time, a painter and participant of the Uprising, Stanisław Smogulecki also died after being held in Fort VII as a prisoner. In April 1940 as a result of exhaustion Aleksandra Bukowiecka née Dzierżykraj-Morawska died in Fort VII. From Autumn 1918 she had organised people's councils and insurgent troops in the vicinity of Krzywiń and Cichowo. She also financed the purchase of weapons and ammunition and supplied food to insurgents; during the inter-war period she was active in various insurgent associations. Undoubtedly the main reason why she was arrested and sent to a camp was her insurgent activity. 

A separate, and in no way less tragic chapter of the history are the Greater Poland insurgents who were imprisoned in special NKVD camps and died in the Soviet Union. According to the findings of Janina Pańczakowa and Małgorzata Cichoń about 250 people who fought in the Uprising were murdered by the NKVD. For instance Jan Meissner who, during the September campaign, commanded the defence of Volodymyr-Volynskyi, and was then taken captive by the Soviets and sent to the camp in Starobilsk. In spring 1940 he was shot in Kharkiv. Meissner came from Poznań. In August, he was called up into the German Army in which he fought, among other places, on the Western Front. During the Greater Poland Uprising, he took an active part in insurgent fighting in Poznań, at that time he was mainly responsible for all issues related to rolling stock and mobilisation. Like many other insurgents, he also participated in the war with the Bolsheviks in the year 1920. Also during the following years he had ties with the army. He was awarded several state distinctions for his numerous contributions. It is worth noticing that from among all the insurgents murdered by Soviets, at least 31 of them were Knights of the Order of the Military Cross – Virtuti Militari.