page_title: Żywiec
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: Żywiec / History / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: English: Action Saybusch (Polish: Akcja Żywiec), the mass expulsion of 20,000 Poles from the territory of Żywiec County, performed by the Wehrmacht and German police during the Nazi occupation of Poland in World War II.Polski: Akcja Żywiec z 1940 roku była największą niemiecką operacją wysiedleńczą na Śląsku w latach okupacji. Objęła ona 20,000 Polakow. Source: Fronda.pl
context_page_description: Żywiec is a town in south-central Poland with 31,194 inhabitants. Between 1975 and 1998, it was located within the Bielsko-Biała Voivodeship, but has since become part of the Silesian Voivodeship.
  The town is situated in the center of the Żywiec Basin, on the Soła river near Żywiec Lake in the Lesser Poland historic region and includes Żywiec Landscape Park, one of the eight protected areas in the voivodeship.
context_section_description: Following the 1939 Invasion of Poland, Żywiec was occupied by Nazi Germany. The last Habsburg owner Archduke Karl Albrecht of Austria refused to sign the German Volksliste, whereafter he was ousted and arrested.
  Between September and December 1940, the Nazi authorities deported 17,413–20,000 Polish inhabitants from around Żywiec county in the so-called Action Saybusch conducted by Wehrmacht and Gestapo. The expelled Poles were taken to the General Government (German: Generalgouvernement, Polish: Generalne Gubernatorstwo), a different region within Poland under German military occupation. The incident formed part of the Nazis' efforts, led by Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg and his deputy Alfred Meyer, to develop the Occupied Eastern Territories for settlement by German migrants.
caption: Action Saybusch. Expelled Poles await transport at a railway crossing
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