SUBJECT TO CHANGE: 1. Introduction 2. An outline of the history of Poland through the partitions of the 18th and 19th Centuries; the survival of Polish culture and identity: Poland's restoration of independence; and the wars that shaped the Polish frontiers, creating a nation with large non-Polish populations in various regions. 3. The rising threat from Germany; Soviet ambitions to recover territory lost to Poland in the Polish-Russian War; political manoeuvring prior to September 1939 culminating in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. 4. The start of the Second World War; the German invasion and the battles that followed; the Soviet invasion from the east and the conquest of Poland. 5.

Occupation policies on the German and Soviet sectors; the start of German suppression of the Jewish population; the creation of ghettos; Soviet mass deportations and the massacres of Polish prisoners by the NKVD; the rise of Polish resistance forces and the creation of the Armiya Krajowa . 6. The onset of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union; the Wannsee Conference and the adoption of the Final Solution; the creation and functioning of the death camps; the developing tensions between the Polish government-in-exile in London and pro-Soviet groups in Moscow. 7. The Ghetto Uprising; Himmler's decision to liquidate all ghettos; the acceleration of the Final Solution; continuing resistance activity and preparations for Bzura . 8. The Warsaw Uprising; the fighting in Warsaw and the halting of Soviet forces to the east of the city; the German destruction of much of Warsaw. 9.

The German abandonment of Warsaw in 1945 and the arrival of the Red Army. 10. The imposition of Soviet-controlled government on Poland; the waxing and waning of tensions between Poland and the Soviet Union, covering the riots and protests of the 1950s; the eventual rise of Solidarity and its suppression; the relaxation of Soviet control and the end of the Warsaw Pact. 11. Conclusions.