unrelated to military maneuvers are estimated at 30 million złoty in the area of General Government alone. As noted by World War II historians, the pacification actions were separate from the likes of Operation Tannenberg. They were not a part of the indiscriminate killings by the mobile Einsatzkommando death squads active during the invasion of Poland of 1939, and characterized by often deliberate targeting of civilian population by the invading forces, with the active participation of the German minority living in the Second Polish Republic whose men joined the SS armed Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz battalions in West Prussia, Upper Silesia and Warthegau. In total, up to 200,000 Poles lost their lives at the beginning of war regardless of the nature of the conflict. Likewise, over 100,000 Poles died in the Luftwaffe's terror bombing operations. The pacification actions were conducted in west-central Poland as well in the eastern Kresy regions re-captured from the USSR in 1941, including in the Polesie Voivodeship, Nowogródek Voivodeship and others, comprising most of contemporary West Belarus. These tactics were the main local means of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. Some 627 villages were razed in eastern Poland by the SS with the help of collaborationist battalions including Belarusian, Ukrainian and others, during 60 pacification and 80 punitive operations there. The battalions of Belarusian Home Defence (BKA) alone massacred some 30,000 Jews during pacification of villages. Collective punishment was used during such operations to discourage offering shelter to Soviet POWs and providing aid to any guerrilla forces. Pacifications included the extermination of entire villages including women and children, expulsions, the burning of homes, confiscation of private property, and arrests. In many instances the operations of this kind conducted jointly by the Einsatzgruppen and the German Order Police battalions, were characterized by extreme brutality. An example of such tactics was the burning alive of 91 hostages including 31 women and 31 children in the village of Jabłoń-Dobki in the Białystok region on March 8, 1944. Once the fire got going, a grenade was thrown in. German advance into Poland The first pacification action, conducted on the ground by the Wehrmacht officers and soldiers, took place in Złoczew on September 3 and 4, 1939, in which the German soldiers murdered some 200 Poles. According to historian Alexander B. Rossino, the atrocity was committed with the participation of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH), which was also