In Lesser Poland , like in all provinces of the occupied country , the Nazis ruled with savage brutality , killing hundreds of thousands of inhabitants , both Polish and Jewish ( see : World War II crimes in Poland , Occupation of Poland ( 1939 – 1945 ) , Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland , Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles , German AB-Aktion in Poland , Sonderaktion Krakau ) . The Auschwitz concentration camp , located at the border of Lesser Poland and Upper Silesia , was opened on 14 June 1940 , and on 1 October 1941 , the Germans opened Majdanek concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin . The third concentration camp in Lesser Poland was in Kraków 's district of Płaszów . In late 1939 and early 1940 , in Lesser Poland 's spa of Zakopane , and in Kraków , several Gestapo – NKVD Conferences took place , during which the mutual cooperation between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union was discussed
Sonderaktion Krakau
Sonderaktion Krakau
Lesser Poland