Częstochowa massacre  The Częstochowa massacre, also known as the Bloody Monday, was committed by the German Wehrmacht forces beginning on the 4th day of World War II in the Polish city of Częstochowa, between 4 and 6 September 1939. The shootings, beatings and plunder, continued for three days in more than a dozen separate locations around the city. Approximately 1,140 Polish civilians (150 of whom were ethnically Jewish), were murdered. The city of Częstochowa (population 117,000 in 1931) was overrun by the German Army on 3 September 1939 without a fight, during the German invasion of Poland, as the Polish Army "Kraków" units of the 7th Infantry Division, stationing there, had withdrawn the previous day. Many able-bodied men left the city along with the Polish soldiers. The 42 Infantry Regiment "Bayreuth" of the Wehrmacht's 10th Army entered the city early in the afternoon. On that day, their guns were not loaded, as the Wehrmacht command was more concerned with the risk of "friendly fire" caused by inexperience and nervousness on the part of the troops, than of possible threat from the Polish rear guard. Notably, the German wild shootings caused by fear, had broken out elsewhere, often leading to massacres of civilians as in Kajetanowice. Archived diaries of the German soldiers as well as the official army reports reveal that the remaining civilian population of the city acted peacefully and did not obstruct the German army in any way. The evening of 3 September passed without any incidents. Searches of houses and business premies turned up no concealed weapons. The Regimental headquarters, located 20 km south of the city, received a report on the evening of 4 September from the German units of the 42nd Regiment (46th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)), alleging that they had been attacked by "Polish partisans" in two different incidents; one in the courtyard of the Technical School where the regiment stationed, and one involving a prisoner column guarded by the 97th Regiment. The German soldiers claimed to have been shot at from one of the houses near where they were. However, subsequent reports and testimonies of soldiers inform that none of the German witnesses were able to describe the supposed attackers. A search of houses that took place after the massacre failed to turn up any "suspicious persons". According to German historian Jochen Böhler, the shootings were perpetrated by panicking and nervous (most likely drugged out of their wits) German soldiers who then used the imagined or invented "Polish partisans" as an excuse for their rash actions and the massacre that followed.