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| type = <!-- Infobox subheader text, defaults to "Concentration camp" --> |
| type = <!-- Infobox subheader text, defaults to "Concentration camp" --> |
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| name = Warsaw |
| name = Warsaw |
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| image = |
| image = Gęsiowka Prison in Warsaw (1944).jpg |
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| image size = |
| image size = |
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| caption = |
| caption = [[Gęsiówka]], part of the camp, on 5 August 1944, following liberation by Polish troops in [[Warsaw Uprising]] |
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| location map = Poland |
| location map = Poland |
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| map alt = |
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| known for = |
| known for = |
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| location = [[Warsaw]], Poland |
| location = [[Warsaw]], Poland |
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| coordinates = |
| coordinates = {{coord|52|14|54.3|N|20|59|23.7|E|}} <!-- 52°14′54.3″N 20°59′23.7″E --> |
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| built by = |
| built by = |
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| operated by = [[Nazi Germany]] |
| operated by = [[Nazi Germany]]<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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| commandant = |
| commandant = [[Wilhelm Göcke]] (June 1943 – September 1943)<br>[[Nikolaus Herbet]] (September 1943 – July 1944)<br>[[Wilhelm Ruppert]] (July 1944)<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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| original use = |
| original use = [[Gęsiówka]] prison<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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| construction = |
| construction = |
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| in operation = |
| in operation = |
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| gas chambers = |
| gas chambers = |
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| prisoner type = |
| prisoner type = mostly [[Jews]] from countries other than Poland (Greece and Hungary in particular)<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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| inmates = |
| inmates = 8,000-9,000<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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| killed = |
| killed = 4,000-5,000<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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| liberated by = [[Home Army]] |
| liberated by = [[Home Army]] during failed uprising, subsequently by [[Red Army]] <ref name="USHMM"/> |
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| notable inmates = |
| notable inmates = |
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The '''Warsaw concentration camp''' ({{lang-de|'''Konzentrationslager Warschau'''}}, |
The '''Warsaw concentration camp''' ({{lang-de|'''Konzentrationslager Warschau'''}}, Also '''KL Warschau''', '''KZ Warschau''', and '''Warschau Main Camp'''<ref name="USHMM"/>) was a concentration camp built on the ruins of the [[Warsaw Ghetto]], around [[Gęsiówka]] prison. A minor camp, the Warsaw camp is absent from most standard Holocaust accounts. Over the course of its operation an estimated 8,000-9,000 prisoners were engaged in slave labor of which 4,000 to 5,000 are estimated to have died in the camp, during the [[Death marches (Holocaust)|death march]] from the camp, the [[Warsaw Uprising]], and hiding after the uprising.<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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The camp, which has little coverage in mainstream historiography,<ref name="USHMM"/> has been at the center of a [[conspiracy theory]] that asserts that a giant gas chamber was built in a tunnel near [[Warszawa Zachodnia station]] and that 200,000 non-Jewish Poles were exterminated at the site.<ref name="lrb2019"/> |
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==Planning and establishment== |
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According to the Nazi [[Pabst Plan]], Warsaw was to be turned into a provincial German city. To accomplish this, the Jewish population was confined in the [[Warsaw Ghetto]] before being eventually deported and mostly murdered. The Nazis' next target was the Polish population of the city, who were rounded in ''[[łapanka]]s'' (roundups) for arrest and deportation. |
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== History == |
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[[File:Oswald Pohl KL Warschau 1943.jpg|thumb |
[[File:Oswald Pohl KL Warschau 1943.jpg|thumb|Letter from [[Oswald Pohl]] to [[Heinrich Himmler]] dated 23 July 1943 on creation of KL Warsaw, noting arrival of first 300 prisoners]] |
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The earliest official mention of the Warsaw concentration camp (KZ Warschau) is from June 19, 1943, which referred to the concentration camp in the ruins of the former Warsaw Ghetto. However, the term ''KZ Warschau'' was also used to describe similar camps that were discovered at an earlier date. Nevertheless, it is estimated that the camp was in operation from autumn 1942 until the [[Warsaw Uprising]]. The first commandant of the camp was [[Wilhelm Göcke]], a former warehouse manager in [[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp]]. The camp was designed to provide a workforce to clean up the levelled ruins of the former Warsaw Ghetto and ultimately turn this area into a planned recreational park for the SS. |
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In February 1943, [[Heinrich Himmler]] ordered that local Jews should be placed in a camp to help clear the [[Warsaw ghetto]] following its demolition. However, fierce fighting during the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] foiled this plan.<ref name="Pohl"/> Following the defeat of the uprising in April, surviving Jews were deported to camps in the vicinity of Lublin, sent to [[Treblinka extermination camp]], or summarily killed.<ref name="Pohl">[https://books.google.com/books?id=TNOOAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT284&dq=%22Warsaw+concentration+camp%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj28oSD4KTkAhXtsaQKHUgEDQsQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=%22Warsaw%20concentration%20camp%22&f=false Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories], Routledge, 2010, chapter by Dieter Pohl, page 156-157 in print version (no page numbers in e-book)</ref> The concentration camp was established in July 1943, but Jewish prisoners were not from Warsaw but rather from other concentration camps in Europe.<ref name="Pohl"/><ref name="Tessler">[https://books.google.co.il/books?id=igJ_Y6SgUNAC&pg=PA65&dq=%22Warsaw+concentration+camp%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj28oSD4KTkAhXtsaQKHUgEDQsQ6AEINzAC#v=onepage&q=%22Warsaw%20concentration%20camp%22&f=false Letter to My Children: From Romania to America Via Auschwitz], Missouri University Press, Rudolph Tessler, page 65</ref> The camp was located at the gestapo prison ([[Gęsiówka]]) which was the only building left intact in the ghetto.<ref name="Sofsky">[https://books.google.com/books?id=ClmQ8PPjF44C&pg=PA337&dq=%22Warsaw+concentration+camp%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj28oSD4KTkAhXtsaQKHUgEDQsQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=%22Warsaw%20concentration%20camp%22&f=false The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp], Princeton University Press, Wolfgang Sofsky page 337</ref> |
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In May 1944, following deportations of prisoners to other camps as well as the [[Operation Bagration|Soviet army was approaching Warsaw]], the camp became a satellite camp of [[Majdanek concentration camp]],<ref name="Pohl"/> and was named "Lublin concentration camp–Warsaw labor camp" ({{lang-de|Konzentrationslager Lublin–Arbeitslager Warschau}}).<ref name="USHMM"/> Originally planned to close on 1 August 1944, in light of the Soviet advance the camp was close on July.<ref name="USHMM"/> In July 1944 most prisoners, some 4,500, were sent on a [[Death marches (Holocaust)|death march]] to [[Kutno]] (the first organized Nazi death march in the war), walking some 30 kilometers a day with many murdered on the way.<ref name="YVClearing"/><ref name="USHMM"/> From Kutno they were crammed onto a train (100 men to a boxcar, no food rations) bound to [[Dachau concentration camp]], some 4,000 survived the journey to Dachau.<ref name="USHMM"/> Some 200 of the most exhausted prisoners were killed prior to the march, and 300 prisoners volunteered to remain to dismantle the camp.<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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The exact date of the camp's creation remains unknown. Some historians have suggested that it was created following the orders of SS-Obergruppenführer [[Oswald Pohl]] on June 11, 1943. However, others, among them historian and [[Institute of National Remembrance]] (IPN) judge [[Maria Trzcińska]],<ref name="Kochanowski">{{cite journal |author=Jerzy Kochanowski |title=Śmierć w Warschau |trans-title=Death in ''Warschau'' |language=Polish |journal=Polityka.pl – Historia |date=4 November 2009 |url=http://www.polityka.pl/historia/235510,1,smierc-wwarschau.read |archiveurl=https://archive.is/20130925155503/http://www.polityka.pl/historia/235510,1,smierc-wwarschau.read |accessdate=25 September 2013 |archivedate=2013-09-25 |ref=harv |deadurl=yes |df= }}</ref> claimed that the camp had already been operational prior to the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] of April 1943. The factual basis for this aforementioned claim is that on October 9, 1942, the SS head [[Heinrich Himmler]] issued an order in which he stated, regarding the population of the Warsaw Ghetto: "I've issued orders and requested that all the so-called arms factories workers working only as tailors, furriers or bootmakers be grouped in the nearest concentration camps, that is in Warsaw and [[Majdanek|in Lublin]]." |
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Some 350 Jewish prisoners remained during the August [[Warsaw Uprising]] and were liberated on 4 August 1944 by Polish forces,<ref name="Pohl"/><ref name="YVClearing"/> they included dozens of Jews (including 24 women) who were imprisoned in [[Pawiak]] and transferred to the camp on 31 July.<ref name="USHMM"/> The vast majority of released Jewish prisoners took part in the uprising, many of them dying during the fighting.<ref name="YVClearing"/><ref name="USHMM"/> Morale among Jewish fighters was hurt by displays of antisemitism, with several former Jewish prisoners in combat units killed by antisemitic Poles.<ref name="USHMM"/> After the defeat of the uprising, survivors fled or hid in bunkers, there were some 200 Jewish survivors (former prisoners as well as Jews who hid on the "Aryan" side) when the Soviets entered Warsaw on 17 January 1945.<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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==Organization== |
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[[File:Gęsiowka Prison in Warsaw (1944).jpg|thumb|150px|Gęsiowka Prison in Warsaw (1944).]] |
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In the ''Atlas zur deutschen Zeitgeschichte 1918-1968'' published in 1986 in Deutschland KL, Warschau is designated as a ''Hauptlager'' ("main camp"), and as such, it has the same status as [[Dachau concentration camp|KL Dachau]].<ref>Werner Hilgemann. ''Atlas zur deutschen Zeitgeschichte 1918-1968''. Zurich 1986</ref> Besides Germans and the [[Volksdeutsche]], the guards also included ethnic [[Ukrainians]] and [[Latvians]] from [[Trawniki concentration camp]]. |
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== Demolition and salvage == |
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The camp was composed of six small sections located in different areas of Warsaw, all of which were connected by railway and were under unified organization and one command. In chronological order of opening, those were: |
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Prisoners were tasked with clearing 2.6 million cubic meters of rubble, in order to convert the former ghetto into a park,<ref name="Sofsky"/> and in order to salvage building materials (main scrap metal and bricks) for the German war effort.<ref name="USHMM">The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ''[[Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945]]'', [[Geoffrey P. Megargee]], Martin Dean, and Mel Hecker, Volume I, part B, pages 1512-1515</ref> The demolition and salvage work were hard labor and also perilous - carried out at a brisk pace with no regard to loss of life of the prisoners.<ref name="USHMM"/> By June 1944, 10 million square meters were demolished, some 8,105 tons of metal and 34 million bricks were salvaged.<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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A couple thousand of Polish civilians, who were paid, also worked along side the Jewish prisoners, as did dozens of German technicians.<ref name="USHMM"/> German constructions firms operated on contract to carry out salvage: Berlinisches Baugeschäft ([[Berlin]], Willy Keymer ([[Warsaw]]), Merckle ([[Ostrów Wielkopolski]]), Ostdeutscher Tiefbau ([[Naumburg]]). The [[Ostbahn (General Government)|Ostbahn railway company]] assisted them.<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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#''[[Konzentrationslager]]'' (concentration camp) at Koło area (formerly a ''[[Stalag|Kreigsgefangenenlager]]'' [[POW camp]] for the [[Polish Army]] soldiers captured in 1939);) this part remains controversial since local residents claim Maria Trzcinska mistook buildings of "drewniane Kolo" housing project for a camp. |
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#Gęsia Street (now: [[Mordechaj Anielewicz|Anielewicza]] Street) concentration camp (formerly ''[[Arbeitslager|Arbeitserziehungslager]]'', or "[[:wikt:reeducation|reeducation]]al [[labour camp]]") in the former ghetto known as [[Gęsiówka]]; |
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#a camp for foreign Jews located on Nowolipie Street; |
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#Bonifraterska Street camp near Muranowski Square in the former ghetto; |
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#the former [[Gestapo]] prison on Pawia Street known as [[Pawiak]]. |
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== Prisoners == |
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The overall area of the camp was 1.2 km² (0.46 sq mi), with 119 barracks purposely built to hold approximately 40,000 prisoners, its infrastructure including several [[crematorium]]s. |
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{{clear left}} |
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the first transport of some 300 hundred prisoners coming from [[Buchenwald concentration camp]],<ref name="Sofsky"/> who were German political prisoners and criminals who would be tasked with day to day administration of the camp as [[Kapo (concentration camp)|kapos]].<ref name="USHMM"/> The German kapo prisoners, in particular those imprisoned as criminals, intimidated the Jewish prisoners and acted towards them with cruelty seeing them as expendable.<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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The prisoners were mainly Jewish males from [[Auschwitz concentration camp]], who were selected on the basis of decent physical condition for hard work and not being Polish.<ref name="USHMM"/> Lack of knowledge of Polish was deemed key by the Germans to prevent escape attempts and limit contact with Polish workers who were also employed, though in the November 1943 transport some 50 Polish Jews were included to meet the 1,000 transport quota.<ref name="USHMM"/> In August through November 1943 four transports of 3,683 Jews were sent to the camp from Auschwitz,<ref name="USHMM"/> many of them [[History of the Jews in Greece|Greek Jews]].<ref name="YVClearing">[https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/warsaw_ghetto_testimonies/gesia_camp.asp Clearing the Ruins of the Ghetto], Yad Vashem</ref> In May and June 1944 some 4,000 to 5,000 [[History of the Jews in Hungary|Hungarian Jews]] were sent to the camp, to replenish the prisoner workforce that at that point numbered approximately 1,000 and the Germans considered to be depleted.<ref name="USHMM"/><ref name="YVClearing"/><ref name="Tessler"/> |
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==Death in KL Warschau== |
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[[Image:Warsaw Uprising - Giewont Company in Gęsiowka.jpg|thumb|150px|left|An insurgent patrol approaching the Gęsia 26 Street crematorium.]] |
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A minor camp, the Warsaw camp is absent from most standard Holocaust accounts. Over the course of its operation an estimated 8,000-9,000 prisoners were engaged in slave labor of which 4,000 to 5,000 are estimated to have died in the camp, during the death march from the camp, the uprising, and hiding after the uprising.<ref name="USHMM"/> Successful wscapes were rare, and those caught in the attempt were hanged in front of the assembled prisoner population.<ref name="USHMM"/> Hundreds died due to executions, cruelty, and exhaustion from labor.<ref name="USHMM"/> A [[typhus]] epidemic decimated the prisoner population in January through February 1944.<ref name="USHMM"/> Survival on the meager rations provided was impossible, and prisoners survived by locating valuables in the rubble and selling them to the Polish civilians who worked along side them.<ref name="USHMM"/> As such finds became rare late in the camp's operations, many prisoners resorted to extracting gold fillings from their teeth for sale.<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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The IPN estimates that the number of victims killed at those camps to be "not less than tens of thousands". The victims included ethnic Poles, Jews, [[Greeks]], [[Romani people]], [[Belarusians]] and the German-interned officers of the [[Italian Army]].{{cn|date=May 2019}} |
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== German personnel == |
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According to IPN, the majority of those executed at the camp were killed by gunfire, mostly with [[machine gun]]s, both in the camp and in an adjoining "security zone". Some of the hostages and prisoners were also [[public execution|publicly executed]] in the streets of Warsaw by means of firing squad shooting and hanging. The first gassing there took place on October 17, 1943, killing at least 150 Poles caught in a street roundup and about 20 [[History of the Jews in Belgium|Belgian Jews]]. A relatively small number of victims were sadistically killed by drunken guards in the so-called "[[amphitheatre]]" at Gęsiówka, or hanged at the so-called "death wall" (''ściana śmierci'') at Koło. Besides the outright murders, a majority of deaths in the camps resulted from physical exhaustion and [[typhus]] epidemics. |
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[[File:KL Warschau - multilingual warning sign.jpg|thumb|Multilingual (German, Polish, Hungarian and French) sign at camp fence, reads: "Attention! Neutral zone. Shooting without warning!"]] |
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The camp was first commanded by [[Wilhelm Göcke]] until September 1943, then by [[Nikolaus Herbet]] and finally [[Wilhelm Ruppert]] who commanded the the evacuation in July 1944.<ref name="USHMM"/> The [[Schutzstaffel]] (SS) force guarding and operating the camp was approximately the size of a [[Company (military unit)|company]].<ref name="USHMM"/> The original SS unit was gathered from various other camps, including [[Trawniki concentration camp]] and [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp]], following the attachment to Majdanek in May 1944 they were replaced with SS personnel from Lublin.<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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The SS personnel mainly guarded the perimeter of the camp, and were brutally violent towards the Jews viewing them as enemies of the state.<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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Bodies were either cremated in crematoria or open-air pyres (including at a former sports stadium) or simply buried under collapsed buildings during the systematic demolition of the former ghetto. A team of the SS wearing white coats and posing as medical workers also patrolled the ruins in order to locate and shoot the remaining Jews still hiding since the end of the ghetto uprising. |
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Following the war, eight SS men from the camp were executed for their role in murder, three were sentenced by a Polish court and five by a German court. Walter Wawrzyniak who was initially sentenced to death in 1950 by an East German court had his sentence reduced on appeal to a life term. In July 2000, [[Theodor Szehinskyj]], who immigrated to the US, had his US citizenship stripped as a US court found that he had lied in his initial visa application on his SS past.<ref name="USHMM"/> |
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==Liquidation== |
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[[Image:Gesiowka.jpg|thumb|[[Szare Szeregi]] resistance fighters posing with the liberated prisoners in [[Gęsiówka]] sub-camp of Warsaw in August 1944.]] |
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== Conspiracy theory == |
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On July 20, 1943, SS-Obergruppenführer [[Wilhelm Koppe]] ordered the complex to be liquidated and dismantled. The majority of prisoners were either executed or transferred to other concentration camps, such as Dachau, [[Gross-Rosen concentration camp|Gross-Rosen]] and [[Ravensbrück concentration camp|Ravensbrück]]. Between July 28 and July 31, four major railway transports left Warsaw, containing some 12,300 prisoners. Only a small group of several hundred inmates, mostly Jews from the other occupied countries, were left in Pawiak and Gęsiówka to dig up and burn the bodies buried under the blown-up buildings of the ghetto. The camp's documentation was burnt, and many of its structures and facilities were mined for demolition. |
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[[File:Tunnels near the Warsaw West railway station.jpg|thumb|Tunnels at [[Warszawa Zachodnia station]], the second tunnel from the left is the supposed site of a giant gas chamber used to exterminate non-Jewish Poles]] |
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A [[conspiracy theory]], first advanced by [[Maria Trzcińska]] in the 1970s and promoted by Polish nationalists who espouse the "Polocaust" notion, claims that the camp was much larger and functioned as an [[extermination camp]] for the non-Jewish population of Warsaw using a giant gas chamber supposedly constructed in the Józef Bem Street tunnel (near [[Warszawa Zachodnia station]]) killing 200,000 mainly non-Jewish Poles.<ref name="lrb2019">[https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n09/christian-davies/under-the-railway-line Under the Railway Line], [[London Review of Books]], Christian Davies, Vol. 41 No. 9, 9 May 2019</ref> Supporters of "Polocaust" resent the attention the [[Holocaust]] receives which is per their view exaggerated by Jews. Proof that the Germans constructed a gas chamber to kill non-Jews, coupled with as many as 200,000 additional victims of the Warsaw Uprising, leading to 400,000 non-Jewish victims in Warsaw would create a parity between Jewish and non-Jewish Poles and would make the Holocaust less unique.<ref name="lrb2019"/> |
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The nationalist daily [[Nasz Dziennik]], has promoted this theory and the camp as a symbol of Polish martyrdom advocating introduction of material to school curricula and construction of a museum. Unlike topics such as Auschwitz which are extensively covered in historical literature, the Warsaw concentration camp is nearly nearly absent in mainstream historiography and this allowed ''Nasz Dziennik'' to break ground on a "new continent".<ref>[http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1349899/1/498316.pdf Kwiatkowska, Hanna Maria. Conflict of images. Conflict of memories. Jewish themes in the polish right-wing nationalistic press in the light of articles from nasz dziennik 1998-2007.] Diss. University of London, 2008, pages 67, 82-88</ref> |
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On August 5, 1944, during the first days of the [[Warsaw Uprising]], an assault group of [[Armia Krajowa]] (AK)<ref name="Snyder2015">{{cite book|author=Timothy Snyder|title=Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rnDWBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA275|date=8 September 2015|publisher=Crown/Archetype|isbn=978-1-101-90346-9|page=275}}</ref> stormed the Gęsiówka sub-camp using a captured German tank, setting free the remaining 360 men and women, before the AK were forced to withdraw. On August 21, after a failed insurgent attack on Pawiak, the Germans executed almost all (except seven) of the remaining inmates, and the prison was blown up. |
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{{clear}} |
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==Commandants== |
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* [https://sztetl.org.pl/en/towns/w/18-warsaw/116-sites-of-martyrdom/52122-gesiowka-prison-and-nazi-concentration-camp-gesia-street Gęsiówka – a prison and Nazi concentration camp on the Gęsia Street, Virutal Shtetl] |
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* [[Wilhelm Göcke]] (June 1943 – September 1943) |
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* [https://www.holocausthistoricalsociety.org.uk/contents/naziseasternempire/warsawconcentrationcamp.html Warsaw Concentration Camp at Holocaust Historical Society] |
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* [[Nikolaus Herbet]] (September 1943 – July 1944) |
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== |
== References == |
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{{ref-list}} |
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After the Soviet takeover of Warsaw in January 1945, the remnants of the camp were used as a POW camp and a place of detention of the "[[Enemy of the people|enemies of the people's power]]" political prisoners by the Soviet [[NKVD]] and then by the Polish [[Ministry of Public Security of Poland|MBP]] until 1954 (the last prisoners left in 1956). It was the second biggest prison after the [[Mokotów Prison]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bankier.pl/lifestyle/wiadomosc/IPN-wydal-ksiazke-o-obozie-KL-Warschau-1645200.html|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20120723072350/http://www.bankier.pl/lifestyle/wiadomosc/IPN-wydal-ksiazke-o-obozie-KL-Warschau-1645200.html|deadurl=yes|title=IPN wydał książkę o obozie KL Warschau - Bankier.pl: LifeStyle|access-date=2019-05-04|archive-date=2012-07-23|df=}}</ref> |
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==References== |
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{{Reflist}} |
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==Sources== |
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* Andreas Mix: Warschau-Stammlager. In: [[Wolfgang Benz]], Barbara Distel: Der Ort des Terrors. München 2008, {{ISBN|978-3-406-57237-1}}, Band 8, S. 93 |
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* [[Norman Davies]] "[[Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory]]". Macmillan. {{ISBN|0-333-69285-3}} |
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* Bogusław Kopka, "Konzentrationslager Warschau Historia i następstwa", Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Warszawa 2007, {{ISBN|83-60464-46-4}}. {{pl icon}} |
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* [https://web.archive.org/web/20071203113444/http://wilk.wpk.p.lodz.pl/~whatfor/kl_warschau_4.htm Informacja o ustaleniach dotyczących Konzentrationslager Warschau] - [[Institute of National Remembrance]], June 2002. {{pl icon}} |
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* [http://www.polityka.pl/polityka/index.jsp?place=Lead01&layout=18&news_id=235510&news_cat_id=1139&page=text Śmierć w Warschau], "[[Polityka]]", 12 XI 2007. {{pl icon}} |
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* {{pl icon}} [[:pl:KL Warschau|Polish Wikipedia article]] |
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{{Holocaust Poland}} |
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{{Coord|52.242925|N|20.9930305556|E|source:dewiki_region:PL-MZ_type:landmark|format=dms|display=title}} |
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{{subject bar|portal1=Poland|portal2=Genocide|portal3=Nazi Germany|portal4=World War II|commons=y |commons-search= Warsaw concentration camp}} |
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{{Authority control}} |
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[[Category:Warsaw concentration camp| ]] |
[[Category:Warsaw concentration camp| ]] |
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[[Category:Nazi concentration camps in Poland]] |
[[Category:Nazi concentration camps in Poland]] |
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[[Category:Conspiracy theories]] |
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Revision as of 15:29, 28 August 2019
| Warsaw | |
|---|---|
| Concentration camp | |
 Gęsiówka, part of the camp, on 5 August 1944, following liberation by Polish troops in Warsaw Uprising | |
  Location of Warsaw within Poland | |
| Coordinates | 52°14′54.3″N 20°59′23.7″E / 52.248417°N 20.989917°E |
| Location | Warsaw, Poland |
| Operated by | Nazi Germany[1] |
| Commandant | Wilhelm Göcke (June 1943 – September 1943) Nikolaus Herbet (September 1943 – July 1944) Wilhelm Ruppert (July 1944)[1] |
| Original use | Gęsiówka prison[1] |
| Inmates | mostly Jews from countries other than Poland (Greece and Hungary in particular)[1] |
| Number of inmates | 8,000-9,000[1] |
| Killed | 4,000-5,000[1] |
| Liberated by | Home Army during failed uprising, subsequently by Red Army [1] |
The Warsaw concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager Warschau, Also KL Warschau, KZ Warschau, and Warschau Main Camp[1]) was a concentration camp built on the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, around Gęsiówka prison. A minor camp, the Warsaw camp is absent from most standard Holocaust accounts. Over the course of its operation an estimated 8,000-9,000 prisoners were engaged in slave labor of which 4,000 to 5,000 are estimated to have died in the camp, during the death march from the camp, the Warsaw Uprising, and hiding after the uprising.[1]
The camp, which has little coverage in mainstream historiography,[1] has been at the center of a conspiracy theory that asserts that a giant gas chamber was built in a tunnel near Warszawa Zachodnia station and that 200,000 non-Jewish Poles were exterminated at the site.[2]
History
In February 1943, Heinrich Himmler ordered that local Jews should be placed in a camp to help clear the Warsaw ghetto following its demolition. However, fierce fighting during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising foiled this plan.[3] Following the defeat of the uprising in April, surviving Jews were deported to camps in the vicinity of Lublin, sent to Treblinka extermination camp, or summarily killed.[3] The concentration camp was established in July 1943, but Jewish prisoners were not from Warsaw but rather from other concentration camps in Europe.[3][4] The camp was located at the gestapo prison (Gęsiówka) which was the only building left intact in the ghetto.[5]
In May 1944, following deportations of prisoners to other camps as well as the Soviet army was approaching Warsaw, the camp became a satellite camp of Majdanek concentration camp,[3] and was named "Lublin concentration camp–Warsaw labor camp" (German: Konzentrationslager Lublin–Arbeitslager Warschau).[1] Originally planned to close on 1 August 1944, in light of the Soviet advance the camp was close on July.[1] In July 1944 most prisoners, some 4,500, were sent on a death march to Kutno (the first organized Nazi death march in the war), walking some 30 kilometers a day with many murdered on the way.[6][1] From Kutno they were crammed onto a train (100 men to a boxcar, no food rations) bound to Dachau concentration camp, some 4,000 survived the journey to Dachau.[1] Some 200 of the most exhausted prisoners were killed prior to the march, and 300 prisoners volunteered to remain to dismantle the camp.[1]
Some 350 Jewish prisoners remained during the August Warsaw Uprising and were liberated on 4 August 1944 by Polish forces,[3][6] they included dozens of Jews (including 24 women) who were imprisoned in Pawiak and transferred to the camp on 31 July.[1] The vast majority of released Jewish prisoners took part in the uprising, many of them dying during the fighting.[6][1] Morale among Jewish fighters was hurt by displays of antisemitism, with several former Jewish prisoners in combat units killed by antisemitic Poles.[1] After the defeat of the uprising, survivors fled or hid in bunkers, there were some 200 Jewish survivors (former prisoners as well as Jews who hid on the "Aryan" side) when the Soviets entered Warsaw on 17 January 1945.[1]
Demolition and salvage
Prisoners were tasked with clearing 2.6 million cubic meters of rubble, in order to convert the former ghetto into a park,[5] and in order to salvage building materials (main scrap metal and bricks) for the German war effort.[1] The demolition and salvage work were hard labor and also perilous - carried out at a brisk pace with no regard to loss of life of the prisoners.[1] By June 1944, 10 million square meters were demolished, some 8,105 tons of metal and 34 million bricks were salvaged.[1]
A couple thousand of Polish civilians, who were paid, also worked along side the Jewish prisoners, as did dozens of German technicians.[1] German constructions firms operated on contract to carry out salvage: Berlinisches Baugeschäft (Berlin, Willy Keymer (Warsaw), Merckle (Ostrów Wielkopolski), Ostdeutscher Tiefbau (Naumburg). The Ostbahn railway company assisted them.[1]
Prisoners
the first transport of some 300 hundred prisoners coming from Buchenwald concentration camp,[5] who were German political prisoners and criminals who would be tasked with day to day administration of the camp as kapos.[1] The German kapo prisoners, in particular those imprisoned as criminals, intimidated the Jewish prisoners and acted towards them with cruelty seeing them as expendable.[1]
The prisoners were mainly Jewish males from Auschwitz concentration camp, who were selected on the basis of decent physical condition for hard work and not being Polish.[1] Lack of knowledge of Polish was deemed key by the Germans to prevent escape attempts and limit contact with Polish workers who were also employed, though in the November 1943 transport some 50 Polish Jews were included to meet the 1,000 transport quota.[1] In August through November 1943 four transports of 3,683 Jews were sent to the camp from Auschwitz,[1] many of them Greek Jews.[6] In May and June 1944 some 4,000 to 5,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to the camp, to replenish the prisoner workforce that at that point numbered approximately 1,000 and the Germans considered to be depleted.[1][6][4]
A minor camp, the Warsaw camp is absent from most standard Holocaust accounts. Over the course of its operation an estimated 8,000-9,000 prisoners were engaged in slave labor of which 4,000 to 5,000 are estimated to have died in the camp, during the death march from the camp, the uprising, and hiding after the uprising.[1] Successful wscapes were rare, and those caught in the attempt were hanged in front of the assembled prisoner population.[1] Hundreds died due to executions, cruelty, and exhaustion from labor.[1] A typhus epidemic decimated the prisoner population in January through February 1944.[1] Survival on the meager rations provided was impossible, and prisoners survived by locating valuables in the rubble and selling them to the Polish civilians who worked along side them.[1] As such finds became rare late in the camp's operations, many prisoners resorted to extracting gold fillings from their teeth for sale.[1]
German personnel
The camp was first commanded by Wilhelm Göcke until September 1943, then by Nikolaus Herbet and finally Wilhelm Ruppert who commanded the the evacuation in July 1944.[1] The Schutzstaffel (SS) force guarding and operating the camp was approximately the size of a company.[1] The original SS unit was gathered from various other camps, including Trawniki concentration camp and Sachsenhausen concentration camp, following the attachment to Majdanek in May 1944 they were replaced with SS personnel from Lublin.[1]
The SS personnel mainly guarded the perimeter of the camp, and were brutally violent towards the Jews viewing them as enemies of the state.[1]
Following the war, eight SS men from the camp were executed for their role in murder, three were sentenced by a Polish court and five by a German court. Walter Wawrzyniak who was initially sentenced to death in 1950 by an East German court had his sentence reduced on appeal to a life term. In July 2000, Theodor Szehinskyj, who immigrated to the US, had his US citizenship stripped as a US court found that he had lied in his initial visa application on his SS past.[1]
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory, first advanced by Maria Trzcińska in the 1970s and promoted by Polish nationalists who espouse the "Polocaust" notion, claims that the camp was much larger and functioned as an extermination camp for the non-Jewish population of Warsaw using a giant gas chamber supposedly constructed in the Józef Bem Street tunnel (near Warszawa Zachodnia station) killing 200,000 mainly non-Jewish Poles.[2] Supporters of "Polocaust" resent the attention the Holocaust receives which is per their view exaggerated by Jews. Proof that the Germans constructed a gas chamber to kill non-Jews, coupled with as many as 200,000 additional victims of the Warsaw Uprising, leading to 400,000 non-Jewish victims in Warsaw would create a parity between Jewish and non-Jewish Poles and would make the Holocaust less unique.[2]
The nationalist daily Nasz Dziennik, has promoted this theory and the camp as a symbol of Polish martyrdom advocating introduction of material to school curricula and construction of a museum. Unlike topics such as Auschwitz which are extensively covered in historical literature, the Warsaw concentration camp is nearly nearly absent in mainstream historiography and this allowed Nasz Dziennik to break ground on a "new continent".[7]
External Links
- Gęsiówka – a prison and Nazi concentration camp on the Gęsia Street, Virutal Shtetl
- Warsaw Concentration Camp at Holocaust Historical Society
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, Geoffrey P. Megargee, Martin Dean, and Mel Hecker, Volume I, part B, pages 1512-1515
- ^ a b c Under the Railway Line, London Review of Books, Christian Davies, Vol. 41 No. 9, 9 May 2019
- ^ a b c d e Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories, Routledge, 2010, chapter by Dieter Pohl, page 156-157 in print version (no page numbers in e-book)
- ^ a b Letter to My Children: From Romania to America Via Auschwitz, Missouri University Press, Rudolph Tessler, page 65
- ^ a b c The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp, Princeton University Press, Wolfgang Sofsky page 337
- ^ a b c d e Clearing the Ruins of the Ghetto, Yad Vashem
- ^ Kwiatkowska, Hanna Maria. Conflict of images. Conflict of memories. Jewish themes in the polish right-wing nationalistic press in the light of articles from nasz dziennik 1998-2007. Diss. University of London, 2008, pages 67, 82-88