German camps in occupied Poland during World War II

The German camps in occupied Poland during World War II were built by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

in the course of its Occupation of Poland (1939–1945) both in areas annexed by Germany and in General Gouvernment. A system of camps of various kinds was established across the entire country, including extermination camps, concentration camps, labour, and POW camps.

German occupied Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

was a prison-like territory. It contained more than 430 camp complexes. Some of the major ones, such as Stutthof

Stutthof concentration camp

Stutthof was the first Nazi concentration camp built outside of 1937 German borders.Completed on September 2, 1939, it was located in a secluded, wet, and wooded area west of the small town of Sztutowo . The town is located in the former territory of the Free City of Danzig, 34 km east of...

and Auschwitz consisted of dozens of subsidiary camps scattered over a broad area. The number of subcamps under Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (Birkenau

Auschwitz concentration camp

Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...

), and Auschwitz III (Monowitz) was forty-eight (48). Their detailed description is provided by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a memorial and museum in Oświęcim, Poland , which includes the German concentration camps Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. It is devoted to the memory of the murders in both camps during World War II...

.

The camp system was one of the fundamental institutions of the Nazi regime, and with the invasion of Poland became the backbone of German war economy and the state organized terror. The racist policies of the Third Reich against Slavs and other "undesirables" filled the labor and concentration camps from the first days of occupation. The deliberate maltreatment, starvation, overwork and executions of prisoners amounted to ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....

. Between 1941–1942, the concerted effort

Final Solution

The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...

to destroy the Polish Jews including those of other European nationalities led to the creation of death camps, constructed for the sole purpose of extermination. It was only after the majority of Jews from all Polish ghettos were annihilated that the gas chambers and crematoria were blown up in a systematic attempt to hide the evidence of the crimes

Crime against humanity

Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...

. The Nazi Germans turned Auschwitz Konzentrationslager into a major death camp by expanding its extermination facilities. The ovens working around the clock till November 25, 1944; were blown up by the orders of SS chief Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

himself.

Extermination camps

The German Nazi government established extermination camps (Vernichtungslager) in Poland (see: the Holocaust in Poland) after the Final Solution

The Final Solution

The Final Solution is a 2004 novel by Michael Chabon. It is a detective story that in many ways pays homage to the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and other writers of the genre...

was already in place. The extermination facilities were added to existing camps, including at Majdanek. Some camps operated in this dual capacity until the end of the war. The Nazi German death factories (Todeslager) as of 1942 included:

Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oświęcim
Oswiecim
Oświęcim is a town in the Lesser Poland province of southern Poland, situated west of Kraków, near the confluence of the rivers Vistula and Soła.- History :...

, near Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

)
Belzec
Belzec
Bełżec is a village in Tomaszów Lubelski County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Bełżec. It lies approximately south of Tomaszów Lubelski and south-east of the regional capital Lublin.During World War II it was the site of the Nazi Bełżec...

(near the current Ukrainian border north-west of L'viv)
Chełmno (Chełmno nad Nerem, between Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

and Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...

)
Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...

(near Lublin
Lublin
Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...

)
Sobibor
Sobibór
Sobibór is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Włodawa, within Włodawa County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It lies close to the Bug River, which forms the border with Belarus and Ukraine. Sobibór is approximately south-east of Włodawa and east of the regional capital...

(south of Brest-Litovsk)
Treblinka (north-east of Warsaw)

The primary function of death camps was the elimination of Jews from all the countries occupied by Germany, except the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

(Soviet Jews were generally killed on the spot). Many non-Jewish Poles and other prisoners were also killed in these camps; an estimated 75,000 non-Jewish Poles died at Auschwitz-Birkenau and up to 200,000 at Warschau. Most extermination camps had regular concentration camps set up along with them including Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Treblinka and Warsaw. However, these camps were distinct from the adjoining extermination camps.

Concentration camps

The Nazi concentration camps (Konzentrationslager, KL or KZ) were designed to exploit the labor of prisoners rather than to exterminate them, although the majority of prisoners eventually died due to disease and exhaustion, starvation diet, and regular executions. In Germany before 1939, concentration camps housed mainly Jews and political enemies of the Nazi regime.

Many concentration camps set up in Poland served as transit points to the extermination camps, and partly so that the Jews could be worked to death. This policy was called Vernichtung durch Arbeit (annihilation through work). Large numbers of non-Jewish Poles were also imprisoned in these camps, as were various prisoners from other countries. For example, at the beginning Stutthof

Stutthof concentration camp

labor camp near Gdańsk

Gdansk

Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...

was set up for the extermination of Polish elites. The major concentration camps in Poland were:

Warschau
Warsaw concentration camp
The Warsaw concentration camp was an associated group of the German Nazi concentration camps, possibly including an extermination camp, located in German-occupied Warsaw, capital city of Poland...

(in Warsaw)
Kraków-Płaszów (made famous in the book and film Schindler's List
Schindler's List
Schindler's List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark...

)
Soldau
Soldau concentration camp
The Soldau concentration camp was a concentration camp established by Nazi Germany during World War II in Działdowo , which after the occupation of Poland was part of East Prussia....

(now Działdowo)

Another camp, Gross-Rosen

Gross-Rosen concentration camp

KL Gross-Rosen was a German concentration camp, located in Gross-Rosen, Lower Silesia . It was located directly on the rail line between Jauer and Striegau .-The camp:...

(now Rogoźnica

Rogoznica, Lower Silesian Voivodeship

Rogoźnica is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Strzegom, within Świdnica County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. Prior to 1945 it was part of Poland, Bohemia, Austria, Prussia and Germany....

) in German Silesia (now part of Poland), was surrounded with a number of satellite camps (Aussenlager) to which prisoners were sent to work on various state projects. There were also concentration camps at: Budzyń

Budzyn, Opole Lubelskie County

Budzyń is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Chodel, within Opole Lubelskie County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It lies approximately west of Chodel, east of Opole Lubelskie, and south-west of the regional capital Lublin....

, Janowska, Poniatowa

Poniatowa

Poniatowa is a town in southeastern Poland, in Opole Lubelskie County, in Lublin Voivodship, with 10,500 inhabitants .-Historical antecedents:A village named Poniatowa had existed near the site of the present town for about 750 years...

, Skarżysko-Kamienna

Skarzysko-Kamienna

Skarżysko-Kamienna is a town in northern Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship in Poland by Kamienna river, to the north of Świętokrzyskie Mountains; one of the voivodship's major towns...

, Starachowice

Starachowice

Starachowice is a town in south-central Poland with 55,126 inhabitants . Starachowice is situated in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship ; it was formerly in the Kielce Voivodeship . It is the capital of Starachowice County...

, and Trawniki

Trawniki

Trawniki is a village in Świdnik County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Trawniki. It lies approximately south-east of Świdnik and south-east of the regional capital Lublin....

Labor camps

The Germans pressed large numbers of Poles into forced labour. These labourers were confined in camps known in German as Polenlager, such as Gorzyce and Gorzyczki, both in Germany and in Poland. One estimate is that there were about 440 of these camps, where at least 1.5 million Poles were set to hard labour. Many of these camps were transient in nature, being opened and closed according to the labour needs of the occupiers. Many of the 400,000 Polish prisoners of war captured by Germans during the 1939 invasion of Poland were also confined in these camps, although many of them were also sent as forced labourers in Germany. Several types of labor camps were distinguished by German bureaucracy.

Arbeitslager
Arbeitslager
Arbeitslager is a German language word which means labor camp.The German government under Nazism used forced labor extensively, starting in the 1930s but most especially during World War II....

was general-purpose term for labor camps in the direct sense.
Gemeinschaftslager was a work camp for civilians.
Arbeitserziehungslager were training labor camps, where the inmates were held for several weeks.
Strafarbeitslager were punitive labor camps, originally created as such, as well as based on prisons.
The term Zwangsarbeitslager is translated as forced labor camp.

Prisoner of war camps

The Germans established several camps for prisoners of war (POWs) from the western Allied countries in territory which before 1939 had been part of Poland. There was a major POW camp at Toruń

Torun

Toruń is an ancient city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. Its population is more than 205,934 as of June 2009. Toruń is one of the oldest cities in Poland. The medieval old town of Toruń is the birthplace of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus....

(Thorn) and another at Łódź, plus a number of smaller ones. Many prisoners of war from the Soviet Union were also brought to Poland, where most of them died in labor camps. The Germans did not recognise Soviets as POWs and several million of them died in German hands. They were fed only once a day, and the meal would consist of bread, margarine and soup.

The victims

The Polish nation lost the largest portion of its pre-war population during World War II. Out of Poland's pre-war population of 34,849,000, about 6,000,000 - constituting 17% of its total - perished during the German occupation. There were 240,000 military deaths, 3,000,000 Polish-Jewish Holocaust victims, and 2,760,000 civilian deaths (see World War II casualties

World War II casualties

World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. Over 60 million people were killed, which was over 2.5% of the world population. The tables below give a detailed country-by-country count of human losses.-Total dead:...

backed with real research and citations).

The Polish government has issued a number of decrees, periodically updated, providing for the surviving Polish victims of wartime (and post-war) repression, and has produced lists of the various camps where Poles (defined both as citizens of Poland regardless of ethnicity, and persons of Polish ethnicity of other citizenship) were detained either by the Nazis or by the Soviets.

Camps after the "liberation"

Nazi camps were liberated by the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

and Polish Army in 1944 or 1945. A number of camps were subsequently used by the Soviets or Soviet Poles as PoW or labor camps for Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, eg.: Zgoda labour camp

Zgoda labour camp

The Zgoda labour camp was a concentration camp for Germans, Silesians and Poles, set up in 1945 by the Soviet NKVD in Świętochłowice, Silesia. It was controlled by the communist secret police until its closure by the Stalinist authorities of Poland in November of the same year.Between 1943 and...

, Central Labour Camp Potulice

Central Labour Camp Potulice

Central Labour Camp Potulice was a detention centre for Germans and anti-communist Poles established by Polish Communist authorities after the end of World War II in Potulice, in place of the former German Nazi Potulice concentration camp. The camp was in operation since 1945 until 1950.A total of...