Mielec forced labor camp

Last updated

Mielec was a forced labor camp on the outskirts of Mielec, Poland, established by the Nazi-Germany occupation authorities in 1941 at the site of the former Polish airplane factory known as the Mielec Flugzeugwerke. [1] This was a forced labor camp for Polish Jews during the war which eventually turned into an SS Concentration Camp until it was liquidated in 1944. [1] There is no Nazi documentation that says the exact number of prisoners that were at the camp throughout the war or when it switched from a labor camp to a concentration camp, and testimonies of Jews in the camps are conflicting. [1]

Contents

Before the war

Before the war, Mielec was a draw for economic activity because it was included in one of the biggest industrial regions in Poland called C.O.P (Central Industrial Region (Poland)). [2] This brought a lot of people to the area, many of which were non-Jews. This created a competitive economic atmosphere which increased tensions between Jews and non-Jewish Poles, and Jews would often have their homes looted or the windows of their businesses or homes broken, creating an antisemitic attitude even before the war started. [2]

German invasion

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. By September 13 they had taken over Mielec, especially attracted to the aircraft factory, and by October 5 the conquest of Poland was complete. [2] Once German leaders replaced the Polish authorities, the anti-Jewish discrimination in Mielec expanded, with more looting of Jewish stores and Jews being recruited to perform menial labor tasks like sweeping sidewalks and washing cars. [2] In 1939, 30–40 Jews in Mielec were killed on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, after the Germans surrounded the Mikveh in which they were gathered and set it on fire. Those who tried to escape were shot and those who remained inside perished in the fire. [2]

By January 1940, there were labor camps all over Poland. [2] On March 9, 1942, the Jews in Mielec who had not already been transported to other labor camps were marched at gunpoint to the aircraft factory on the outskirts of the city where they were then impounded. Any sick, elderly, injured, weak or prominent figures were shot and buried in a mass grave. [2]

Life in the camp

Jews in the Mielec labor camp faced brutal conditions. The camp was about two and a half acres of land surrounded by electrically charged barbed wire with a few wooden barracks to house the 1500 to 2000 prisoners that would be there at one time. [3] The labor camp was originally run by the Werkschutz, the Factory protection police, and their leader Gotthold Stein, but was later taken over by the Schutzstaffeln (SS) and supervised by their leader at the time, Gottlieb Hering. [3] In the camp, prisoners would be woken up at 5 AM, and then work from 6 AM to 6 PM doing things like producing airplane parts, cleaning the factory, and loading and unloading cargo. [3] For breakfast the prisoners got black coffee and seven ounces of bread, and for lunch and dinner they got a soup made of cabbage leaves and grub[ clarification needed ]. [3] This led to many dying from starvation or collapsing due to weakness and then being shot because of it. [3]

Another large cause of death in the camp was disease. There was a typhus epidemic in 1942 that affected hundreds of prisoners, and rather than being treated they were brought to the woods and shot by Germans. [3]

The Ordungsdienst

One of the forces that controlled the camp was the Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst or Jewish Police Service. [1] While some members of this force were sympathetic with their Jewish counterparts, others were violent towards the prisoners because they wanted to be in good graces of the Germans and spare their own lives. [1]

Two members, Doctor Birm and Jacob Keimann, voluntarily chose which Jews were going to be executed daily. [3] [4] Another member, Buciu Gotinger who was a kapo (prisoner functionary) regularly tortured and beat the prisoners, making them perform hard labor tasks until they couldn’t anymore, and then he would beat them with a wooden floorboard until they became unconscious. [4]

However, not all members of the Jewish Police Service in Mielec were violent toward other Jews. The first leader of the Ordungsdienst at the camp was named Bitkower, and he and his wife were well liked and respected by the prisoners. [3] According to a testimony from one of the prisoners, Ajzik Leibovicz, Bitkower asked about his family and where he was from, and when he saw that Leibovicz was sick one night, Bitkower told him to go see his wife (who was a doctor) in the morning and get treated. He listened to Bitkower and the next morning Mrs. Bitkower treated him and gave him injections which was not common practice in the labor camps. [5]

Concentration camp

There is no Nazi documentation that says exactly when the camp changed from a labor camp to a concentration camp, but it may have been after Gottlieb Hering arrived in 1943 or when Josef Schwammberger arrived in February 1944. [1] However, it is known that the camp had definitely transformed into a concentration camp by spring of 1944 because prisoners had started to have "KL" (Konzentrationslager) tattoos onto them. [1]

Liquidation and liberation

There are conflicting testimonies from prisoners of when exactly the Mielec labor camp began to evacuate, but it is agreed upon that by August 1944, most of the Jews had been sent to other camps, mainly to Płaszów, either directly or by way of Wieliczka salt mine. [1] There is also a Polish book that says the camp was evacuated in July after an order from Amon Göth when the Red army had advanced within 50 miles of Mielec. [6]

The Jews were transported in overcrowded cargo wagons, many dying due to disease or hunger. In January 1945, when the Soviets were almost at Mielec, the remaining Jews at the camp were hastily evacuated to other camps, but because of the brutal winter conditions, many died on the way and those who survived were killed at their destination camps. [2] By January 23, 1945, the Soviets had liberated Mielec. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Extermination camp</span> Nazi death camps established to systematically murder

Nazi Germany used six extermination camps, also called death camps, or killing centers, in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million people – mostly Jews – in the Holocaust. The victims of death camps were primarily murdered by gassing, either in permanent installations constructed for this specific purpose, or by means of gas vans. The six extermination camps were Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Extermination through labour was also used at the Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps. Millions were also murdered in concentration camps, in the Aktion T4, or directly on site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Majdanek concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flossenbürg concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp in the Upper Palatinate, Bavaria, Germany

Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Unlike other concentration camps, it was located in a remote area, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria, adjacent to the town of Flossenbürg and near the German border with Czechoslovakia. The camp's initial purpose was to exploit the forced labor of prisoners for the production of granite for Nazi architecture. In 1943, the bulk of prisoners switched to producing Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter planes and other armaments for Germany's war effort. Although originally intended for "criminal" and "asocial" prisoners, after Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, the camp's numbers swelled with political prisoners from outside Germany. It also developed an extensive subcamp system that eventually outgrew the main camp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mielec</span> Place in Subcarpathian Voivodeship, Poland

Mielec is the largest city and seat of Mielec County. Mielec is located in south-eastern Poland, in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship. The population of Mielec in December 2021 was 59,509.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stutthof concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp in present-day Sztutowo, Poland

Stutthof was a Nazi concentration camp established by Nazi Germany in a secluded, marshy, and wooded area near the village of Stutthof 34 km (21 mi) east of the city of Danzig (Gdańsk) in the territory of the German-annexed Free City of Danzig. The camp was set up around existing structures after the invasion of Poland in World War II and initially used for the imprisonment of Polish leaders and intelligentsia. The actual barracks were built the following year by prisoners. Most of the infrastructure of the concentration camp was either destroyed or dismantled shortly after the war. In 1962, the former concentration camp with its remaining structures, was turned into a memorial museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gross-Rosen concentration camp</span> Concentration camp in Poland

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp in Poland

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warsaw concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp in Warsaw during World War II

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gęsiówka</span> Former prison and Nazi concentration camp in Warsaw, Poland

Gęsiówka is the colloquial Polish name for a prison that once existed on Gęsia ("Goose") Street in Warsaw, Poland, and which, under German occupation during World War II, became a Nazi concentration camp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Harvest Festival</span> 1943 massacre of Jews during the Holocaust

Operation Harvest Festival was the murder of up to 43,000 Jews at the Majdanek, Poniatowa and Trawniki concentration camps by the SS, the Order Police battalions, and the Ukrainian Sonderdienst on 3–4 November 1943.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Klooga concentration camp</span> Subcamp of the Vaivara concentration camp complex in Harju County, German-occupied Estonia

Klooga concentration camp was a Nazi forced labor subcamp of the Vaivara concentration camp complex established in September 1943 in Harju County, during World War II, in German-occupied Estonia near the village of Klooga. The Vaivara camp complex was commanded by German officers Hans Aumeier, Otto Brennais and Franz von Bodmann and consisted of 20 field camps, some of which existed only for short periods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monowitz concentration camp</span> One of the three main camps in the Auschwitz concentration camp system

Monowitz was a Nazi concentration camp and labor camp (Arbeitslager) run by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland from 1942–1945, during World War II and the Holocaust. For most of its existence, Monowitz was a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp; from November 1943 it and other Nazi subcamps in the area were jointly known as "Auschwitz III-subcamps". In November 1944 the Germans renamed it Monowitz concentration camp, after the village of Monowice where it was built, in the annexed portion of Poland. SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Heinrich Schwarz was commandant from November 1943 to January 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holocaust victims</span> People who died because of the Holocaust

Holocaust victims were people targeted by the government of Nazi Germany based on their ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, and/or sexual orientation. The institutionalized practice by the Nazis of singling out and persecuting people resulted in the Holocaust, which began with legalized social discrimination against specific groups, involuntary hospitalization, euthanasia, and forced sterilization of persons considered physically or mentally unfit for society. The vast majority of the Nazi regime's victims were Jews, Sinti-Roma peoples, and Slavs but victims also encompassed people identified as social outsiders in the Nazi worldview, such as homosexuals, and political enemies. Nazi persecution escalated during World War II and included: non-judicial incarceration, confiscation of property, forced labor, sexual slavery, death through overwork, human experimentation, undernourishment, and execution through a variety of methods. For specified groups like the Jews, genocide was the Nazis' primary goal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vaivara concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp for Jews in Estonia during World War II

Vaivara was the largest of the 22 concentration and labor camps established in occupied Estonia by the Nazi regime during World War II. It had 20,000 Jewish prisoners pass through its gates, mostly from the Vilna and Kovno Ghettos, but also from Latvia, Poland, Hungary and the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Vaivara was one of the last camps to be established. It existed from August 1943 to February 1944.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kraków District</span> Place

Kraków District was one of the original four administrative districts set up by Nazi Germany after the German occupation of Poland during the years of 1939–1945. This district, along with the other three districts, formed the General Government. It was established on October 12, 1939 by Adolf Hitler, with the capital in occupied Kraków – the historic residence of Polish royalty. The Nazi Gauleiter Hans Frank became the Governor-General of the entire territory of the General Government. He made his residence in Kraków at the heavily guarded Wawel castle. Frank was the former legal counsel to the Nazi Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janowska concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of present-day Lviv, Ukraine

Janowska concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp combining elements of labor, transit, and extermination camps. It was established in September 1941 on the outskirts of Lwów in what had become, after the German invasion, the General Government. The camp was named after the nearby street Janowska in Lwów of the interwar Second Polish Republic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radom Ghetto</span> Nazi ghetto in occupied Poland

Radom Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto set up in March 1941 in the city of Radom during the Nazi occupation of Poland, for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of Polish Jews. It was closed off from the outside officially in April 1941. A year and a half later, the liquidation of the ghetto began in August 1942, and ended in July 1944, with approximately 30,000–32,000 victims deported aboard Holocaust trains to their deaths at the Treblinka extermination camp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death marches during the Holocaust</span> Nazi forced transfers of prisoners

During the Holocaust, death marches were massive forced transfers of prisoners from one Nazi camp to other locations, which involved walking long distances resulting in numerous deaths of weakened people. Most death marches took place toward the end of World War II, mostly after the summer/autumn of 1944. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, from Nazi camps near the Eastern Front were moved to camps inside Germany away from the Allied forces. Their purpose was to continue the use of prisoners' slave labour, to remove evidence of crimes against humanity, and to keep the prisoners from bargaining with the Allies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HASAG</span> Former German metal goods manufacturer

HASAG was a German metal goods manufacturer founded in 1863. Based in Leipzig, it grew from a small business making lamps and other small metal products by hand into a large factory and publicly traded company that sold its wares in several countries. During the Second World War, Hasag became a Nazi arms-manufacturing conglomerate with dozens of factories across German-occupied Europe using slave labour on a massive scale. Tens of thousands of Jews from Poland, and other prisoners, died producing munition for Hasag.

Poniatowa concentration camp in the town of Poniatowa in occupied Poland, 36 kilometres (22 mi) west of Lublin, was established by the SS in the latter half of 1941, initially to hold Soviet prisoners of war following Operation Barbarossa. By mid-1942, about 20,000 Soviet POWs had perished there from hunger, disease and executions. The camp was known at that time as the Stalag 359 Poniatowa. Afterwards, the Stammlager was redesigned and expanded as a concentration camp to provide slave labour supporting the German war effort, with workshops run by the SS Ostindustrie (Osti) on the grounds of the prewar Polish telecommunications equipment factory founded in the late 1930s. Poniatowa became part of the Majdanek concentration camp system of subcamps in the early autumn of 1943. The wholesale massacre of its mostly Jewish workforce took place during the Aktion Erntefest, thus concluding the Operation Reinhard in General Government.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 G., Saidel, Rochelle (2011). Mielec, Poland : the shtetl that became a Nazi concentration camp. Springfield, NJ: Gefen Books. ISBN   9789652295293. OCLC   754186809.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Recht, Howard. "Mielec Through the Holocaust".
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Kowalski, Tadeusz. Obozy hitlerowskie w Polsce południowo-wschodniej [Nazi camps in southeastern Poland]. Warszawa: Ksiazka i Wiedza, 1973.
  4. 1 2 Chiel, Löw. Innsbruck, August 12, 1946. YVA M.38/411 (original in Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichschen Widerstandes [Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance]). — . Landsgericht Innsbruck, passed on by the Staatsanwaltschaft Kaiserslautern, 1963. YVA 068/811. “Die mörderische Aussiedlungsaktion” [The murderous deportation operation]. Interrogation report. Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, Ludwigsburg, date unknown.
  5. Leibovicz, Ajzik. 1960s. Yad Vashem Archives (YVA) 0.3/10176.
  6. Norbert, Friedman (2006). Sun rays at midnight: one man's quest for the meaning of life before, during, and after the Holocaust. [Philadelphia, Pa.]: Xlibris. ISBN   1413498477. OCLC   79473826.