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{{short description|Nazi concentration camp in Warsaw during World War II}} |
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{{Infobox concentration camp |
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| type = <!-- Infobox subheader text, defaults to "Concentration camp" --> |
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| name = Warsaw |
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| image = Gesio giew2.jpg |
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| image size = |
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| caption = Polish insurgents toured around [[Gęsiówka]] prison of the Warsaw concentration camp complex, by a freed Jewish prisoner (August 5, 1944). Photo by [[Eugeniusz Lokajski]]. |
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| location map = Poland |
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| map alt = |
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| map relief = yes |
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| map label position = |
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| other names = |
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| known for = |
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| location = [[Warsaw]], Poland |
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| coordinates = <!-- {{coord}} --> |
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| built by = |
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| operated by = [[Nazi Germany]] |
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| commandant = [[Wilhelm Göcke]] (June 1943 – September 1943)<br>[[Nikolaus Herbet]] (September 1943 – July 1944) |
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| original use = |
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| construction = |
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| in operation = Autumn 1942–August 1944 |
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| gas chambers = Gęsia Street |
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| prisoner type = [[Poles]], [[Jew]]s, [[Greeks]], [[Romani people]] |
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| inmates = |
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| killed = Disputed |
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| liberated by = [[Home Army]] |
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| notable inmates = |
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| notable books = |
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| website = |
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}} |
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The '''Warsaw concentration camp''' ({{lang-de|'''Konzentrationslager Warschau'''}}, short '''''KL''''' or '''''KZ Warschau''''') was an associated group of the German [[Nazi concentration camp]]s, located in German-occupied [[Warsaw]], the capital of [[Poland]]. |
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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. |
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[[File:Oswald Pohl KL Warschau 1943.jpg|thumb|left|Letter from Oswald Pohl to Heinrich Himmler dated 23 July 1943 KZ Warsaw]] |
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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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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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==Organization== |
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[[File:KLWarschau.JPG|thumb|U.S. aerial photograph of northern Warsaw Ghetto area in May 1943]] |
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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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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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#''[[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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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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==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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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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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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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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==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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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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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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* [[Wilhelm Göcke]] (June 1943 – September 1943) |
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* [[Nikolaus Herbet]] (September 1943 – July 1944) |
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==Communist prison camp== |
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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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==External links== |
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* [https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n09/christian-davies/under-the-railway-line Under the Railway Line, London Review of Books, Christian Davies, 9 May 2019] |
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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| ]] |
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[[Category:Nazi concentration camps in Poland]] |