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| !! Unfortunately, the below entry on Konzentrazionslager Warschau is highly misleading. No evidence exists of neither the gas chamber in the West Warsaw tunnel, nor of the claimed huge number of victims (who the proponents of the KL Warschau campaign refer to as "Polish Christians," victims of a "Christian Holocaust"). The "historical evidence" produced in the book by Maria Trzcinska -the main document refered to by those who seek to establish the death camp as a historical fact- is flawed and biased (e.g. naive calculations of how many Poles were killed a day during the Nazi occupations of Warsaw). None of the many historians specializing in World War II or the mambers of the War-time Polish intelligence, nor, for that matter, any of the civilian survivors of the war in Warsaw, support her argument or even take it seriously. Had a major death camp eqipped with gas chambers and operating on the scale similar to Treblinka (200,000 victims in slightly more than a year) been located in the middle of Warsaw, it would have been widely known both during and after the Nazi occupation. And, frankly, some knowledge of it would have survived, both in archives and in popular memory. Such is the position on the issue by the Institute of National Rememberance (IPN). In short, what existed of the alleged "death camp KL Warschau" was the concentration camp set up in the area of the prison at Gesiowka. The great majority of the victims were not "Polish Christians," but non-Polish Jews (Greek, Belgian, French, etc.) brought to Warsaw in 1943 as labor force to dismantle the remainings of what used to be the Warsaw ghetto. The total number of victims of this KL Warschau could have amounted to a few tens of thousands at the most, and most of the deaths were linked to typhoid. In short: Did something called "Konzentrationslager Warschau" exist? Yes. Did it look anything like the monstrous network of five "lagers," a huge gas-chamber and krematoria desribed by Trzcinska and other supporters? No. | |||
| The play with numbers is telling. Sure, Warsaw suffered great human losses during the war, but the victims of the 1943-44 German terror, the many round-ups and killings in the ruins of the ghetto, as well as the civilian casualties of the 1944 Warsaw rising, should not be included in the death toll of "KL Warschau" - unless what one really wants to do is to conjure up an imaginary -indeed, nightmarish- entity and market it as a "historical fact" for reasons of political expediency (e.g. in order to accuse the liberal political and intellectual elites of compliancy in silencing "the truth" in a conspiracy-theory manner). | |||
| The currently on-going campaign that aims at winning official recognition of the alleged death camp is an unfortunate product of the nationalist imagination, conspiracy theory thinking, and a political undertaking of the nationalist catholic right. It seeks to create a counter-narrative to the history of the Holocaust and foreground what is perceived as the unrecognized suffering of the Catholic Poles. In fact, and fortunately, it is--as of yet--merely a marginal artifact of local exoticism, and should only be regarded as such. | |||
| For more information, see the website of the Polish Institute of National Rememberence, a state body that coordinates historical and judiciary investigations on events of the Second World War and the Communist rule in Poland: | |||
| http://www.ipn.gov.pl/sled_klw_090503.html | |||
| http://www.ipn.gov.pl/aktual_2707_klw.html | |||
| '''Warsaw concentration camp''' ({{lang-de|Konzentrationslager Warschau}}, short ''KL Warschau'') was the German ] and ] in ], in the ruins of the ] and in other parts of the city. It was operated between autumn ] and the ] in ]. The first commander of the camp was ], former ] commander. According to various estimates some 200,000 people (mostly ] ]) were killed there by the ] during ]. | '''Warsaw concentration camp''' ({{lang-de|Konzentrationslager Warschau}}, short ''KL Warschau'') was the German ] and ] in ], in the ruins of the ] and in other parts of the city. It was operated between autumn ] and the ] in ]. The first commander of the camp was ], former ] commander. According to various estimates some 200,000 people (mostly ] ]) were killed there by the ] during ]. | ||
Revision as of 01:35, 29 March 2006
Warsaw concentration camp (Template:Lang-de, short KL Warschau) was the German concentration and extermination camp in Warsaw, in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto and in other parts of the city. It was operated between autumn 1942 and the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. The first commander of the camp was Wilhelm Goecke, former Mauthausen Concentration Camp commander. According to various estimates some 200,000 people (mostly Gentile Poles) were killed there by the Germans during Second World War.
Date controversy
The exact date of its creation is unknown. Some historians (Polish Institute of National Remembrance among them) argue that it was created following the orders of general Oswald Pohl on June 11, 1943. However, others (among them historian and IPN judge Maria Trzcińska) claim that it must have been already operational prior to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The factual basis of this claim is that on October 9, 1942 Heinrich Himmler issued an order in which he stated:
- 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 Lublin.
Parts
The camp was composed of five parts located in different parts of Warsaw. Among them there was a SS forced labour camp in Koło area, two camps near the Warszawa Zachodnia train station, a former Polish prison on Pawia Street (known as Pawiak), a former Polish prison for women on Gęsia Street (known as Gęsiówka) and a sub-camp for Jews on Nowolipie Street. The overall area was 1.2 km², with 119 barracks for between 35,000 and 40,000 prisoners.
Methodology of the crime
According to German plans before the Warsaw Uprising, Warsaw was to be turned into a fully German city. To ensure this, the population of the city was to drop from well over a million to less than 500,000 inhabitants. To accomplish this goal all Jews were grouped in the Warsaw Ghetto and then exterminated. The next step was exterminating Gentile population.
Gentile population of Warsaw was initially a target of the łapanka policy, in which the forces of SS, Wehrmacht and police rounded up civilians on a street and took all of them as prisoners. Most of them were either shot on the spot or transported to various concentration and death camps. Between 1942 and 1944 there were approximately 400 victims of łapanka in Warsaw daily. Many of the caught were first transferred to the KL Warschau complex.
Among those grouped in Warsaw the majority were either shot or gassed in a provisional gas chamber located in a tunnel near the Warszawa Zachodnia train station.
Liquidation and liberation
On July 20, 1944 Wilhelm Koppe ordered the complex to be liquidated. Most of the prisoners were killed or transferred to other concentration camps (mostly to Dachau, Gross-Rosen and Ravensbrück). Between July 28 and July 31 four major railway transports left Warsaw. A small group of approximately 360 inmates (mostly Jews from various European countries) was left in Pawiak and Gęsiówka to help in destruction of the evidence. The files of the camp were burnt, the railway tunnel in which the prisoners were gassed to death blown up and the prisons were mined.
On August 5, 1944 the Armia Krajowa liberated the camp located in the former Warsaw Ghetto and set free the remaining 360 men and women. Most of them joined the struggle and fought in the Warsaw Uprising.
References
- Template:Pl icon Maria Trzcińska, Obóz zagłady w centrum Warszawy, Polskie Wydawnictwo Encyklopedyczne, Radom 2002, ISBN 8388822160
- Template:Pl icon Informacja o ustaleniach dotyczących Konzentrationslager Warschau - Institute of National Remembrance, June 2002
- Template:Pl icon Informacja o śledztwie w sprawie KL Warschau - Institute of National Remembrance, May 2003
See also:
- Camps in Poland during World War II
- Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles
- Warsaw Uprising
- History of Poland