Vaivara was the centre of a large concentration camp-complex consisting of 22 concentration and labor camps established in occupied Estonia by the Nazi regime during World War II. Vaivara lies 30 km west of Narva close to the Russian border. Some 20,000 Jewish prisoners passed through its gates. Around 9,000 Jews were transported there from the Vilna and from the Kaunas and Kovno Ghettos. Various groups of Jewish prisoners were 'transported' to Vaivara and its surrounding workcamps from Latvia, Poland and Hungary. German and Czech Jews from the Theresienstadt concentration camp also arrived there. Vaivara was one of the last concentration camps established. It existed from August 1943 to February 1944.VAIVARA MAIN CAMP The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume I: Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA), 2009, pp. 1491-1510 (20 pages) doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt16gzb17.47 accessed 17 October 2023

Creation On 21 June 1943, following a secret decree to all his SS and police subordinates, RFSS Heinrich Himmler ordered the liquidation of the remaining ghettos in the Baltic states. Subsequently, the German occupation authorities met under the auspices of the Commander of the Security Police and SD in Reval (the German name for the Estonian capital Tallinn) to plan the establishment of forced labor camps for the oil-shale extraction operations of Baltöl, an IG Farben subsidiary.

Beginning in August 1943, a series of concentration camps was established all over Estonia by Organisation Todt (OT). The administrative center of the camp-complex was in Vaivara. SS-Hauptsturmbannführer Hans Aumeier (1906–1948), a former camp commander of Auschwitz, was placed in charge. The administrative staff was headed by who was assisted by SS-Hauptsturmbannführer (Hstf.) Max Dahlmann, Hstf. Kurt Pannicke and Helmut Schnabel. Dr.Franz von Bodmann, responsible for the deplorable health of the prisoners, was employed as the camp's surgeon. He was later replaced by Dr. Eduard Krebsbach (1894–1947).

Both doctors in spite of the oath of their medical profession were present at regular 'selections' undertaken by the camp commandant Aumeier. An estimated 500 men, women and children were randdomly shot as a result.Matthäus, Jürgen. 1997. Vaivara (KZ). Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, p. 777 During their time at the camp von Bodmann and then Krebsbach became explicitly involved in the process of murder. Aumeier was particularly fond of beating women. As a sadist he took delight in his murderous rapture. Occasionally he delegated responsibility to his subordinates. Altogether only 15 Germans served in the camp. Most of the guards were Estonian and Russian auxiliaries of the 287th and 290th Security Battalions (Schutzmannschaftsbataillone).

The camp was established in the beginning of August 1943 near the Vaivara train station. It served as the main camp (Hauptlager) and had within its orbit 20 forced labor camps (Außenlager) scattered throughout Estonia. Some of these existed only briefly (like Soski), but all of them together were commonly referred to as the Vaivara [concentration] camp-complex. Curiously, however, all external and internal reports were written and sent under the seemingly harmless field-post number 58 969.Krebsbach, Eduard. 1944. Document 161 in: Auschwitz und die Todesmärsche. Oldenbourg 2018, p. 537 This suggests how there was something to hide. The extreme barbarity of the whole camp-complex was seemingly disarmed by such bureaucratic references which perhaps enabled some of the perpetrators to manage their conscience.

The Vaivara camp-complex was no less barbaric than any other concentration camp and forced labour camp. It epitomised Himmler's personal dictum of 'Vernichtung durch Arbeit' ('Extermination through Work'). Under the auspices of slave-labour it was decreed how maximum output was to be achieved through the exhaustion and decimation of the workforce.

To the pragmatic technocrats attached to 'Baltische Öl GmbH' ('Baltöl') this made no sense. But from the perspective of the SS it was just necessary to keep alive a nucleus of workers ('the fittest among the weakest'). The rest of the workforce which came in droves through new replacements was expendable. They worked and died and so fulfilled the Nazi criteria of the 'Final Solution.'Krebsbach, Eduard. 1944. Document 161 in: Auschwitz und die Todesmärsche. Oldenbourg 2018, p. 538

Satellite Camps At first the camp-complex was run by the OT, but after a few weeks Kurt Pannicke took over. When Pannicke took over the Narva subcamp at the end of September, Helmut Schnabel became its commander. One of the most important satellite camps was located in Kiviöli (in Lithuanian: Kiviõli), an industrial centre 55 km west of Vaivara. There the slave workers had to work within the refinery and other installations of the major oil company, the aforementioned 'Baltöl.'Krebsbach, Eduard. 1944. Document 161 in: Auschwitz und die Todesmärsche. Oldenbourg 2018, p. 540

Another substantial satellite camp was established at Goldfields, the name of which originated from British entrepreneurs during the 19. Century. They had set up a huge factory complex near the industrial settlement of Kohtla which lies 40 km west of Vaivara. During the German occupation Goldfields was taken over by Baltöl. The company employed 1200 slave labourers in skilled and in menial tasks.Krebsbach, Eduard. 1944. Document 161 in: Auschwitz und die Todesmärsche. Oldenbourg 2018, p.540

Among the satellite camps was also the subcamp of Soski, which lies 60 km south of Vaivara. The camp lay in a wooded area and marshland. There were around 500 slave labourers. Between October 1943 and February 1944 they had to unload the barges from the nearby river Narva and also had to busy themselves with the construction of a small-gauge railway as well as being involved in the demands of oil-shale extraction.Krebsbach, Eduard. 1944. Document 161 in: Auschwitz und die Todesmärsche. Oldenbourg 2018, p. 541

Death-Rate According to the monthly report of SS Lagerarzt Dr. Eduard Krebsbach, written in February 1944, there were 200 deaths in the Vaivara camp-complex. This figure was in keeping with the average death-rate. He numbers the total employment of slave labourers, including that of women, as 8,210.Krebsbach, Eduard. 1944. Document 161 in: Auschwitz und die Todesmärsche. Oldenbourg 2018, p.537 His job was to monitor the treatment ('Behandlung') of unhealthy prisoners unable to work. He registers those in the makeshift camp hospital, numbering 3,394 cases.Krebsbach, Eduard. 1944. Document 161 in: Auschwitz und die Todesmärsche. Oldenbourg 2018, p. 537 His principal task is to limit the outbreak of contagion like Typhus which the Germans particularly feared since they didn't want the consequence of any outbreak affecting them. With pride Krebsbach writes how there are only 3 cases with scarlet fever and one with typhus.Krebsbach, Eduard. 1944. Document 161 in: Auschwitz und die Todesmärsche. Oldenbourg 2018, p. 537 Of course, he overlooks and manipulates figures so as to disguise the number of those shot whose crime had been to be too ill!

Krebsbach was no better than his predecessor Dr. Franz von Bodmann, who led a harsh regime. Notably, Kresbach saw slave labourers as mere statistics. His job was to juggle with numbers and to project to his superiors in the camp-complex within a state of efficiency. He is also responsible for his departmental superior SS-Dr. Enno Lolling (1888–1945), head of Amt DIII of the WVHA in Berlin.

How obscenely distant that was from the truth. Children, for instance, had no role to play in the employment schemes of the SS. All children were shot and dumped in graves in the surrounding woods. Old people, usually the grandparents of the children, were shot too. Only some juveniles able to show their strength were permitted to join the workforce.

Krebsbach actually complains about the increase in mortality throughout the camp-complex.Krebsbach, Eduard. 1944. Document 161 in: Auschwitz und die Todesmärsche. Oldenbourg 2018, p. 538 It is absurd how he pretends to keep a 'healthy' picture of the camp when work conditions and the poor distribution of meagre rations aim to undermine the workforce. It is as if he blames the victims themselves for dying as he tries to maintain his image of perfect statistics.

Mass-Murder & War Crimes At the end of February 1944 the situation on the Eastern Front drastically changed for the Germans as the Red Army, having lifted the siege of Leningrad in January, felt strong enough to launch a major offensive in the Baltic region. Alarm bells signalled the unpreparedness of the Germans who hastily began to arrange the evacuation of the Vaivara camp-complex.

In his monthly report for February 1944 Krebsbach writes how the situation at the front as a result of the Soviet breakthrough has radically altered. As the main camp in Vaivara is about to be cleared he mentions how 604 prisoners unable to work and 185 juveniles and children are to be loaded into trucks and driven away. Responsible for the operation is SS-Oberscharführer Heinrich Schattkus (*1898-). Their fate cannot be substantiated but the assumption is that they were taken away to be murdered.Krebsbach, Eduard. 1944. Document 161 in: Auschwitz und die Todesmärsche. Oldenbourg 2018, p.539

The official Nazi positioning regarding the Vaivara workforce was that it had to be evacuated before the advancing Red Army had a chance to discover the reality of the work-complex. Until this time during WWII no concentration camp and workcamp had been liberated. The Nazis wanted to evacuate the slave labourers for they still saw in them a useful workforce for other tasks.

Hence, in autumn 1944, thousands of slave labourers were evacuated from the Vaivara camp-complex. This was in accordance with a general directive given to SS-police subordinates by RFSS Heinrich Himmler on 17 June 1944 in which he states how necessary it has become to 'evacuate' the concentration camps in the occupied East.Himmler, Heinrich. 1944. Document 162 in: Auschwitz und die Todesmärsche. Oldenbourg 2018, p. 545 The Vaivara enforced labourers were brought to the Estonian coastal port of Klooga and from there sent on by sea to the Stutthof concentration camp which lies just outside of Danzig.

There was a particular descrepency about Himmler's directive since there was a paradox characterizing Nazi policy. They found slave labourers useful for the German war economy and yet encouraged Vernichtung durch Arbeit ('Extermination through Work'). The Nazis wanted to clear away evidence of their war crimes in the concentration camps and labour camps. Yet they were careless enough to massacre those they couldn't evacuate in time.

As a demonstration of their bloodlust the 20th Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS, supported by a police unit from the Sicherheitspolizei in Reval, massacred on 19 September 1944 2,000 Jewish slave labourers in the woods just outside the Estonian port of Klooga.Benz, Wolfgang. Distel, Barbara. 2008. Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager . Bd 8 München, p.161 The advancing Red Army discovered the crime and photographed piles of corpses as evidence of Nazi barbarity and of the perverted sickness with which the Nazis slaughtered innocent people.

A Witness-Account