(see other names) was a Nazi concentration camp in German-occupied Poland during World War II. It was formed on the base of the since-demolished Gęsiówka prison, in what is today the Warsaw neighbourhood of Muranów, on the order of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The camp operated from July 1943 to August 1944.
Located in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, Warschau first functioned as a camp in its own right, but was demoted to a branch of the Majdanek concentration camp in May 1944. In late July that year, due to the Red Army approaching Warsaw, the Nazis started to evacuate the camp. Around 4,000 inmates were forced to march on foot to Kutno, away; those who survived were then transported to Dachau. On 5 August 1944, KL Warschau was captured by Battalion Zośka during the Warsaw Uprising, liberating 348 Jews who were still left on its premises. It was the only German camp in Poland to be liberated by anti-Nazi resistance forces, rather than by Allied troops. After the Red Army definitively expelled the Germans from Warsaw in January 1945, the new communist administration continued to run the buildings as a forced labour camp, and then as a prison, until it was closed in 1956. All the camp's premises were demolished in 1965.
The Encyclopedia on Camps and Ghettos says that a total of 8,000 to 9,000 inmates were held there, while Bogusław Kopka estimates the number as at least 7,250 prisoners, all but 300 of whom were Jews from various European countries, in particular from Hungary and Greece. The Jewish inmates were used as forced labor to clean the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, with the ultimate goal of creating a park in the former ghetto's territory. They also had to find and sort whatever precious items were still left on its territory. The camp and adjacent ruins were additionally used by the German administration as a place of execution, the victims being Polish political prisoners, Jews caught on the "Aryan side", and generally people rounded up on the streets of Warsaw. About 4,000 to 5,000 prisoners died during the camp's existence, while the total number of people murdered in the camp is estimated at 20,000.
The camp played a comparatively minor role in the Holocaust and thus seldom appears in mainstream historiography. However, it has been at the centre of a conspiracy theory, first promoted by Maria Trzcińska, a Polish judge who served for 22 years as a member of the Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation. The theory, refuted by mainstream historians, contends that KL Warschau was an extermination camp operating a giant gas chamber inside a tunnel near Warszawa Zachodnia railroad station and that 200,000 mainly non-Jewish Poles were gassed there.
Name
During the first nine months, the Warsaw concentration camp functioned in its own right. At this time it carried the official name of (often referred to as for short in Nazi documents and in Polish scholarship, or, in most contemporary German-language works, ). In May 1944, became a branch of Majdanek concentration camp, so the camp's name changed to . It was also sometimes referred to in German sources as .
The name (IPA: ) often appears in Polish sources. This is due to the fact that the camp occupied the complex of now non-existent , which were relatively well-preserved after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The caserns, at the corner of then-existing Gęsia and Zamenhof streets, were a military prison before World War II. During German occupation, they accommodated the central prison for the Jewish district, the , as well as the . The prison complex became colloquially known as (named for Gęsia street), which nickname transferred to as well. Supporters of the Trzcińska's theory tend to prefer the German name, which Aleksandra Ubertowska says has to do with the name being perceived as more serious.
After World War II, the camp, although with changed purposes, was still run by Communist authorities under other names (see the relevant section for details).
Creation
According to Bogusław Kopka, the first person behind the idea of creating a new concentration camp in Warsaw was Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), who mentioned it in a letter dated 9 October 1942. The letter informed the local posts of SS and the Wehrmacht in the General Government that all Jewish craftsmen who so far had managed to avoid deportation to extermination camps were to be "assembled by SS-Obergruppenführer Krüger and SS-Obergruppenführer Pohl on the spot, i.e. in the concentration camps in Warsaw and Lublin". The two camps were also intended to host Jewish labourers, who were supposed to be working for weapons factories operating on-site; as for production facilities, they were planned to be successively moved to concentration camps near Lublin, and then farther east. Himmler assumed that concentrating all Jewish labour in the camps controlled by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (SS-WVHA) would be the basis for the creation of an SS economic empire in the East. His ideas, however, were met with resistance from the military, the police and civil administration of the General Government, as well as from the Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production and from German companies using Jewish slave labour. Himmler was thus unable to bring his idea to fruition, so the concentration camp in Warsaw did not appear, nor did all factories using Jewish labour become controlled by SS.
As plans to demolish the Warsaw Ghetto appeared, Himmler soon returned to the idea of creating a concentration camp in Warsaw. In a letter dated 16 February 1943, Himmler instructed SS-Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl, head of SS-WVHA, to create a concentration camp in the "Jewish district" and ordered all German-owned private enterprises operating in the Ghetto to be relocated there. The camp, together with its enterprises and inhabitants, was planned to be "transported as quickly as possible to Lublin and nearby areas". On the same day, Himmler also wrote a letter to SS- Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, Higher SS and police leader for the General Government, which demanded that the buildings of the deserted ghetto be demolished after the concentration camp was transported to Lublin. The task of demolition, it was suggested, was to be handed over to the local Jews. The idea's implementation was marred with numerous difficulties, so when the Germans decided to accelerate the deportations on 19 April, they met strong resistance from the Jews, who began the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The concentration camp failed to materialise again, and only part of the enterprises, together with some of the Jews, were evacuated to the concentration camps in Majdanek, Trawniki, and Poniatowa.
The idea of the camp was revived once again after the failure of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, who led the efforts aimed at quashing the insurgency, proposed on 16 May 1943, the day the uprising came to an end, to convert the Pawiak prison to a concentration camp. The building was previously used by the SD and the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police). It is suggested that by creating such a camp, the Germans wanted to destroy evidence of the crimes committed during the suppression of the uprising as well as to enrich themselves by the loot that would be collected in the rubble by slave labourers. Himmler agreed to the proposal and issued the order, which read:
Eventually, Pawiak's status as a prison did not change, but the concentration camp was created on nearby Gęsia street, which was also located inside the Ghetto walls. One of the reasons why was chosen was because it was among the only buildings left intact in the area previously occupied by the Ghetto. In addition to that, Bogusław Kopka argues that its position within a deserted area with restricted access to civilians was also a factor. Another advantage was the camp's proximity to the warehouses at Umschlagplatz as well as German militarised units: an SS outpost on street, a strong German army command at street and the staff of the Pawiak prison, all of whom could be quickly dispatched in case of mutiny.
On 19 July 1943, the first 300 prisoners, who were German and predominantly criminals, were transported from Buchenwald concentration camp. This date is considered to be the day when started operation.
Description
Location and facilities
The Warsaw concentration camp was created inside a closed and deserted zone of the former ghetto, which was surrounded by walls regularly patrolled by German guards and the police. , a former military prison, and spaces along Gęsia Street were adapted for the purposes of the camp. Since none of the camp's buildings survived, its general appearance and facilities can only be deduced from witness testimony, aerial photography, and photos made during exhumations and after the camp's liberation. According to the evidence, was divided into two parts. The first, called and also known as "the old camp", was located between what is now and , and comprised proper (the camp's easternmost part) and wooden barracks erected during the initial months of the camp's operation. The camp's second part, between Smocza and Okopowa Streets, was called or "the new camp" and contained brick barracks. In total, 21 barracks were built, each around long with a capacity of 600 inmates.
The camp was surrounded by high walls guarded by watchtowers. The main entrance was located at what was then Gęsia Street 24. The former military prison and seat, at what is today 17a, served as a crematorium for bodies of dead inmates and executed civilians from outside the camp. The Germans also started building two other cremation sites, but did not manage to open them before they evacuated the camp; even the one that existed was not operated in the camp's final days. Additionally, one of Gęsiówka's buildings was used as a torture room, while a prison yard came to be an SS officers' mess. A bathhouse was built in late 1943 and early 1944, and bunkers were also available on-site. By February 1944, the camp's infrastructure was in an advanced stage of completion, with 90% of and 75% of finished (Berenstein gives figures of 95% and 60%, respectively). However, the construction was repeatedly halted due to the recurring typhus epidemic, which decimated the inmate population and forced the camp's administration to quarantine the premises twice (in January and February 1944, see below, and again in April and May). Therefore, work on the camp was only completed in June 1944.
Personnel Initially, about 380 SS soldiers were maintaining the concentration camp, approximately the size of a company. The number of SS guards was relatively low, as the former ghetto, itself a closed zone, was surrounded by patrolled walls, and due to the fact that the prisoner functionaries were Germans from the initial transport and were thus delegated much more power than was usual for their counterparts in other camps. The original SS unit was gathered from various other camps, including the Trawniki concentration camp and the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Following the attachment to Majdanek in May 1944, they were replaced with SS personnel from Lublin, and the guard was reduced to 259 people. Leadership positions were occupied by high- and middle-ranking SS members who were pre-war Third Reich citizens (Reichsdeutsche), while the rank-and-file were usually recruited among the Volksdeutsche, mainly from Southeast Europe but also from other areas.