LOCATION
STATISTICS
STAFF & COMMANDANTS
PICTURES
LINKS
Just outside of Krakow near the quarries in Plaszow, the camp of Brinlitz-Plaszow was founded in December
of 1942 near the location of ancient ruins of the tomb of a Teutonic King. During the years 1942 to 1945, over 150,000 prisoners were in Brinlitz-Plaszow, an estimated 80,000 of which died by shootings, hanging, barbarism, slave labor, starvation and disease. Many were sent to their death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and other surrounding camps.In 1944, Plaszow became part of the Lager System as the Death Headers replaced the Ukranian Guards. Political and Religious dissidents & Jewish slaves were used for slave labor in factories, the Quarries, and in efforts to hide mass killings in the disposal of corpses from 12 surrounding mass graves. The camp was transitory, and the population at any time was between 18,000 and 25,000, at one time 280 were children who were sent to the gas chambers.
The dreaded ,viscious Commandant Amon Goeth was there, known for random cruelty and killings. By the end of the war, Goeth had gone insane, and was hung by a tribunal in Poland for war crimes. Brinlitz was the factory which Oskar Schindler, of Schindler's List ran. Schindler, an entreprenuer, sought to make a fortune from the war: he became instead a savior to many. He purchased 'slaves' for his munitions factory, but treated them better than other inmates, eventually moving them onsite. At one point, he diverted the billing of an RSHA train to Brinlitz to save the surviving half of the Jewish deportees, the others having frozen to death. He is estimated to have saved around 1200-1500 lives. At the end of the war, Poles, and Hungarian Jews became prisoners. Liberation came in early September of 1945.1-3
1 "Brinlitz", USHMM Learning Center/Archives.2 "Brinlitz", Nizkor:ShofarArchives.3 "Brinlitz", : Forgotten Camps