Nazi Commandants & Staff of the Killing Centers

Named after the town of Plaszow, the Lager of Plaszow operated around a quarry and a factory called Brinlitz, run by Oskar Schindler. Mining had gone on near Krakow before, but in December of 1942, the labor camp opened up in line with other camps such as Mauthausen and Flossenberg for the purpose of using Jewish detainees and political prisoners as slave labor to mine the materials necessary to build HItler's "New Germany" and stoke the war effort. Plaszow initially had political and religious prisoners. After the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, more Jews and Polish resistance movement members were interred there. By 1943 24,000 inmates were interred there, but over the course the years 1942 to 1945, there were a total of 150,000. It is estimated as many as 80,000 of those died. Considered part of the Auschwitz sub-camp system, many inmates of Plaszow were sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Camp population also included those from the destruction of the Tarnow Ghetto, Bochnia, Nowy Sacz, Shevnia, and in 1944, the Jews of Hungary. Prisoners were moved to and from Gross-Rosen as well. While Goeth, the commandant at Plaszow was known for his sadism and random shootings, Schindler although similar in background and behavior treated his 'purchased slaves' with dignity and far better care than at most camps at his munitions factory. The main camp formally entered into the Lager system in 1944, as the Ukranian staff of guards prominent in the area were replaced by the even more brutal SS Death-Headers. The prominence of this sub-camp became more apparent as towards the end of the war, there were visits from the Governor-General Frank and other high-level officials. Disease, Starvation, slavery, shootings and hangings were the preiminent reasons for death in the camp: many were transferred for gassings. The quarry and camp overlook the site where Prince Krak was buried for whom krakow was named, and was built in an historic area near ancient city walls, and the tombs of German Teutonic Knights (an irony because of Nazi beliefs). Near the end of 1944 many prisoners were moved to Gross-Rosen. ON September 5th, 1945, liberation came, months after the liberation of Auschwitz.

Originally named for the mountain Ettersberg, Buchenwald, outside of Weimar in Thuringen, was changed to Konzentrationslager Buchenwald in 1937, and became part of the first four German Concentration camps in 1937-8. Buchenwald means 'beechwood' and was staffed by SS and Commandants Koch and .

One of the first four German Camps, Dachau was initially founded as a prison camp and "re-education" center for political prisoners, and 'prisoners of conscience' although after Krystallnacht 10s of thousands of 'November Jews' took their place as inmates. Known for the cruelty of the SS Death-Headers, one of the Pastors of the German Evangelical Church-the Confessing Church, Niemoller was interred there, although he appeared to have received better treatment than most of the Jewish inmates, indicated by his controversial post-war statement in 1946.

Flossenberg was founded as a concentration camp in 1938 along with Buchenwald, Dachau and Sachsenhausen in Germany. Over the years in addition to thousands of Jewish prisoners it housed political prisoners, including von Stauffenberg and Staff, part of Hitler's High Command who

Gross-Rosen was founded as a prison camp, existing in 1940 with a few hundred prisoners, mostly political prisoners and criminals. In 1940, it was a subcamp of Sachsenhausen, but became independent , entering the Lager System in 1941. As the camp grew, it not only included the Slave labor which mined the quarries for Marble and Stone, but by 1943 included armaments manufacturing, and the Camp grew with the increase in production. The first Jews interred were the Jews of Poland, but after the occupation of Hungary in 1944, the population included Hungarian Jews, Silesian Jews and Jews from other parts of Europe. At least a third of the the inmates from 1941-1945 died. By 1943, in January, one third of the inmates were women. Liberation came on February 13, 1945, but not before prisoners were forced on a gruesome death march; all but a few of the 40,000 evacuees died from exhaustion, hunger and hypothermia. who

A history of Lidice from the Lidice Memorial site reports that this little town was first mentioned in Czech history in the chronicles of Zbraslav Abbot, and that the original founder was a wealthy citizen name Pavlik about 1300ad. The Hussite War destroyed the town in 1353, and it was rebuilt then again destroyed in the Thirty Years War. A village school was mentioned in 1713 then again in 1848. The paltry history is accounted for by the size of the village: in the mid 1800s rising from 270 citizens to over 500 by 1890. Nearby Kladno was the largest city in the vicinity. As mentioned, when Heydrich was wounded and then died as a result, vengeance was ordered by Frank on Lidice because of a nebulous letter written to the Horak family of Lidice from their son in the Czech army, stationed in Britain. Suspicion was aroused because the assassins of Heydrich were British, and because it was rumored the village gave them refuge when they parachuted into the area. No evidence turned up, but the Kladno Gestapo and Security Police followed orders to bomb and burn the town, which was then bulldozed over. In 1947, new houses, a Park, a memorial and museum were begun a short distance from the original village: some women and 17 of the children returned: the men had all been executed. Lidice today is a symbol of unjust retribution and the slaughter of innocence, but has gone on to become a monument of peace against ruthless tyranny.

In 1938 as Hitler sought to rebuild Germany under Speer, the ;gave the directive to open slave labor camps near stone quarries to acquire materials. Mauthausen, which was already in existence, was transformed by the SS into a killing center/slave camp with the Anschluss in 1938. Original prisoners were political and criminal, but grew to include& #13; Jews and others deemed unrehabilitive. Several thousand killings here are documented (1). An 8 foot high wall surrounded the camp guarded by armed sentries. At dawn laborers were sent to the quarries: at evening the living workers would return through the gates carrying those who had died during the day. Several subcamps were affiliated also: most notably: Melk, and Gusen, and the krema at Ebensee. The Castle Hartheim, known for it's brutality and killing of the mentally ill and infirm was also part of the Mauthausen system, and killings took place there also."

xxxxxxx"

As larger slave labor centers which produced weaponry and the V-2 Rockets were destroyed or in danger of being destroyed, by 43, Mittelbau-Dora was established to take over production of the missiles, in collaboration with the Japanese efforts of producing mass quantities of the then unstoppable weapons used in the Blitzkrieg against London. It is said that had the war continued, into 1946, the Germans and Axis powers might have won due to these more modern weapon systems. Mittelbau was built underground to avoid detection by Allied forces: its conditions were deplorable and most never saw the light of day while working there. Some were hung or executed when production was not met and others sent to Nordhausen to die of starvation and neglect when too sick or weak to work. The weaponry found there was confiscated at the end of the war by the US and shipped via train in 300 cars to assimilate technology.

Ravensbruck was established in Autumn of 1938 around the time of Krystallnacht and the 'November Jews' outside of the town of Ravensbruck, north by railway from Berlin near Furstenberg and with associations with Buchenwald. Designed as a concentration camp for women, it was built by workers from Sachsenhausen in earlier'38. Ravensbruck was part of a camp system with at lest 31 sub-camps, one of which was designed as a destination for the weak and ill. This camp,Uckermark, was similar to other subcamps of other killings centers, where the weak and ill were sent and then utterly abandoned without food and medical care and hygiene, but under guard. Most died shortly after arrival. Another subcamp of Mittweida was used for zyklon-b gassings.¹ The building of Ravensbruck was designated by Himmler and grew from close to 900 German and Austrian women, 400 'gypsies' and soon after Polish women to @2300 by December of 1939. Russian women arrived in 1942, and by 42-43, the population rose to 15,000. By November of 1944, near the end, the gas chamber was continuously in use and the population grew to 80,000. The cruelty of Ravensbruck medical experiments included bizarred infliction of extensive injuries, which were an issue in the Nuremberg Doctor's Trials. While deaths took many forms, one particularly brutal death was the a huge stone wheel which a victim was harnessed to and forced to pull until death. Women of all ages even elderly were put to hard labor. If they could not keep up their quota, they were beat and later put to death. The "Infirmary" meant brutal treatment and often death. Because of the intense cruelty, many broke and sometimes other prisoners became cruel as well. The Missionary Corrie Ten Boom whose family died in the Shoah, was released due to a technical error one week before all women her age (50's) were killed. The camp ended with 80,000 deaths, a death march, and finally liberation by Soviet armies on 4-30-45.

...

Sobibor was part of Aktion Reinhard, the deliberate plan to kill the Jews of Poland in the greatest numbers in as little time possible. As with most camps, it was built conveniently along a rail system iopened in March 1942, it started accepting prisoners in April of 1942 and operated until shortly after the Sobibor uprising in 1943. The camp was small but responsible for massive deaths: over 20,000 victims arrived with the first transport from Germany, Austria, Terezin and Slovakia. Within 2 months, over 100,000 were killed. Within 3 months, three new gas chambers were built to avoid delays in the killings. Children were among the population and were killed the same as adults sometimes brutally. Staffed by Commandant Niemann and a small staff of SS and supplemental Ukrainian Guards, , the camp ended abruptly after the Sobibor Uprising Only 50 survivors were left in the camps, of those 600 who tried to escape, fewer than 60 ultimately survived the end of the war. Eyewitness accounts give us most of our information about the revolt, including testimonies at trials after the war and at the Eichmann trial in Israel in 1961.