POW camp 126 Nikolayev
The POW camp 126 Nikolayev was a camp of the USSR for POWs of World War II . It existed from 1943 to 1948 and was then continued in Nikolayev as camp department 7 of camp 159 - Odessa. The camps were under the Central affairs of prisoners of war and internees ( Russian Главное управление по делам военнопленных и интернированных НКВД-МВД СССР / Glawnoje Uprawlenije po delam wojennoplennych i internirowannych NKVD / MVD SSSR ) - in short ГУПBИ / GUPWI - in Moscow. It determined the general framework for guarding and caring for prisoners of war and for dealing with them.
The postal designation of the Soviet prisoner-of-war camps was generally changed in the winter / spring of 1947. The previous numbers were preceded by a 7 - seven - by post (Postfach / почтовый ящик) the prisoner of war camp in Nikolayev was number 7126.
History of the camp
The POW camp 126 Nikolajew had its origin near Schadrinsk in the West Siberian Oblast Kurgan of the then Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR).
It was set up there in June 1943 on the left bank of the Isetj on the edge of a pine forest. It consisted of earth huts and shelters and should be provided for up to 10,000 prisoners of war. The construction of the camp by Soviet prisoners was very slow due to a lack of materials and personnel. On September 18, 1943, the first two groups of German prisoners of war, a total of 996 men, came to the camp. In a subsequent examination of the camp inmates, 896 men corresponding to the 1st and 2nd categories were found to be able to work. Conditionally incapable or unable to work were either transferred to the convalescent command or taken to a special hospital as sick for inpatient treatment.
The prisoners of war arrived were mainly used for the further expansion of the camp; two metal workers' brigades, a total of 60 men, worked in production. In February 1944, the order was issued for Camp 126 to relocate it to the areas of Ukraine liberated by the German Wehrmacht, in order to rebuild the economy and industry that had been destroyed by the enemy. The camp inmates were distributed to other camps in accordance with the NKVD order, a total of 759 men were transferred to camp 84, and the weak were admitted to a special hospital. Initially, the Chernigov camp was to be the new location , then Krivoy Rog , and finally, after Nikolayev's reconquest in March 1944, according to the NKVD USSR order of April 30, 1944, this Black Sea port city. According to the reconstruction plans , a total of 3,000 prisoners of war were to be deployed in the two large shipyards in Nikolajew, the shipyard "61 Kommunara" on Ingul and the shipyard " André Marty " on the southern Bug , in addition to smaller deployment sites.
A preliminary detachment from the camp management arrived in Nikolayev on May 10, 1944 and decided to accommodate the prisoners of war on the Temvod site opposite the 61 Kommunara shipyard.
This area on the Ingul was built around 1930 during the Soviet industrialization campaign ( five-year plan / пятилетка / pjatiletka) with 26 two-storey central aisle houses to accommodate workers from the shipyard opposite, served as Stalag 364 during the German occupation from April 1942 and was ahead of the in November 1943 approaching Red Army evacuated.
On May 14, 1944, the first batch of 1196 prisoners of war from a collective camp arrived in this complex. In June, in the south of the city, adjacent to the “André Marty” shipyard, a number of single-storey central aisle houses were also set up to accommodate prisoners of war. While the prisoners of war spoke of the "main camp" and "south camp", the Soviet administration referred to the complexes as "camp departments", the south camp as camp department No. 1, the main camp as No. 2 (for the Soviet official sketches of the two camp departments see below Discussion). As recently as 1944, a number of around five buildings were separated from the main camp to accommodate those who were partially able and unable to work, convalescent and sick people, known as the " OK zone ". In addition to these two camp departments, each with more than 1,000 prisoners of war, up to 15 other smaller camp departments were temporarily set up, each in the vicinity of or at workplaces, including a kolkhoz about 40 km north of Nikolayev, which supplies the camp with should serve agricultural products.
These smaller camp departments, with the exception of the kolkhoz farm, were soon closed again for various reasons, but also because of the return of the prisoners that began in autumn 1945. Finally, after three and a half years, in the autumn of 1948, camp division No. 1, the south camp, was also closed and the remaining occupancy was transferred to camp division No. 2 - main camp. At the same time, the administrative takeover took place with the continued existence of this warehouse department as “7. Department of Camp 159 - Odessa ”.
The actual liquidation of the prisoner-of-war camp in Nikolajew and the transport of the workforce home took place at the end of May 1949. Before that, on May 5, 1949, around 200 prisoners of war were taken by the authorities in Kiev and Moscow for a variety of reasons (e.g. unexplained war effort, affiliation to a unit suspected of war crimes, entanglements with the MWD ) wanted to be kept in custody as a precaution, transported on a coastal freighter down the bow and across the Black Sea to Odessa. From there they were transported a week later with other inmates from Odessa in Camp 159 - a total of around 400 men - to the Donets region and in the regime camp Roja (Роя), a district of the city of Kurachowo (Курахово), until the turn of the year 1949/50 held.
The buildings of the two large warehouse departments 1 (position: 46 ° 56 ′ 29.55 ″ N , 31 ° 57 ′ 49.33 ″ E ) and 2 including the OK zone (position: 46 ° 58 ′ 58.84 ″ N , 32 ° 0 ′ 37.54 ″ E ) have since been torn down and the areas that have become free have been incorporated into the adjacent shipyard. The buildings were about 60 m long central aisle houses, one-story in warehouse 1 and two-story in warehouse 2 with an inner staircase in the middle of the building and an iron outer staircase at one end. There was a simple sanitary facility at the head end. After the expansion of the shipyards, the meanwhile renamed “André Marty” (now: Tschernomorskij Sudostroitelnij Sawod / Черноморский судостроительный завод) and “61 Kommunara” (Судостроителеманый 61) are used elsewhere.
About the prisoners of war, their origin and repatriation
The first batch of prisoners of war came from assembly points in southern Ukraine and from the Uman assembly camp . Most of the prisoners were taken during the rapid retreat in this area and in connection with the confinement near Kamenets-Podolsk . A large number of camp inmates had come into Soviet custody in the summer of 1944 when they were encircled in the central section near Bobruisk . Several hundred Hungarians were admitted in the autumn . They had defected to the Red Army as the 1st Hungarian Volunteer Division and wore a small metal triangle with the number 1 on their kepis. Apart from their weapons, nothing had been taken from them, so that they believed - which turned out to be erroneous - that they would be used against the Wehrmacht according to their intentions . Large numbers of other prisoners arrived at the camp after the surrender in May 1945 - from Bohemia including those who had initially been taken prisoner by the United States and then handed over to the Red Army because they had fought until the end. Of the almost 28,000 prisoners who were in custody in the camp, members of the Wehrmacht and SS made up the majority (including more than 15,000 Germans from the Reich territory in 1934). In addition to the Hungarians already mentioned (a total of almost 8,000), there were a considerable number of Romanians (3,100) in the camp , many of whom pretended to be Moldovans or Bessarabians (more than 1,000), as well as the East Markets immediately after their capture, i.e. even before Austria again existed as an independent state, already designated as Austrians (628). The Soviet camp administration counted no fewer than 28 nations among the prisoners, including two Jews (Евреи) and one gypsy (Цыгане).
From around the turn of the year 1945/46, around a dozen women between the ages of 20 and 30 were temporarily interned in camp section No. 1 for almost a year. They came from the east of Romania , so partly from the area of today's Moldova . They were employed in the camp and in the garrison .
The first dismissals back home took place in autumn 1945. These were exclusively sick, disabled and permanently disabled people, including Germans - unless they had already been identified during controls as members of units that were involved in war crimes or suspected of such Deeds stood. In the future, further repatriations were carried out largely according to these criteria, in which Romanians (including Moldovans) and Hungarians, understandably, preferred to Germans for post-war political considerations.
Registration of prisoners of war
Soon after the push of new prisoners of war from the assembly camps, the Soviet camp administration registered the new arrivals. A personal file (Utschetnoe Delo / Учетное Дело) with a registration number was created for each prisoner of war , in which the access to the camp as well as the conclusion, i. d. R. the discharge, but also the death, was recorded. She accompanied the prisoner of war during his detention.
For this registration, uniformly designed forms (questionnaire - Опросный Лист) were used by the Main Department for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees of the Ministry of the Interior ( MWD USSR - МВД СССР). They contained more than 40 questions about the person, about the parents, the war effort, curriculum vitae, occupation and memberships, about the closest relatives and stays in the Soviet Union. The recorded answers had to be confirmed by signature.
The interviewer had to give a superficial description of the person (including height, stature) on a separate sheet. There was also room for service notes on local changes, offenses and disciplinary action, incitement to and accountability for crimes . The obligation to use the intelligence services mentioned in the next section was not recorded in the personnel file, presumably because an authority other than the main administration was responsible for matters relating to prisoners of war and internees.
In order to check the information provided by the prisoner of war, the questioning was repeated after some time in order to uncover any contradicting or concealed issues, which offered a good opportunity to induce the prisoner of war to cooperate informally.
As a rule, before the first registration, namely before they were taken over to the camp, the newcomers in the banya had their heads and bodies clipped and their clothing deloused / disinfected.
Guarding, surveillance and supervision
Barbed wire-fenced areas were set up to accommodate the prisoners of war, so-called zones around which watchtowers were set up with mutual line of sight. Special units, almost exclusively 20 to 30-year-old soldiers, were used for guarding . They manned the watchtowers, escorted transports and guarded all around the workplaces. However, like their officers, they had no access to the camp. Only the officer on watch, called De-Journe, who checked and registered entries and exits at the camp gate, entered the zone for the daily count on the roll call area. Otherwise he had no business there.
The prisoner-of-war camp leader and his officials had to ensure order and cleanliness and the regular daily routine in the camp . The MWD residents were responsible for surveillance and supervision. These political officers in the Nikolayev camp departments were German-speaking state security officers. They stayed in the zones at their own discretion, i.e. irregularly. They supervised the camp management and monitored life in the camp, especially the supplies.
Which auxiliary staff they used when the poor belongings of the prisoners of war in the accommodations were searched for prohibited things during working hours when no one except functionaries were in the zone - which happened occasionally before the surrender and also during the first period afterwards - remained unknown. Then little things like self-made knives or notes were missed.
In addition, they obtained information through conversations and sought initial contact with individual prisoners of war, which after secret one-on-one conversations possibly led to more concealed, more intensive cooperation (spy services) . Anyone who was chosen to do so and found themselves willing (in anticipation or with promises of benefits) was signed by a signature to maintain absolute secrecy - in the event of the threat of punishment, up to 25 years in a prison camp in the event of a violation. Punishment was threatened even for divulging the contact. In addition to their wages, the obligated persons received an administrative position or some other benefit, depending on their skills. In this way, over the course of time, a network of informers was stretched across the warehouse. The task of those obliged in this way was to research fellow prisoners, for example, about war crimes, concealed Nazi leadership functions, identification of prisoners of war under false names, reports on the mood among the prisoners. Because of the secrecy, there was uncertainty in the camp about the work of the State Security officers, which created a breeding ground for rumors and suspicions. So mistrust was generally appropriate in order not to unnecessarily aggravate the already bad situation of the individual through carelessness.
Facilities and organization
The two large warehouse departments had utilities such as kitchens and magazines and, in the course of time, received repair workshops such as carpentry, tailoring and shoemaking that were tailored to the needs of the warehouse. The latter mainly refurbished the clothing stored in magazines, i.e. those intended for the winter in the summer and those intended for the summer in the winter. While the camp management and the officials even had tailor-made products made from the materials available, hardly any repairs were carried out individually for the individual prisoners of war, unless they were able to provide something in return (something obtained from the job in the city, money, tobacco, etc.) Ä.) and also serve with the necessary material for the repair.
In the buildings, commonly referred to as "corpuses", people initially slept on the floor due to the lack of bed frames; towards the end of 1944, two or three-story wooden beds were built in, which finally replaced simple, two-story frames welded from iron pipe without support from summer / autumn 1945 . Materials from the workplaces, mainly wire, were stretched between the pipes; Straw sacks filled with reeds served as a base. Oil and carbide lamps generated light before electricity and light bulbs, mostly secretly organized in the workplaces, were available from summer / autumn 1945. In the roughly 15 m² large rooms of the corpus there were brick stoves, which were mainly fired with heating material, mostly wood of all kinds, organized at the workplaces.
Craftsmen (so-called specialists) from the corresponding work brigades were called in for structural measures that became necessary due to changes in occupancy or improvements to the extremely inadequate sanitary facilities. Some of the materials required for this were provided by the shipyards - or they were "organized" by the prisoners of war on the building sites and brought to the camp - depending on the circumstances, hidden in front of the entrance control, tolerated by it or deliberately overlooked.
In 1944/45, a large open pit with seat beams was set up in the south camp for the access between two corpuses, protected from view by reeds, which was filled in after the purpose was filled and replaced by another, erected elsewhere. At times, a 1 m high wooden box nailed together with a base area of around 2 m × 3 m with four drain holes was used for this purpose. Once a certain level was reached, the crate was carried to the outside of the camp by its two side rails, where it was emptied into pits in the bank sand and used again.
As a Board , there were about a half liter of thin soup and lunch additional 200 g porridge twice daily kasha . The most important food, however, was 600 grams of bread - provided the necessary resources were available, which was not the case with flour several times before the surrender and also later occasionally depended on the supply situation in Nikolaev. The flour was currently often stretched by adding beets or the like; the bread was accordingly soggy. The food also included small amounts of sugar and tobacco (almost only Machorka coarse cut), curd soap and matches . Lunch was transported in large tin buckets from the camp kitchen to the workplaces and served there during the half-hour break.
The distribution of food was carried out under suspicious supervision until mid-1945. A state of affairs that afterwards diminished, but essentially lasted for the entire duration of the captivity. When serving soup, care was taken to ensure that the ladle was filled and that the contents of the buckets were stirred again and again so that the more nutritious ingredients were almost evenly mixed in the mostly watery soups. Bread was handed out in batches and usually received by two bread holers at the distribution point. They were supposed to check each other and at the same time secure the transport across the storage area to the living room against being stolen by other prisoners. Since the portioning of the loaves, which was initially carried out by eye, often led to disputes, self-made, increasingly refined scales were used. The coveted edge pieces, because they were better baked and therefore drier, were available according to the agreed order. The refined scales were even used in the division of the batches of sugar and tobacco dispensed.
Crockery and cutlery were not provided by the camp; the prisoners of war had to procure them themselves. For receiving soup and kascha, in addition to the few salvaged Wehrmacht cookware, vessels of the most peculiar construction were in use - from the simple, as large as possible tin can (because of a possible refill) to artistically designed and ornamentally decorated cookware made of aluminum. For many prisoners it was the most important utensil that some carried somehow attached to their clothing even at work.
In the war winter of 1944/45, the prisoners mostly only had clothing that they had been captured with - often less than that because they were on the way to the collection camp for clothing that had been taken away (usually uniform jackets and, above all, shoes that were for their own use , but were also used to exchange food and alcoholic beverages among the population, occasionally even underwear) only inferior substitutes, if at all, were given. This mostly happened to people who were captured individually or in small groups. Hardly any of those captured before the surrender had adequate footwear; many came to the camp barefoot and had to make do with footboards. Later, in addition to patched up old (mostly single) boots, typical Dutch wooden shoes were often given out. Several prisoners of war arrived in the camp in rags and lice in the clothing they had been assigned as a replacement.
From autumn 1945, warmer outerwear was issued for the coming winter, from booty stocks and also new quilted wadding jackets (so-called fufaika ). To identify as a prisoner of war, the outer clothing on the arm had to be provided with the Cyrillic letters "WP" as an abbreviation for woennoplennij - военнопленный (ВП).
Due to the fact that not all prisoners of war could be considered, when the last-mentioned items were handed out, the generally applied principle of giving preference to the best workers (the 100 and more percent fillers) was followed.
The internal administration of the camp was in the hands of prisoners of war, camp leaders and corpus elders who had been selected by the Soviet camp management and the MWD resident. Age, attitude, assertiveness and above all Russian language skills played an important role in the selection. They were exempt from working outside the camp and had to ensure cleanliness and order in the camp.
Camp life was largely determined in this context, i.e. under the supervision of the Soviet authorities, by selected prisoners of war, by the camp leader, functionaries and assistants, the so-called battalioners (also known as corpus leaders) and brigadiers (heads of the labor brigades). For enforcement and discipline , the camp leader often used the rubber hose, which he waved around threateningly (as he knew from the Romanian military, where corporal punishment was allowed) and often used it.
In the beginning, non-Germans, especially Romanians (among them the Moldovans , who often knew Russian ), were given preference in the camp management and in the camp services , who saw the Germans as the culprit for their misery. This also happened with the assignment to the jobs until the Soviet side realized that the German prisoners of war performed better because of their more thorough training. The Soviet camp administration took advantage of this conflict situation among the nationalities for their mutual surveillance.
Postal services began around the same time that winter clothing was issued in autumn 1945. He made a major contribution to the improvement of conditions among the prisoners, both psychologically and physically; In connection with the first repatriations of the sick and the weak, it strengthened confidence in a foreseeable return home. Even the work results reported to Moscow and Kiev prove this.
Pre-printed double cards (for reply) of the Soviet Red Cross and Red Crescent were issued for postal traffic . The allocation of the insufficient number for the entire workforce was, as usual, initially carried out according to the principle of work performance. In this case, too, poor compliance with the standard was disadvantageous.
While only preprinted cards (or replicas) left the camp, letters and cards of other types than those preprinted by the Soviet authorities sometimes arrived in the camp soon after the postal traffic began. Parcels or parcels from home were never distributed in camp 126.
The transit time between the message and the reply on preprinted double cards was usually at least two months, usually a quarter of a year, if not even longer in some cases. One of the reasons for this was that all mail went through Moscow, where it was subjected to censorship . Cards to the home country were provided with a stamp in the shape of a rhombus with an identification number, probably that of the examiner (as can be seen on the left on the postcard from December 16, 1945). During the further transport, it could not be ruled out that the occupation authorities in Germany also checked again, as evidenced by the occasional control stamps of the British military authorities on shipments to their occupation zone. The mail from home was subject to the same procedure on the way back, now occasionally, at least from the British occupation zone, with a British stamp.
Since as early as mid-1946 brown paper was used instead of the previously common white double cards, which was similar in color and structure to the paper of the three-layer cement bags, some prisoners copied these brown double cards with the means available to them on the inner layer, which was also popular with the civil population . As shown opposite, these replicas were not objected to by the Soviet authorities. They were also used for the replies.
Immediately after the transfer to Nikolajew, rooms for inpatient and outpatient treatment of the sick, wounded and injured were set up in camp departments 1 and 2 . The "Spec Hospital No. 4564" , which was built around the turn of the year 1944/45 and is subordinate to another authority, started the serious cases in the spring of 1945. It was in the middle of the city.
To punish indiscipline, minor offenses such as theft among camp inmates, fraud to the detriment of other prisoners of war, contamination and damage to communal facilities such as toilets and washrooms or minor thefts or misappropriation and misappropriation of supplies was in camp section 2 (main camp) in a single, small one Building a prison set up. Mentally disturbed people were also accommodated in it. B. Constant shouting - disturbing the community. The camp leader issued the punishment, probably in coordination with the Soviet camp administration.
Work and free time
In addition to professional skills, the physical condition of the individual prisoners determined the workload. During regular examinations of the entire camp staff, the ability to work was mostly determined by Soviet military doctors in the simplest possible way by reaching into the buttocks with the so-called ass grip and checking its firmness - the more slack (i.e. the more elongated) the less able to work. Five categories were distinguished
- Category I and II - fully able to work
- Category III - limited ability to work
- Category OK - easier work, up to four hours a day, convalescent
- Dystrophy category - unable to work, bedridden.
The examinations, in which the left arm always had to be raised, also served to identify blood group tattoos on SS members. In acute cases of illness, these doctors also found out whether the person concerned was fit for work before they went to work.
The working hours for prisoners of war were measured according to the generally applicable working rules of the Soviet Union, in which the eight-hour day applied. With occasional exceptions, especially in 1944 and 1945, this rule was actually observed. At lunchtime, halfway through the working hours, there was a half-hour break to eat and rest.
For work, the prisoners of war were divided according to nationality into work brigades , the professional composition and strength of which was based on the needs at the workplace. While engineers, master craftsmen and foremen from the local companies set the tasks (often according to ministerial specifications from Moscow), brigadiers divided their team according to skills for the execution. Meanwhile, Red Army soldiers had the sole task of guarding the demarcated work area around them. In the beginning, this did not prevent them from driving the prisoners of war on their way to and from work. There were also attacks on workplaces, mainly before the German surrender.
When there was a shortage of personnel in the guards from the end of 1945 due to dismissals from the Red Army, prisoners selected from the ranks of the camp inmates were recruited as so-called auxiliary commands ( wspomogatelnaja komanda - вспомогателнaя команда), who accompanied the borders and the work brigades under the supervision of Red Army soldiers guarded the work zones. They were recognizable by the Cyrillic letters for WK (ВК) on the upper arm.
The work in the first few months consisted mainly of clearing up the shipyards and other operations. At an early stage, skilled workers' brigades were formed, among other things, for iron and wood processing and deployed either in cooperation with civilians or in separate workshops.
The work was done according to the rules generally applicable in the Soviet Union, which stipulated certain performance standards of the Stakhanov system for every measurable work and stipulated remuneration for their fulfillment, which had to be paid in total to the camp administration. A rough cost-benefit calculation was thus possible every year. Depending on the extent to which the work was carried out, the brigades received allowances of bread, namely 200 g for 100% and more, 100 g for 80% per person.
Around the turn of the year 1946/47, the normirovshchik (Нормировщик) institution, which is common in the Soviet world of work, was also set up for the labor deployment of prisoners of war. The reason for this measure was likely to have been irregularities at the expense of the camp and thus also to the disadvantage of the prisoners of war. Up until then, the camp administration had hardly checked the performance of the work brigades; instead, the information provided by the companies was taken over and used as a basis for the accounts.
The normorovshchik's job was to monitor the workload on the job with regard to the Soviet norm system and to report the results of the daily work to the camp. Normirovshchiki were mainly active in those jobs where several work brigades were deployed.
In detail he had to check whether
- At the start of work, the described work assignment (Narjad наряд) matched the work to be performed and the work was accordingly assessed correctly,
- After the day's work, the correct amount of work was recorded and thus registered for the calculation of the wages.
For this purpose, the work performance was measured depending on the type of work for the work brigade, possibly also for the individual, by a member of the company - boss or site manager (Natschalnik Начальник or Prorab Прораб) and together with the Normirovshchik as the representative of the camp. Knowledge of the Russian language and Cyrillic script were a prerequisite for performing these activities. Because they regularly had to work on the job after the end of work, normirovshchiki received a pass for the route between the camp and the job.
In statistics from the Soviet camp administration for the ministries in Moscow and Kiev, the labor deployment of the prisoners of war is as follows:
| Period | 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average warehouse occupancy | 6534 | 10033 | 8386 | 6340 | 3469 |
| Manpower | 3732 | 6347 | 6892 | 4912 | 2985 |
| Share of total occupancy% | 57.2 | 63.2 | 82.2 | 76.3 | 85.8 |
| Working days | 428,555 | 1,500,398 | 1,829,551 | 1,198,805 | 743.261 |
| Value of services [in rubles] | 3,998,763 | 15,408,524 | 23,708,661 | 18,104,800 | 10,373,900 |
| Average labor productivity% | 91.5 | 96.0 | 110.4 | 97.7 | 94.0 |
| Average daily output [in rubles] | 9-35. | 10-26 | 12-95 | 15-10 | 14-00 |
According to this, the prisoners of war are said to have earned around 71.6 million rubles.
These statistics reflect the physical constitution of the prisoners and thus indirectly also the food supply situation. Even with a generous assessment of the ability to work in 1944, only a little more than half of the prisoners were operational. The food situation (thanks to US deliveries), which was significantly improved for a good year to a year and a half from autumn 1945, is reflected in the more positive results for 1946. From 1947 onwards the actual deterioration is again visible.
Leisure - the-compliance with generally eight-hour day, the daily counts and the food received were prisoners of war on the working days about one to two hours of free time. How was it used? There has been a significant change over the years - for the better.
In the first few months of the camp's existence in 1944, the prisoners of war were increasingly busy getting used to camp life in the bare accommodations - there were neither beds nor even bunks. They came into the camp only with what they had on their bodies. And that was mostly not even what they wore when they were captured, but what they were wearing on the often days-long journey to the camp after they were taken away - from shoes (especially this) to undershirts - for distribution to the population or for their own use received as a replacement - mostly inferior and not suitable.
During their work, they looked for usable objects in the zones marked off for them, especially in rubble, which, if they managed to pass through the entrance controls, were processed and made usable during their free time. Aluminum sheets were particularly popular. Specialists, as skilled craftsmen were called, brought materials with them from workshops, provided that they had not already been used to make necessary things such as spoons, cookware and scales for weighing the bread rations given out by brigades or in rooms. In laborious work z. B. reworked steels into knives, which were needed, among other things, to share bread rations. When the lice-free times began around mid-1947 and hair was allowed to grow again, combs were also in demand. Like many other objects, they were sawn from sheet aluminum. What the majority of prisoners of war missed, however, was the toothbrush. If you had such a soap or salt, it replaced the toothpaste. Or you just had to be content with rubbing your fingers on your gums and teeth.
The main thing, however, was to rest during the evening in order to recover from the strains of work and the way to and from work. On the free summer Sundays, prisoners with bare chests could be seen here and there in front of the accommodations, lice cracking their nits in their outer clothing, because delousing was very inadequate for the first two years. Or they pounded on their wooden clogs or, if they had organized themselves a needle and thread, mended their clothes with scraps of cloth to prepare for the coming winter.
Since electricity was previously only available for lighting the security fence around the camp, such work was limited to the time of daylight, because the light of the barking oil lights, which were later replaced by light bulbs organized at the workplaces, was not sufficient for this.
In the course of the summer of 1945, after the camp had gradually been equipped with iron frames for the construction of beds, during leisure time - according to the motto how you bed, this is how you sleep - the aim was to create the best possible and comfortable bed for yourself . But despite all efforts, even disinfecting the bodies while the camp staff camped out in the open for two or three summer nights did not help to get the bug plague under control. But apart from these shortcomings, the prisoners had gradually settled into the constraints of the camp. Camp life normalized.
From around the summer of 1946 on Sunday afternoons between Germans and Hungarians, "international football games" were played, which enjoyed great popularity. In boxing, too, prisoners who, like the footballers as officials or well-nourished specialists, had in the meantime achieved the constitution required for it, measured themselves. In the main camp, camp department 2, supported by the political officer, a theater group performed for the first time with small plays and skits. Complemented by music with a boatman's piano, violin and bass violin, guitar and drums, the entertainment was quite passable, which also took place from time to time during the winter in the so-called club, a larger room next to the kitchen. During guest performances, the group also appeared in the south camp, camp department 1, and in the city hospital.
Financing the camp
The prisoner-of-war camps had to finance themselves as far as possible from the income from the labor of the prisoners of war.
For camp 126, the camp administration reported the following to the responsible ministry in Moscow on the occasion of the handover to camp 159 - Odessa :
From the funds spent on the maintenance of the camp totaling 79.7 million rubles were accounted for
- Item 1 wages of staff 11.4 million rubles
- Item 2 travel expenses 567,000 rubles
- Item 3 Reich Insurance 114,000 rubles
- Item 4 administrative expenses 2.1 million rubles
- Item 7 Maintenance for prisoners of war 63.0 million rubles
- of which are included in this figure for
- a) Food for prisoners of war 53.3 million rubles
- b) Monetary bonus payments to prisoners of war 2.6 million rubles
- c) Material provisions for prisoners of war [clothing, etc. the like] 5.4 million rubles
In addition, costs for sanitary / medical services, transport etc. that have not been assessed are included in the report. Ä. Mentioned.
During the liquidation of camp 126, the capital transferred to camp 159 was valued at 1.8 million rubles , along with freely accumulated funds of 3.8 million rubles.
According to these figures and the sum given to the camp 159, the camp should have been financially self-supporting and closed with a positive balance. A final, precise cost-benefit calculation for the existence of the camp has not been presented, presumably because of separate ministerial responsibilities for camp administration and labor on the one hand and security on the other.
Today, however, it is complained that camp 126 was closed with a loss, as has been established for a long time for the Soviet prisoner-of-war camps of the Second World War.
To above b) Cash bonuses: For the maintenance of the individual prisoner a lump sum was initially taken as a basis. Anything in excess of this amount was paid out to the prisoner of war from around the winter of 1945/46. Since this amount was set comparatively high, it was as good as impossible for unskilled workers to earn money, especially since the fulfillment of unskilled work such as digging pits (which requires greater physical strength but not available for inadequate catering) was valued less than Handicrafts such as B. the turning of pistons (which a skilled lathe operator would be able to do even in poor physical condition).
Political work - Antifa
In order for the political work to be carried out, it was assumed that the Soviet camp leadership was organized in part. According to the final report, there has been lively contact with local party cadres since the camp was founded.
Great emphasis was placed on the re-education of prisoners of war in the communist sense. However, this task was only started more intensively in the spring of 1945, which was supposedly more sustainable after the German surrender. From the ranks of the prisoners, those were selected who were anti-fascist or who presented themselves as such under the prevailing circumstances and who were suitable for spreading this attitude. In essence, however, opposition to National Socialism / Fascism was not enough; it was also a matter of understanding communist ideas and democracy based on the Bolshevik model and making this understandable to other prisoners. These selected prisoners took courses and wrote on political issues for the wall newspapers . Historical dates such as the October Revolution , November 9, 1918 in Germany , May 1, June 22, 1941, the day of the attack on the Soviet Union, and Stalin's birthday in December were sufficient reasons for this. It was only under the prevailing conditions that these actions were hardly effective. For the time in Shadrinsk this deficiency was even reported to Moscow. It was not much different in Nikolaev. Antifa was secretly talked about in a derogatory way, and the Antifa activists, often reversible, were not taken very seriously. Caution was advised towards them in the free exchange of opinions in order to avoid disadvantages.
During wartime, issues of the newspaper “Free Germany” of the national committee of the same name , which the Federation of German Officers supported, came to the camp. Their articles and resolutions called for resistance against Hitler and his supporters with the aim of ending the war in order to avoid further victims and destruction. After the dissolution of the committee, the camp was supplied with newspapers from the Soviet occupation zone ( SBZ ) - according to the KPD's “ Deutsche Volkszeitung ” regularly with the “ New Germany ”, the organ of the Socialist Unity Party ( SED ), the “ tribune ” of the Free German Trade Union Federation ( FDGB ), occasionally with the " Neue Zeit " of the Christian Democratic Union - ( CDU-Ost ) and " Der Morgen " of the Liberal Democratic Party ( LDPD ), but also with the " National-Zeitung " of the National Democratic Party Party ( NDPD ).
In accordance with these requirements, the modest camp library almost exclusively kept political works, those by Stalin and Zhdanov , as well as by and about German communists . The German emigrants Theodor Plivier and Willi Bredel , 1962 to 1964 President of the German Academy of the Arts of the GDR, were represented among the literary figures .
How important this task, political work, was, is shown by the considerable scope of this topic in the report of the camp management to the ministries in Moscow and Kiev. Nevertheless, it has hardly been a success.
mortality
The reports contain no information on the death rate among prisoners of war. The word mortality (Russian: Смертность) or the like is not even mentioned, not even in connection with the loss of workforce caused by the high death rate and its justification. The above-mentioned statistics alone about the operational readiness of prisoners of war in 1944 and also in 1945 of only 57.3% and 63.2% of the camp workforce allows conclusions to be drawn about the physical condition and thus a high death rate.
Until about mid-1945 the death rate among prisoners was very high due to illness, poor nutrition and psychological and physical stress. The inadequate sanitary conditions described above were not without effect on the initially high mortality rate.
The dead from the OK zone, around three to six men a day from the beginning of the winter half-year, previously lower numbers, were buried not far in mass graves, pits on the banks of the Ingul (approximate location - within a radius of 46 ° 59 ′ 06.73 ″ N, 32 ° 00 ′ 37.54 ″ О). It is not known whether the deceased in camp department 1 were transported to the OK zone for burial or were buried nearby in the dunes on the bank of the bow.
The "Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge eV" registered 383 prisoners of war and internees of camps 4564 and 159/7 who died and were buried in the municipal cemetery in Nikolajew for the period from April 4, 1945 to April 20, 1949. "Camp 4564" is a prisoner-of-war hospital in the middle of the city, subordinated to another Moscow authority. Camp 159/7 is the "main camp" in Nikolajew with the previous official designation 126/2 (Temwod), which was administratively attached to the Odessa camps from 1949 onwards.
As a guide: In the final report of January 31, 1951 on camp No. 159 - Odessa - (sheet 29), 654 men are reported to have died for the fourth quarter of 1944. If the occupancy of 11,687 men listed elsewhere is taken as a basis, the result would be a mortality rate of 22.4% when converted to one year. However, since winter mortality was much higher, the annual rate will have been at least 10%.
For 1946 (sheet 35) 66 deaths are mentioned, which corresponds to 0.5% with an occupancy of 12,769 men.
In a local publication from 2012 under the title Николаевский Бухенвальд / Nikolajewer Buchenwald about the Temwod district and the shipyard "61 Komunara" it says that in the camp there during its five-year existence as an NKVD / MWD camp 126 - without differentiating between nationalities ( predominantly Germans, Hungarians, Romanians) - 2,000 prisoners died.
Literature and Sources
- Martin Streidel: That's how it was back then. Karl Glas Witwe, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-89004-015-2 .
- Rudolf Henze: The theater group - music behind Russian barbed wire. Self-published, Seelze.
- Dankward Sidow: Ruki werch! - 1908 days in Soviet captivity. Self-published, Hamburg.
- Report January 8, 1949 - Entry no. 6765 - January 12, 1949
To the head of UPVI MWD USSR ... ... City of Kiev about the activities of the disbanded camp No. 126 MWD USSR for prisoners of war
- Report February 7, 1949 (handwritten), receipt 1397 of February 22, 1949
To the head of the GUPWI MWD USSR ... ... City of Moscow