Lebrechtsdorf – Potulitz camp
The Lebrechtsdorf – Potulitz camp (temporarily SS labor camp Lebrechtsdorf , also UWZ Lebrechtsdorf camp ) was an internment and labor camp in the Polish city of Potulice during the German occupation of Poland from 1941 to 1945 .
history
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After the annexation of Poland and thus also of the then border town Potulice in 1939, its Polish name was Germanized to Potulitz , and in 1942 it was renamed Lebrechtsdorf . On February 1, 1941, a camp for Poles expelled by the Germans as part of resettlement measures was set up in the village . Initially, the cellars and outbuildings of the Potulice Palace (Villa Potulice) were used as storage. In the autumn of 1942, 30 barracks were built.
Organizationally, the camp was part of the central office for migrants in Danzig - Gotenhafen and subordinated to the security service of the Reichsführer SS . The SS was also there with personnel. From 1942, the camp was under the command of the Stutthof concentration camp , Max Pauly, and the Bromberg-Brahnau field work camp of the Stutthof concentration camp in what is now the Łęgnowo district was affiliated with him. It became a forced labor camp (also known as the Lebrechtsdorf SS labor camp).
In March 1942 about 1,050 people were interned in the camp. At the end of 1943 there were 6,878. The poor living conditions in the camp were comparable to those of a concentration camp . From 1943 the camp was also an Eastern youth detention center for children from the conquered Soviet areas (UWZ Lebrechtsdorf camp). The children of Soviet and Polish partisans who had to do forced labor were interned in the camp . Furthermore, transports from the Auschwitz concentration camp (1943), from the youth detention camp Litzmannstadt , the Kattowitz camp, Sorau / Rybnik camp and from the Gestapo branch in Lüneburg (1944) to the camp are documented.
The camp in Lebrechtsdorf / Potulice was liberated by the Red Army on January 21, 1945 . During the Nazi regime, a total of around 25,000 people were interned in Lebrechtsdorf. It is proven that 1,291 people died in the camp, including 581 children under the age of five.
Later story
From 1945 the existing infrastructure was used for the establishment of the Central Labor Camp Potulice , which housed around 36,000 Germans, but also anti-communist Polish civilians and some prisoners of war. The internment took place in the context of the expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe after the end of the war.
Around 1950/1951 the labor camp was first converted into a prison for political prisoners . From 1961 it was converted into a regular prison for criminals and rebuilt. In 1974 a wall was built around the area. Today the state prison has space for 1,446 prisoners.
memorial
In 1958/1959 a cemetery of honor for the victims of the camp from 1941 to 1945 was inaugurated on the outskirts of Potulice and grave crosses were erected. In 1969, a memorial for the victims of the Nazi regime was erected by George Buczkowski.
The memorial today commemorates both camps.
literature
- Witold Stankowski, Gustav Bekker (ed.): Wspólna czy podzielona pamieć? ( Common or shared memory? The Potulitz / Lebrechtsdorf / Potulice camp during World War II and afterwards 1941–1945– 1945–1949 ), Bydgoski Dom Wydawniczy Margrafsen, Bydgoszcz 2007, ISBN 978-83-60976-32-6 .
- Helga Hirsch : Revenge is a disease . Memory of the victims of both camps. In: Die Zeit , No. 37/1998.
Web links
- Potulice - cemetery for the victims of the Second World War
- Potulice: one place - two kinds of memories . (PDF; 1.2 MB) History workshop Europe
- Documentary CASUS "POTULICE" (Polish, 1999)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Karin Orth: The System Of The National Socialist Concentration Camps: A Political Organization History . Hamburger Edition, 1999, ISBN 978-3-930908-52-3 , p. 153.
- ↑ Photography budowy obozu niemieckiej Centrali Przesiedleńczej w Potulicach w latach 1941–1944 - Skarbów catalog. ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Skarby Dziedzictwa Narodowego
- ^ Hans Mausbach, Barbara Mausbach-Bromberger: Enemies of Life: Nazi Crimes against Children . Röderberg, 1979, p. 204.
- ^ Excerpts from documents of the Lebrechtsdorf camp for migrants about Russian children who were transferred from KL Auschwitz to the camp in 1943. Post-war constellations . Russian Red Cross, Moscow. In: International Tracing Service Bad Arolsen, inventory number 7734, group PP folder 3272 folder 3273 folder 3274, received in 1999.
- ↑ Entries of the children in the Lebrechtsdorf camp from the Litzmannstadt youth custody camp in Poland, Kattowitz camp, Sorau / Rybnik camp and from the Gestapo “Lüneburg branch” 2.8.44 - 19.9.44 . Auschwitz State Museum. In: International Tracing Service Bad Arolsen, inventory number 2393, group PP folder 614, received in 1999.
- ↑ Helga Hirsch: Revenge is a disease: In the Potulice camp, Poles first suffered, after 1945 Germans . In: Die Zeit , No. 37/1998.
- ↑ Przewodnik po Miejscu Pamięci Potulice ( Memento of the original from November 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.44 MB)
