Sikawa Central Labor Camp

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Notice board on the wall of the Sikawa Lodz prison
Information board on the history of the Sikawa camp on the front of today's prison on the premises

The Sikawa Central Labor Camp near Łódź in Poland was established in 1945 on the site of the previous Litzmannstadt labor education camp . From 1945 to 1948, thousands of Germans, mostly ethnic Germans , were interned here and obliged to work. The camp was located east of the city center of Łódź in the Widzew district in the Sikawa district.

1943 to 1945

→ Main article: Litzmannstadt labor education camp

From 1943 until the invasion of the Red Army in January 1945 there was the Litzmannstadt penal and labor education camp, in which the National Socialist occupying power had interned Polish forced laborers who were considered “work-shy”.

1945 to 1950: Labor camp for Germans

At the beginning of 1945, immediately after the Red Army marched in , the camp was initially converted into an assembly camp for German men who were to be deported to the Soviet Union . With the deportation of the inmates who were fit for work, the camp emptied again and those unable to work were initially released.

From the spring of 1945, men and women of all ages were interned regardless of their ability to work. Men, women, prisoners of war and also children were housed separately from each other. Children under the age of 13 were separated from their parents and placed in children's homes. Children who were not suitable for Polonization should be expelled, the others stay in Poland.

In the spring of 1945 more than 3,000 people are said to have been interned in the camp, most of them belonging to the German minority living in the region . In the months that followed, the number of prisoners increased considerably, with the inmates capable of work being used individually or in columns outside the camp for forced labor. The inmates did not receive any wages, only a rental fee had to be paid to the camp management. This was around 10% of the wage for a Polish worker or was 8 zloty , at other times 30 zloty.

The poor conditions in the camp meant that many people died of hunger, epidemics, a lack of medical treatment and abuse, especially the elderly, the sick and children. According to the Federal Archives , there are said to have been around 5,000 dead between 1945 and 1948 who were buried in mass graves in a pit behind the camp and at the mill in Sikawa. Contemporary witness reports also mention significantly higher numbers, for example 8,000 to 11,000 corpses are said to have been buried in a ravine behind the camp (probably the above-mentioned "pit"). In addition to the traditional physical abuse, there are also isolated reports that fatal injections were given.

On January 7, 1946, a transport with old and sick people was allowed to leave the camp. Four days later, 2,400 people arrived in Brandenburg an der Havel , many of whom went straight to hospital treatment.

At the end of 1948 the labor camp was closed. At this point around 8,000 men and women are said to have been interned. But even in 1949, numerous transports to Germany with an average of 2,000 Germans each were put together here.

In November 1948 a prisoner of war camp for German officers was set up in the camp; the officers interned here did not have to work outside the camp.

numbers

The figures below are incomplete and do not give a consistent picture. This may be due to the fact that in some cases not all camp inmates were recorded (e.g. the prisoners of war could have been recorded separately) or that the persons on work assignments were not counted. Due to the work assignments, the number of inmates was subject to considerable fluctuations.

time Number of camp inmates Other numbers Origin of the information Remarks
Spring 1945 3000 not clear
Late summer 1945? "This barrack town should hold tens of thousands of people" from the memories of high school teacher Silvia Waade
September 1945 937 Security service statistics 864 ethnic Germans in class 2, 70 ethnic Germans in classes 3 and 4 and 3 "privileged"
Late 1945 / early 1946 over 3000 from a contemporary witness report
in the period 1945–1946 3000-35,000 Information according to different sources
Late 1948 approx. 8000 men and women Report from the Federal Archives upon liquidation of the labor camp
January 7, 1946 over 2,400 old and sick people were released not clear
1945-1948 approx. 5000 dead Report from the Federal Archives
not clear 1300 about 800 died in the camp not clear 700 men and 600 women

Legal processing

Prosecutors of the Institute for National Remembrance (IPN) are investigating “various forms of torture against people who were incarcerated in the Łódź-Sikawa labor camp from 1945 to December 1947, such as beating and personal injury by security officials who run the camp had to monitor. "

After 1950: Camp for Poles and remand prison for the city of Łódź

From December 1950 the camp was only intended for Poles. From 1950 to 1951 it also served as a remand prison for the city of Łódź. At the site of the camp there is now prison No. 1 ( Zakład Karny nr 1 ) at Beskidzka 54, Łódź.

See also

literature

  • Krystyna Radziszewska: The Germans in Lodz after the end of the occupation and the Sikawa camp from 1945–1950 , in: Monika Kucner / Krystyna Radziszewska: Strangers in the Promised Land. On the history of the Germans in Lodz after the Second World War , Osnabrück 2013, pp. 45–73, ISBN 978-3-938400-88-3 . [Has not yet been evaluated for this article!]
  • Silvia Waade: Barrack 7. The fate of women behind barbed wire - many made their way to Sikawa (1945/46) , Berlin / Bonn 1985.
  • Manfred Gebhardt and Joachim Küttner: Germans in Poland after 1945. Prisoners and foreigners , Munich 1997.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of detention sites of the Foundation EVZ, subpage about the Litzmannstadt-Sikawa penal and labor education camp , accessed on May 30, 2012.
  2. ↑ Reinhard Tenhumberg's website / 1933-1945 lager , accessed on May 30, 2012.
  3. ↑ Reinhard Tenhumberg's website / 1933-1945 lager , accessed on May 30, 2012.
  4. ↑ a b Silvia Waade: Barrack 7, the fate of women behind barbed wire - many walked the way to Sikawa (1945/46) , Berlin / Bonn 1985, p. 8.
  5. ↑ a b Silvia Waade: Barracks 7. The fate of women behind barbed wire - many walked the way to Sikawa (1945/46) , Berlin / Bonn 1985, p. 10.
  6. ↑ a b c Joachim Rogall: The Germans in the Posener Land and in Central Poland. Munich 1993, p. 176.
  7. ↑ a b c Silvia Waade: Barracks 7. The fate of women behind barbed wire - many walked the way to Sikawa (1945/46) , Berlin / Bonn 1985, p. 7.
  8. ↑ Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims: The expulsion of the German population from the areas east of the Oder-Neisse , Augsburg 1993, Volume II, p. 632.
  9. ↑ a b c Silvia Waade: Barrack 7. The fate of women behind barbed wire - many walked the way to Sikawa (1945/46) , Berlin / Bonn 1985, p. 15.
  10. ↑ a b c d e Silke Spieler: Expulsion and Expulsion Crimes 1945-1948 , Report of the Federal Archives of May 28, 1974, Bonn 1989, ISBN 3-88557-067-X , p. 78f.
  11. ↑ German historical museum, collective memory, report by Annemarie Müller (* 1904) from Nuremberg ( Memento from February 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims: The Expulsion of the German Population from the Areas East of the Oder-Neisse , Augsburg 1993, Volume II, p. 637.
  13. ↑ Konstantin Mayer: Report on the Meetings of the Russian Germans in Fargo, North Dakota USA (in the original German), Bulletin, October 18, 1990.
  14. ^ A b Eduard Kneifel / Harry Richter: The Evangelical Lutheran Congregation Brzeziny near Lodz / Poland 1829–1945. Vierkirchen / Schwabach 1983, p. 98.
  15. ↑ Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims: The expulsion of the German population from the areas east of the Oder-Neisse , Augsburg 1993, Volume I, p. 153Ef.
  16. ↑ Manfred Gebhardt and Joachim Küttner: Germans in Poland after 1945. Prisoners and foreigners , Munich 1997, p. 136.
  17. ↑ Manfred Gebhardt and Joachim Küttner: Germans in Poland after 1945. Prisoners and foreigners , Munich 1997, p. 137.
  18. ↑ Helga Hirsch: The Vengeance of the Victims. Germans in Polish camps 1944–1950. Berlin 1998, p. 187.
  19. ↑ a b c d Lodz – Sikawa - labor education camp - description of the camp on the website of the German-Polish Youth Office , accessed on.

Coordinates: 51 ° 48 ′ 1.1 ″  N , 19 ° 30 ′ 42.5 ″  E