Toszek NKVD camp

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Memorial stone at the mass grave
Psychiatry building
Plaque
Cross at the mass grave

The internment camp of the NKVD in Toszek ( Tost ) in Upper Silesia probably existed from May to November 1945. German civilians from Silesia , Saxony , later Saxony-Anhalt , Brandenburg and the Sudetenland were interned in the camp.

history

The NKVD camp was set up in the buildings of the Tost Psychiatric Clinic (former state nursing home), the inmates of which are said to have died in euthanasia crimes during the Third Reich or later in labor camps. From 1939/1940 the buildings were used as internment camps for foreign civilians (including Englishmen) who were released at the end of the war in the spring of 1945.

After Poland took over administration in the summer of 1945, the city of Tost was renamed Toszek.

description

From May 1945, Soviet and Polish units initially brought around 1,000 German people from Upper Silesia and Wroclaw and interned them in the Toszek camp. In the summer of 1945 a further 3,600 prisoners from the overcrowded special camp in Bautzen were added. According to current knowledge, more than 4,600 people were interned in the camp.

The camp was very overcrowded and guarded by brutal guards, the inmates were starving and exhausted and the hygienic conditions were catastrophic (outbreak of dysentery and typhus), so that well over half of the inmates died. In addition, the prisoners had to do forced labor in the surrounding area .

Of the internees, around 3,300 people died in the camp, and more died of the consequences of internment after their release. Among the victims was u. a. the 39-year-old truck factory owner Hans Werner Skafte Rasmussen from Hainichen in Saxony.

The victims were initially buried in the Jewish cemetery in Toszek, around 1,000 people, and later, due to lack of space, around another 2,000 in the sand pit to the east. Internees who died while doing forced labor outside the camp are said to have been buried at the place where they died. The mass grave is now mostly on private company premises.

After the camp was dissolved at the end of 1945, the local nuns of the Borromean Sisters and the residents of Toszek took care of the released camp inmates.

Later there was a valve factory on the site. Today the property is again a psychiatric clinic.

Commemoration and education

To commemorate the victims, a memorial stone was erected for the victims after the political change in 1989 and a cross was placed at the Jewish cemetery, as well as a memorial plaque in the Catholic cemetery at the Barbarakirche , on which the relatives for the care of the internees after their release thank you. A plaque at the clinic indicates the NKVD camp.

The background to the camp is still largely in the dark, and there are hardly any publications about the history of the camp. Access to Russian archives that would enable the background to be clarified has not yet been granted. In June 2010, the Katowice branch of the Institute for National Remembrance (IPN) announced that it was trying to gain access to documents that could be used to find out more about the camp. It is hoped to get information on the foundation and the function of the camp, as well as the names of the victims.

Sybille Krägel (née Rasmussen) from the initiative group NKVD camp Tost / Upper Silesia documented the names of over 4,600 detainees in camp Tost.

See also

Web links

Commons : The mass grave and monument in Toszek (Tost)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sybille Krägel (Hamburg): Written information from the eldest daughter of Hans Werner Skafte Rasmussen from January 2, 2017.
  2. ↑ Barbara Supp: The time of the ghosts . In: Der Spiegel, 32 (1996), August 5, 1996. On: spiegel.de
  3. ^ NKVD camp in Tost / Upper Silesia (today Toszek, Poland) . On: dokst.de
  4. ↑ Article in Polish
  5. ^ Dziennik Polska: IPN chce ujawnić prawdę o obozie NKVD w Toszku
  6. ↑ Website of the initiative group NKVD camp Tost / Upper Silesia ( Memento of the original from February 10, 2015 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uokg.de
  7. ^ Foundation of Saxon Memorials - Documentation Office Dresden: NKVD camp Tost / Upper Silesia (today Toszek / Poland)

Coordinates: 50 ° 27 ′ 9.7 "  N , 18 ° 31 ′ 21.8"  E