Plaszów Concentration Camp

Plaszów Concentration Camp. Grey House at right, Göth's villa at left in distance.    

We stepped off the tram in the Podgórze District of Kraków. It appeared as a laid-back neighborhood filled with trees, green spaces and low apartment buildings. I found it difficult to imagine that it was once home to a Nazi concentration camp.

Off the main road we walked up a long flight of stairs that led to a residential street. We came across a row of houses whose backyards faced the camp. Quickly we found what we were looking for, a multi-storied house with a red-tiled roof, surrounded by a fence. This was once the home of Amon Leopold Göth, the Commandant and monster of Plaszów. I found it perplexing to believe that a modern family could live in a home that at one time housed such evil.

Amon Göth's villa as it appears today.

Amon Göth.

It has been said that Göth would shoot prisoners from the balcony or window of his villa for target practice or a perceived infraction. One account says he wouldn't eat breakfast without shooting a person first. This cruel act is depicted in the movie Schindler's List.

Doubling back on the road a few hundred feet is the entrance to the camp. The irony is that this former concentration camp―that was a center for torture, murder and slave labor―is now a very peaceful place. Very few of the old structures remain. Graveled paths lead to different sites. Trees provide shade and there is plenty of grass. It is a place for families to take a stroll, or to walk the dog. I took note that the camp was set within a little cove, perhaps on purpose so as not to attract too much attention from outsiders.

The Plaszów concentration camp was established in January of 1943 after the liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto. The camp was conveniently located a mile south of the ghetto so prisoners were able to walk there. Some chose to hide in the ghetto instead of voluntarily moving. These were rounded up by the Nazis and forcibly marched to Plaszów where a giant pit had been dug for a mass grave. In the next few days over 2,000 Jews were executed and tossed in the pit.

Plaszów was intended to be a labor camp, differing from extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka. In Plaszów there were neither gas chambers nor crematorium.

The first structure we came to was a two-story home known as The Grey House. At one time it was owned and used as an administrative building by the cemetery that once stood here. During the time of Plaszów it was used as offices and residence for some of the SS. The basement was used as a jail where prisoners were tortured and executed.

It also served as the office for Amon Göth. A placard at the site tells a story from Adolf Berliński, a prisoner at the camp:

“In November 1943, my sister worked in the commandants office in Plaszów as a shorthand typist. One day, Göth came in the office, searched the drawers, and found white bread and sausages. […] Infuriated, Göth selected six people from among the staff, including my sister. He ordered Sergeant Glaser to walk them to the 'hillock' and shoot them.”

The Grey House. 

As alluded to earlier, part of the camp was built atop two Jewish cemeteries. Headstones were dismantled and used as pavement for nearby roads. A beautiful funeral parlor was used as a stable for horses and other animals, but when it became too small they blew it up.

Atop the old burial ground they built barracks, as well as an appelplatz, or roll-call square where they would gather every morning and evening for roll call. Nearby was a large gallows where prisoners would be forced to watch executions by hanging.

Today one would never guess that there was an appelplatz or barracks there. Instead there is grass and graveled paths, along with interpretive signs. All that remains of the funeral parlor are large cement blocks strewn on the ground as if a giant were playing with blocks.

Plaszów Concentration Camp during operation. Open space at left is the apellplatz. 

Area of the apellplatz as it appears today.  Also sight of former New Jewish Cemetery.

Rubble from the funeral parlor. 

I learned some of the daily life experienced by prisoners in Plaszów. Bernard Offen describes their daily dress this way:

“The camp uniform was simple: striped, made of thin materiel under which we were not allowed to wear anything else. . . Prisoners discovered wearing clothes underneath their uniforms were executed. A special brutality was practiced against women. If someone was found to be wearing a bra, she would have her breasts painted with red lacquer.”

The daily ration of bread would be just over two pounds for six to eight people, with a tiny piece of butter. This would be accompanied by a watery soup that consisted of a small amount of buckwheat groats, sauerkraut or fish entrails.

In order to get food, one had to work. Some prisoners worked in the nearby stone quarry. Others helped make enamel pots in Oskar Schindler's factory. The Kabel factory used forced labor from Plaszów to produce electrical and telegraph cables for the German war effort. Some women provided domestic duties at the Rakowice airfield, while others sewed Nazi uniforms at Madritsch's company.

As far as sleeping arrangements in the barracks, they were cramped. With men and women segregated, they slept in bunk beds, several to a blanket, and that was if they got a blanket. Many died during the long cold nights.

A rare photo of prisoners at Plaszów.

Jenelle and I took one of the graveled paths that led up a little hill. This would be the “hillock” previously mentioned. The path was lined with wild grass and trees high enough that we couldn't see back into the main area. This hill contained two mass execution sites.

We came to a large cross embedded into a cement foundation with a circle of barbed wire at the top. A small figurine of the crucified Christ was fastened at the crux of the cross. The figurine had only one leg. When we arrived there was an older man on a bicycle.

The name of this site is “Chujowa Górka” or Prick Hill. It is a derogatory pun on the name of Albert Hujar, one of the cruelest camp wardens among the SS. Albert Hujar and Amon Göth oversaw the executions, which were at their apex from September 1943 to mid-February 1944. Here they experimented with the burning of bodies.

When Chujowa Górka became full they leveled it and built barracks on top. The executions continued, but at a location 800 feet to the west. Directly after the war the cross with barbed wire was placed as a memorial.

Chujowa Górka, sight of mass executions in 1943 and 1944.

We walked along the path to the second mass execution site. Here the view opened, with fewer trees and a well-manicured landscape. We had a good view of the other side of the hill toward Henryka Kamieńskiego Street and a quiet Kraków neighborhood.

This site was dominated by a large monument chiseled in stone of five men with arms hanging and heads down, as if dangling from a noose. A fissure in the stone cuts directly across their chests. The name is “Torn heart monument.” The five men represent the five nations or groups at Plaszów: Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Germans (criminals), and Ukrainians.

“Torn heart monument,” at the mass execution sight known as C Dołek.

This mass execution site, called “C Dołek,” was used from February of 1944 until the liquidation of the camp. Between here and Chujowa Górka it is estimated that 8,000 to 12,000 people were murdered.

Bernard Offen paints a grisly scene:

“. . . victims were made to undress and lay side by side on the tree branches they had been made to place there. Then they were shot. One group laid logs down on the corpses before they too were shot. The last group had to pour oil and gasoline and immolate those who had been killed, prior to their own deaths. No one could utter a sound since the Germans had taken care to plug their mouths with plaster. All clothing and possessions were kept for the benefit of the self-proclaimed Ubermenschen. Before being burned the bodies were examined for dental gold, or for money or valuables in any bodies which were still clothed. The killing was completed with the bodies or ashes being covered with earth, through the use of the camp tractor.”

Back side of Torn Heart Monument. 

Looking toward a neighborhood of Kraków from C Dołek.   

As we walked back down the hill, we saw more and more people out for a leisurely stroll. It was a beautiful evening and people were getting off work.

We passed a lady who was on a walk with her daughter and dog. The lady knew enough English that she and Jenelle had a small conversation. She had a cute dog and Jenelle asked if she could pet it.

Dogs and Plaszów bring up another story told by Offen. He recalls his brother's encounter with Amon Göth:

“My eldest brother Sam told me that he remembers Göth coming toward him once when he was working with a shovel in the camp. Göth rode on a horse accompanied by his two Great Danes, Rolf and Ralf, who had to be addressed by prisoners as Herr [Sir]. Göth had trained them to attack when he cried 'Jude'!' [Jew] He did this when he passed Sam, even though my brother had done nothing, urging his dogs to attack. The type of scene that followed obviously amused men like Göth. What happened was that one of the dogs started biting Sam, in his side, above his hips. Even so, Sam tried to keep working and not respond. Eventually, Göth called the dogs off. Sam knew that Göth regularly shot those he had set the dogs on. So Sam was lucky. He knew what had been at stake, but he had survived. He had not reacted by trying to defend himself. It was for this reason his life had been spared. It was a kind of test that Göth put people to.”

Many locals use Plaszów as a place to go for a stroll.

During the fall of 1944, as the Soviet and Allied-controlled Polish armies drew closer, the decision was made to liquidate Plaszów. At that time there was a population of 20,000 at the camp. Prisoners were transported to other concentration camps in Austria, Germany and Poland.

One transfer of approximately 3,000 to 5,000, mostly young girls, was sent on a train to Stutthof, near Gdansk on the coast. They were then put on a ship where SS men sunk the vessel in the middle of the Baltic Sea. All but a few were drowned.

Some prisoners stayed back in Plaszów to dig up bodies and burn them. Barracks and all other buildings were dismantled. The Nazis did all they could to hide evidence of their heinous crimes.―On 18 January 1945 the Red Army liberated Kraków.

Amon Göth delivering a speech in the courtyard of the SS Headquarters.  

Plaszów guard's uniform, displayed in the Oskar Schindler Museum.

Detail of uniform.

We finished our evening wandering around the large open field where once stood the appelplatz and old cemeteries. We watched families and other groups relaxing on the grass. After having spent a few hours it was time for us to go. The sun would soon be setting.

This was a very somber place to visit. Even though it was only a “labor camp,” thousands still died here. It wasn't even a drop in the bucket compared to extermination camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka. May the horrors that were suffered here never be forgotten. ♠

Not much is left of the Old Jewish Cemetery.

Sources

Offen, B., & Jacobs, N. G. (2009). My hometown concentration camp: A survivor’s account of life in the kraków ghetto and Płaszów concentration camp. Vallentine Mitchell.

WW2 locations / Best WW2 books non fiction / Documentaries. (n.d.). Maksym Chorny’s Personal Blog on WWII. https://war-documentary.info/eng

All modern photographs are mine, while the black and white I have extracted from elsewhere.