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. 

The Kraków Ghetto

Ghetto, noun.

1. An area in a city, especially in Europe, in which Jewish people live, often under restrictions imposed by non-Jewish authorities. Now historical.

Originally applied to the Jewish Quarter in Venice, and later to those in Italian cities. The last remaining ghetto in Italy (that of Rome) was abolished in 1870. During the Second World War (1939-45) German occupiers in central and eastern Europe revived them as a means of repressing and confining Jewish people.⸻Oxford English Dictionary

Limanowskiego Street in the Kraków ghetto.

The first Jews to come to Poland likely arrived in the 10th century from countries like Spain, France and Germany. They were travelers and merchants who sought refuge from persecution such as that during the Crusades.

By the 13th century waves of Jews came to Kraków. They were especially welcomed by King Casimir (Ⅲ) the Great and settled in a suburb of Kraków named after him. Kazimierz was located south of the old town of Kraków, across a now non-existent branch of the Vistula River.

The Kazimierz District has now been annexed into the city of Kraków and is known as the Jewish Quarter. For centuries the Jews lived and worked there, becoming the bedrock of the community.

Detail of door and graffiti in the Kraków ghetto.

Nowadays, of course, most of the Jews are gone from Kazimierz, but remnants of their existence still remain. Among many other notable places are the Old Synagogue and the Remuh Cemetery.

After World War Ⅰ and the Treaty of Versailles, Poland regained its independence after years of being partitioned and dominated by other rulers. But during the years between 1918 and 1939 the Jews of Kraków had their rights usurped little by little. Norman Jacobs, a writer on the Holocaust, puts it this way:

“Having caught the attention of the popular (that is non-Jewish) vote, a number of large Jewish-owned businesses were nationalized in the late 1930's and other restrictions―including the prohibition of ritual slaughter of animals, and working on Sundays―were made against Poland's Jewish population. Unassimilated Jews were forbidden to work in the civil service and in the army. In the previous decade, quotas had been enforced for a while, restricting many prospective Jewish students from entering some Polish universities since, according to the government, too high a proportion of students were Jewish; in the previous decade, 25 percent of Kraków's college students had a Jewish background.

“Separate benches for Jews and non-Jews existed from 1937 in some Polish universities. These were called 'bench ghettos'. The anti-Semitic atmosphere of 1930's Europe was a major contributing factor to the genocidal social policy that the Third Reich planned and carried out.”

Kraków ghetto, 1941. German officer checks papers of Jews.     

In September of 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland and World War Ⅱ began. The rights of Jews continued to erode at a much quicker pace, although not all at once. The following chronology of the pre-ghetto period of Kraków is given in Bernard Offen's book, My Hometown Concentration Camp:

6 September 1939, First detachment of German Army in Kraków, 9 am. Bread lines and rationing. First beatings and forced labor for all ages 16 to 60.

8 September 1939, Order made for all Jewish businesses, shops and stalls to be marked with the Star of David the following day.

20 November 1939, Jewish deposits and bank accounts frozen.

8 – 24 November 1939, Registration by Nazis of all Jews from Kraków and the surrounding areas.

1 December 1939, Creation of the Judenrat (Jewish Council). List for forced labor drawn up. All Jews 11 years old and above obliged to wear white armband showing the blue Jewish star.

4 December 1939, Confiscation of automobiles and motorcycles.

5 – 6 December 1939, All homes in Jewish Quarter of Kazimierz searched.

26 January 1940, Jews without special permission forbidden to travel outside Kraków under penalty of death. Jews forbidden to travel by public means of transportation.

April 1940, Hans Frank orders displacement of Jews in Kraków (approximately 16,000).

1 May 1940, Jews prohibited from walking on the Planty greenbelt around Rynek Glówny.

May 1940, Jewish homeowners in central Kraków evacuated. Property confiscated by Nazis. Exclusion of Jews from schools.

15 August 1940, Jews forbidden from entering Kraków city center.

25 November 1940, Edict on permanent residence made resulting in the expulsion of many Jews from Kraków.

3 March 1941, Order made forcing relocation of remaining Jews in Kraków to the ghetto. Initial population: 15,000 to 17,000 people.

Map of Kraków, Poland.

Gate leading into the ghetto.

That brings us to the Ghetto Period of Kraków from 1941 to 1943. Using Bernard Offen's book, My Hometown Concentration Camp, as a guide, my wife and I set out to explore the old Jewish ghetto. Bernard was just a young boy during the Holocaust.

Whereas the old Jewish Quarter (Kazimierz) was located just south of the historical center of Kraków, the new Jewish ghetto (in Podgórze) was located just south of Kazimierz, across the Vistula River. Bernard Offen describes the forced moved this way:

“Jews were forced to leave the old Jewish District of Kazimierz – 'for your protection from the anti-Semitic Poles', according to the Germans. The entire Jewish Quarter of Kraków was taken over by the Germans and 'Aryanized,' something that included putting a brothel on Miodowa Street . . . On the day before the ghetto was sealed, much activity took place, people moving and carrying their possessions to the ghetto . . . The Nazis spared themselves no amount of shame or callousness in choosing the holiest day in the Jewish calendar Yom Kippur, (the Day of Atonement) as the last day for entering the ghetto.”

Jozef Pilsudski Bridge across the Vistula River. 

Jews cross the Vistula River in a forced relocation to the ghetto.

Jews brought their personal belongings.  Unknown to them, everything they owned would eventually be confiscated. 

The ghetto, at that time, was completely surrounded by a wall, confining them to an outdoor prison. The Germans thought it humerus to make the wall resemble Jewish headstones. Nowadays there are only two fragments remaining: one off Limanowskiego Street and the other on Lwowska Street.

When we visited the fragment off Limanowskiego I was surprised to see it next to playground equipment. The small grassy area served as a little park. I watched the children on the equipment, seemingly indifferent or unphased that they were playing next to a wall that once imprisoned and eventually aided the murder of thousands of kids their same age.

Fragment of the wall off Limanowskiego Street.

Wall fragment on Lwowska Street.

Old photo of the ghetto wall. 

It is interesting that Streetcar Number 3 went right through the ghetto. Bernard Offen explains: “. . . the streetcars kept running through the ghetto for almost the whole time of its existence. Everyday, lots of people rode through the ghetto, looking with curiosity at the conditions under which we had to live.”

As Germans and Poles on the streetcars passed through the ghetto and saw the conditions of those poor Jews, I wonder what went through their mind, or were they past feeling?  

Two tram lines still run through the boundaries of the former ghetto, both of them running along Limanowskiego Street, perhaps using the same rails as those of old.

Modern-day tram running through the ghetto.

In the days of the ghetto, no Jews could ride the streetcars, even though it ran through their neighborhood. 

On Józefińska Street #5 was the Mikveh, or ritual Jewish bathhouse. Bernard recalls going there with his father on Fridays before the Sabbath. The building there now looks modern and I doubt it is the same building.

Across the street on the corner of Józefińska and Węgierska was the Central Hospital. On 28 October 1942 all the patients and staff were murdered. Bernard describes what happened during this horrific event:

“Afterwards, my brother Nathan and others had the task of throwing the bodies out of the windows into the courtyard. There were little babies in the hospital. Some were just a few days old and still crying. Nathan saw German SS men pick babies up by their feet and throw them through the window. Outside they were hitting them against the sidewalk again and again until there was silence. They were doing this with all the little babies.”

His brother was forced to load the corpses into a wagon, then follow it to a mass grave where they would unload them. Some were still alive. As they did this they were accompanied by German and Ukrainian soldiers.

“On one of the last transport of corpses, of which there were a number, the SS started shooting at the people in the commando working on moving the bodies, since they wanted to wipe out all witnesses of their crime. My brother, seeing what was happening, jumped into the pit. Covered in blood, and acting as if dead himself, Nathan stayed in the mound of bodies to avoid being spotted. Anyone who moved was shot straight in the head by the couple of men who stayed around looking for any possible escapees. Nathan survived that night. After everything had calmed down, he crawled out from under a heap of bodies, under the cover of night.”

Central Hospital where all staff and patients were murdered in 1942.

Cruelty of the Nazis.

Located aside the Plac Bohaterów is the Apteka Pod Orlem, or The Pharmacy Under the Eagle. This pharmacy was operated by a Catholic man, Tadeusz Pankiewicz. He was the only non-Jewish Pole to maintain a business inside the ghetto. It was of interest to the Nazis to keep out disease by dispensing medicine and basic aid to the Jews.

The pharmacy became a place for clandestine operations, sheltering people and aiding the Jewish resistance group. Mr. Pankiewicz provided hair dyes to make the sickly Jews appear healthier to avoid deportations to the extermination camps. He also provided parents with drugs to help their kids sleep during hiding. He did many other things to help the Jews.

Today the old pharmacy has been restored and it is one of the few (and perhaps the only) museum within the walls of the old ghetto. The museum is simple, but gives the visitor a feel of what it may have been like during the ghetto period.

Apteka Pod Orlem, or The Pharmacy Under the Eagle.

Tadeusz Pankiewicz.

There are three points of interest located just outside the ghetto walls. The first is Oskar Schindler's enamel factory, made famous from Stephen Spielberg's movie Schindler's List. It has now been renovated and turned into a museum that not only teaches about the factory, but the entire Holocaust experience in Kraków.

Schindler, a German, took over the factory from a Jew, as they were no longer allowed to own businesses. At the peak, it is estimated he employed 1,750 workers, most of them being Jews. By employing them and deeming them “necessary” for the cause of the war, he was able to save them from deportation to the extermination camps. It is estimated that Schindler saved 1,200 Jews.

Oskar Schindler's factory, now a museum.

Enamel pots made in the factory.

Portraits of people saved by Oskar Schindler. 

Another similar, but less famous operation, was the Madritsch Clothing Factory. This was also located just outside the fence, but on the other side of the ghetto on Podgórski Market Square.

In this factory they sewed German army uniforms. Although he belonged to the Nazi party, Julius Madritsch helped over 4,000 people during the war, Jew and non-Jew alike. In 1944 he was arrested for assisting the Polish Underground, but was later released through connections he had.

Location of the Madritsch Clothing Factory.

Inside the clothing factory sewing German uniforms. 

Adjacent to the factory was St. Joseph's Church, a place of worship for Catholic Poles. Bernard Offen describes his experience in the market square and with the church in the period before the war:

“In the years before the Nazi invasion, I used to accompany my mother or father to the Rynek―the market―to purchase milk, butter, eggs, cheeses, fresh vegetables, or an occasional chicken. I liked the excitement of lots of people shouting and selling their goods, and the special aroma of the market.

“The main building on Rynek Podgórski is the Saint Joseph Church. Although it's a beautiful church, I rarely looked up at the church when I walked by because as a child, I was afraid. Being a Jew, I was the butt of verbal taunts or was pushed down and spat upon. After all, to many Catholic children, I was a Christ-killer.”

St. Joseph church in Rynek Square.

Back inside the ghetto, our final destination would be Plac Bohaterów, the plaza in front of The Pharmacy Under the Eagle. Before the war it was known as Plac Zgody, or Concord Square. It served as a center of commerce, as well as the site of a bus station.

All this changed as the war began and it became a part of the ghetto. The square became most noted as a staging place for deportations, usually to extermination camps such as Auschwitz.

One such roundup or “aktion” happened on June 4, 1942. Hundreds of Jews were murdered in the streets, while thousands were put on trains and sent to Belzec extermination camp. This massacre and act of violence became known as Bloody Thursday.

Nazi soldiers in Plac Zgody.

Another massacre came in March of 1943 when the entire ghetto was liquidated.

Prior to this the Germans created a Kinderheim (children's home), a place where children under 14 could live while their parents worked. The parents were told they would be taught to weave baskets and other skills that would help them when they got older.

By this time a new concentration camp, Plaszów, had been built. Depending on their ability to work, Jews of the ghetto were either sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau (extermination camp), Plaszów (labor camp), or murdered in the ghetto.⸻ The children from the Kinderheim were shot in Plac Zgody.

Empty chairs in Ghetto Heroes Square.

Nowadays the square has been renamed as Plac Bohaterów Getta, or Ghetto Heroes Square. On the square are 31 empty chairs, representing the former residents of the ghetto who lost their lives.

Bernard Offen describes the final days of the Kraków Ghetto:

“On the morning of 13 March, SS-Oberscharfüher Albert Huyar arrived and shot infants, mothers, doctors and nurses at the main hospital at Jósefińska in the second large Aktion there. My father, brothers and I remained in the square for a large part of the day, while shooting and terror surrounded us, later to be marched to the Plaszów slave-labor camp, carrying some clothing, food and cooking pots, as hundreds of others were being shot in the streets.

“It is estimated that the deaths of around 3,000 people resulted from the liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto, perhaps more.

“Now the ghetto was really Judenrein (Jew-free). The 800-year old community of Kraków Jews had been irreparably destroyed, its people and the property and artifacts of its culture. Synagogues, Torahs and other holy books were all burned or simply stolen and re utilized, part of the Nazi's depraved actions.

“On 14 March the ghetto in Kraków ceased to exist.” ♠

Liquidation of the ghetto in 1943.

Corner of Rękawka and Węgierska streets.

Sources

Aside from Bernard Offen's book, information for this post came from touring the ghetto myself, and visiting Oskar Schindler's museum.  All the modern photos are mine, while the old ones have been pulled from other sites.