Auschwitz and KL Mangersdorf Polenlager 1941-44 Forced labor
Price: | $120.00 |
Labor camp in Magnuszowiczki (German: Zwangsarbeitslager Klein Mangersdorf, formerly: Reichsautobahnlager Klein Mangersdorf, Judenlager Klein Mangersdorf and Judenlager-Arbeitslager Klein Mangersdorf) - former German Nazi forced labor camp for Polish and Jewish people located in the eastern part of the village of Magnuszinowiczki Mangersdorf) in the Opole districtThe camp was probably established in the fall (perhaps also in March) of 1940 and was one of the fifteen camps in the Opole region where slave laborers were detained who were building the motorway from Wrocław to Gliwice and Krakow (basically coinciding with the present A4 motorway, which runs several hundred meters alongside). In the first phase of the camp's operation, 350 Polish workers from the Zagłębie area were brought here. From autumn 1940, Jews from Będzin, Sosnowiec, Czeladź and Chrzanow were brought to their place, and both nationalities stayed there for a short time .On October 20, 1940, the lager was subordinated to the Schmelt Organization. It had 288 places, but about three hundred people were most often held there. On April 30, 1942, there were as many as 398 Jews here. They were forced to work on the route of the motorway under construction (men: clearing forests, moving land, women: farm work in the camp), and formally employed by their company Julius Schallhorn from Berlin. The camp consisted of several barracks for prisoners, one with a bathhouse and one for guards. The prisoners' barracks were unheated, dirty and lice-laden. The work lasted twelve hours a day, the food rations were starving, and the outside parcels were often stolen by the Germans. The prisoners were exhausted and often fell ill. The number of deaths in the camp has not been established yet, but it is known that the corpse was taken to an unknown location and buried in the forest . The camp guards were brutal, and terror reigned in the camp