Polish death camps term. Polish gulag

Auschwitz is a city that has become a symbol of the mercilessness of the fascist regime; the city where one of the most senseless dramas in human history unfolded; a city where hundreds of thousands of people were brutally murdered. In the concentration camps located here, the Nazis built the most terrible conveyor belts of death, exterminating up to 20 thousand people every day... Today I begin to talk about one of the most terrible places on earth - the concentration camps at Auschwitz. I warn you, the photographs and descriptions left below may leave a heavy mark on the soul. Although I personally believe that every person should touch and let through these terrible pages of our history...

There will be very few of my comments on the photographs in this post - this is too sensitive a topic, on which, it seems to me, I do not have the moral right to express my point of view. I honestly admit that visiting the museum left a heavy scar on my heart that still refuses to heal...

Most of the comments on the photos are based on the guidebook (

The concentration camp at Auschwitz was Hitler's largest concentration camp for Poles and prisoners of other nationalities, whom Hitler's fascism doomed to isolation and gradual destruction by hunger, hard work, experimentation, and immediate death through mass and individual executions. Since 1942, the camp has become the largest center for the extermination of European Jews. Most of the Jews deported to Auschwitz died in gas chambers immediately after arrival, without registration or identification with camp numbers. That is why it is very difficult to establish the exact number of those killed - historians agree on a figure of about one and a half million people.

But let's return to the history of the camp. In 1939, Auschwitz and its surroundings became part of the Third Reich. The city was renamed Auschwitz. In the same year, the fascist command came up with the idea of creating a concentration camp. The deserted pre-war barracks near Auschwitz were chosen as the site for the creation of the first camp. The concentration camp is named Auschwitz I.

The education order dates back to April 1940. Rudolf Hoess is appointed camp commandant. On June 14, 1940, the Gestapo sent the first prisoners to Auschwitz I - 728 Poles from the prison in Tarnow.

The gate leading to the camp is with the cynical inscription: “Arbeit macht frei” (Work makes you free), through which the prisoners went to work every day and returned ten hours later. In a small square next to the kitchen, the camp orchestra played marches that were supposed to speed up the movement of prisoners and make it easier for the Nazis to count them.

At the time of its founding, the camp consisted of 20 buildings: 14 one-story and 6 two-story. In 1941-1942, with the help of prisoners, one floor was added to all one-story buildings and eight more buildings were built. The total number of multi-story buildings in the camp was 28 (except for the kitchen and utility buildings). The average number of prisoners fluctuated between 13-16 thousand prisoners, and in 1942 reached over 20 thousand. Prisoners were placed in blocks, also using attics and basements for this purpose.

Along with the increase in the number of prisoners, the territorial volume of the camp increased, which gradually turned into a huge plant for exterminating people. Auschwitz I became the base for a whole network of new camps.

In October 1941, after there was no longer enough space for the newly arrived prisoners at Auschwitz I, work began on the construction of another concentration camp, called Auschwitz II (also known as Bireknau and Brzezinka). This camp was destined to become the largest in the system of Nazi death camps. I .

In 1943, in Monowice near Auschwitz, another camp was built on the territory of the IG Ferbenindustrie plant - Auschwitz III. In addition, in 1942-1944, about 40 branches of the Auschwitz camp were built, which were subordinate to Auschwitz III and were located mainly near metallurgical plants, mines and factories that used prisoners as cheap labor.

Arriving prisoners were taken away from their clothes and all personal items, they were cut, disinfected and washed, and then they were given numbers and registered. Initially, each of the prisoners was photographed in three positions. Since 1943, prisoners began to be tattooed - Auschwitz became the only Nazi camp in which prisoners received tattoos with their number.

Depending on the reasons for their arrest, prisoners received triangles of different colors, which, along with their numbers, were sewn onto their camp clothes. Political prisoners were given a red triangle; Jews wore a six-pointed star consisting of a yellow triangle and a triangle of the color that corresponded to the reason for their arrest. Black triangles were given to gypsies and those prisoners whom the Nazis considered antisocial elements. Jehovah's Witnesses received purple triangles, homosexuals received pink triangles, and criminals received green triangles.

The scanty striped camp clothing did not protect the prisoners from the cold. Linen was changed at intervals of several weeks, and sometimes even at monthly intervals, and the prisoners did not have the opportunity to wash it, which led to epidemics of various diseases, especially typhus and typhoid fever, as well as scabies.

The hands of the camp clock mercilessly and monotonously measured the life of the prisoner. From the morning to the evening gong, from one bowl of soup to the next, from the first count until the moment when the prisoner's corpse was counted for the last time.

One of the disasters of camp life was the inspections at which the number of prisoners was checked. They lasted for several, and sometimes over ten hours. Camp authorities very often announced penalty checks, during which prisoners had to squat or kneel. There were also cases when they were ordered to hold their hands up for several hours.

Along with executions and gas chambers, grueling labor was an effective means of exterminating prisoners. Prisoners were employed in various sectors of the economy. At first they worked during the construction of the camp: they built new buildings and barracks, roads and drainage ditches. A little later, the industrial enterprises of the Third Reich began to increasingly use the cheap labor of prisoners. The prisoner was ordered to do the work at a run, without a second of rest. The pace of work, the meager portions of food, as well as constant beatings and abuse increased the mortality rate. During the return of prisoners to the camp, the dead or wounded were dragged or carried on wheelbarrows or carts.

The prisoner's daily caloric intake was 1300-1700 calories. For breakfast, the prisoner received about a liter of “coffee” or a decoction of herbs, for lunch - about 1 liter of lean soup, often made from rotten vegetables. Dinner consisted of 300-350 grams of black clay bread and a small amount of other additives (for example, 30 g of sausage or 30 g of margarine or cheese) and a herbal drink or “coffee.”

At Auschwitz I, most prisoners lived in two-story brick buildings. Living conditions throughout the camp's existence were catastrophic. The prisoners brought in by the first trains slept on straw scattered on the concrete floor. Later, hay bedding was introduced. About 200 prisoners slept in a room that barely accommodated 40-50 people. The three-tier bunks installed later did not improve living conditions at all. Most often there were 2 prisoners on one tier of bunks.

The malarial climate of Auschwitz, poor living conditions, hunger, scanty clothing that was not changed for a long time, unwashed and unprotected from the cold, rats and insects led to mass epidemics that sharply reduced the ranks of prisoners. A large number of patients who came to the hospital were not admitted due to overcrowding. In this regard, SS doctors periodically carried out selections both among patients and among prisoners in other buildings. Those who were weakened and had no hope of a quick recovery were sent to death in gas chambers or killed in a hospital by injecting a dose of phenol directly into their hearts.

That is why the prisoners called the hospital “the threshold of the crematorium.” At Auschwitz, prisoners were subjected to numerous criminal experiments carried out by SS doctors. For example, Professor Karl Clauberg, in order to develop a quick method of biological destruction of the Slavs, conducted criminal sterilization experiments on Jewish women in building No. 10 of the main camp. Dr. Josef Mengele, as part of genetic and anthropological experiments, conducted experiments on twin children and children with physical disabilities.

In addition, various kinds of experiments were carried out in Auschwitz using new drugs and preparations: toxic substances were rubbed into the epithelium of prisoners, skin transplants were carried out... During these experiments, hundreds of prisoners died.

Despite the difficult living conditions, constant terror and danger, the camp prisoners carried out secret underground activities against the Nazis. It took different forms. Establishing contacts with the Polish population living in the area around the camp made possible the illegal transfer of food and medicine. Information was transmitted from the camp about crimes committed by the SS, lists of names of prisoners, SS men and material evidence of crimes. All parcels were hidden in various objects, often specially intended for this purpose, and correspondence between the camp and the centers of the resistance movement was encrypted.

In the camp, work was carried out to provide assistance to prisoners and explanatory work in the field of international solidarity against Hitlerism. Cultural activities were also carried out, which consisted of organizing discussions and meetings at which prisoners recited the best works of Russian literature, as well as secretly holding religious services.

Check area - here the SS men checked the number of prisoners.

Public executions were also carried out here on a portable or common gallows.

In July 1943, the SS hanged 12 Polish prisoners on it because they maintained relations with the civilian population and helped 3 comrades escape.

The yard between buildings No. 10 and No. 11 is fenced with a high wall. Wooden shutters placed on the windows in block No. 10 were supposed to make it impossible to observe the executions carried out here. In front of the “Wall of Death,” the SS shot several thousand prisoners, mostly Poles.

In the dungeons of building No. 11 there was a camp prison. In the halls on the right and left sides of the corridor, prisoners were placed awaiting the verdict of the military court, which came to Auschwitz from Katowice and, during a meeting that lasted 2-3 hours, imposed from several dozen to over a hundred death sentences.

Before execution, everyone had to undress in the washrooms, and if the number of those sentenced to death was too small, the sentence was carried out right there. If the number of those sentenced was sufficient, they were taken through a small door to be shot at the “Wall of Death.”

The system of punishment that the SS administered in Hitler's concentration camps was part of a well-planned, deliberate extermination of prisoners. A prisoner could be punished for anything: for picking an apple, relieving himself while working, or for pulling out his own tooth to exchange it for bread, even for working too slowly, in the opinion of the SS man.

Prisoners were punished with whips. They were hung by their twisted arms on special poles, placed in the dungeons of a camp prison, forced to perform penalty exercises, stances, or sent to penalty teams.

In September 1941, an attempt was made here to mass exterminate people using the poisonous gas Zyklon B. About 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 sick prisoners from the camp hospital died then.

The cells located in the basements housed prisoners and civilians who were suspected of having connections with prisoners or assisting in escapes, prisoners sentenced to starvation for the escape of a cellmate, and those whom the SS considered guilty of violating camp rules or against whom an investigation was underway. .

All the property that the people deported to the camp brought with them was taken away by the SS. It was sorted and stored in huge barracks in Auszewiec II. These warehouses were called “Canada”. I will tell you more about them in the next report.

The property located in the warehouses of the concentration camps was then transported to the Third Reich for the needs of the Wehrmacht.Gold teeth that were removed from the corpses of murdered people were melted down into ingots and sent to the SS Central Sanitary Administration. The ashes of the burned prisoners were used as manure or they were used to fill nearby ponds and river beds.

Items that previously belonged to people who died in gas chambers were used by SS men who were part of the camp staff. For example, they appealed to the commandant with a request to issue strollers, things for babies and other items. Despite the fact that looted property was constantly being transported by trainloads, the warehouses were overcrowded, and the space between them was often filled with piles of unsorted luggage.

As the Soviet Army approached Auschwitz, the most valuable things were urgently removed from warehouses. A few days before the liberation, the SS men set fire to warehouses, erasing traces of the crime. 30 barracks burned down, and in those that remained, after liberation, many thousands of pairs of shoes, clothes, toothbrushes, shaving brushes, glasses, dentures were found...

While liberating the camp at Auschwitz, the Soviet Army discovered about 7 tons of hair packed in bags in warehouses. These were the remains that the camp authorities did not manage to sell and send to the factories of the Third Reich. The analysis showed that they contain traces of hydrogen cyanide, a special toxic component of drugs called “Cyclone B”. German companies, among other products, produced hair tailor's beads from human hair. Rolls of beading found in one of the cities, located in a display case, were submitted for analysis, the results of which showed that it was made from human hair, most likely women's hair.

It is very difficult to imagine the tragic scenes that played out every day in the camp. Former prisoners - artists - tried to convey the atmosphere of those days in their work.

Hard work and hunger led to complete exhaustion of the body. From hunger, prisoners fell ill with dystrophy, which very often ended in death. These photographs were taken after liberation; they show adult prisoners weighing from 23 to 35 kg.

In Auschwitz, in addition to adults, there were also children who were sent to the camp along with their parents. First of all, these were the children of Jews, Gypsies, as well as Poles and Russians. Most Jewish children died in gas chambers immediately after arriving at the camp. A few of them, after careful selection, were sent to a camp where they were subject to the same strict rules as adults. Some of the children, such as twins, were subjected to criminal experiments.

One of the most terrible exhibits is a model of one of the crematoria in the Auschwitz II camp. On average, about 3 thousand people were killed and burned in such a building per day...

And this is the crematorium in Auschwitz I. It was located behind the camp fence.

The largest room in the crematorium was the morgue, which was converted into a temporary gas chamber. Here in 1941 and 1942, Soviet prisoners and Jews from the ghetto organized by the Germans in Upper Silesia were killed.

The second part contains two of the three ovens, reconstructed from preserved original metal elements, in which about 350 bodies were burned during the day. Each retort housed 2-3 corpses at a time.

Nazi sadists largely repeated the actions of their Polish predecessors. (And if the Germans acted more like ants - doing routine work, then the Poles killed with passion and pleasure - arctus)

Nazi sadists largely repeated the actions of their Polish predecessors.

It is known that in Poland history has long been a character active on the political scene. Therefore, bringing “historical skeletons” to this stage has always been a favorite activity of those Polish politicians who do not have solid political baggage and, for this reason, prefer to engage in historical speculation.

The situation in this regard received a new impetus when, after winning the parliamentary elections in October 2015, the party of the ardent Russophobe Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Law and Justice (PiS), returned to power. The protege of this party, Andrzej Duda, became the President of Poland. Already on February 2, 2016, at a meeting of the National Development Council, the new president formulated a conceptual approach to Warsaw’s foreign policy: “The historical policy of the Polish state should be an element of our position in the international arena. It must be offensive."

An example of such “offensiveness” was the recent bill approved by the Polish government. It provides for imprisonment of up to three years for the phrases “Polish concentration camp” or “Polish death camps,” in reference to the Nazi camps that operated in occupied Poland during World War II. The author of the bill, the Polish Minister of Justice, explained the need for its adoption by the fact that such a law would more effectively protect the “historical truth” and “the good name of Poland.”

In this regard, a little history. The phrase “Polish death camp” came into use largely with the “light hand” of Jan Karski, an active participant in the Polish anti-Nazi resistance. In 1944, he published an article in Colliers Weekly entitled “The Polish Death Camp.”

In it, Karski told how he, disguised as a German soldier, secretly visited the ghetto in Izbica Lubelska, from which prisoners Jews, Gypsies and others were sent to the Nazi extermination camps “Belzec” and “Sobibor”. Thanks to Karski’s article, and then the book he wrote, “Courier from Poland: Story of a Secret State,” the world first learned about the Nazis’ mass extermination of Jews in Poland.

I note that for 70 years after World War II, the phrase “Polish death camp” was generally understood as a Nazi death camp located on Polish territory.

The problems began when US President Barack Obama in May 2012, posthumously awarding J. Karski the Presidential Medal of Freedom, mentioned the “Polish death camp” in his speech. Poland was indignant and demanded an explanation and apology, since such a phrase allegedly cast a shadow on Polish history. Pope Francis' visit to Poland in July 2016 added fuel to the fire. Then, in Krakow, Francis met with the only woman born and survivor of the Nazi camp Auschwitz (Auschwitz). In his speech, the Pope called her birthplace "the Polish concentration camp Auschwitz." This clause was replicated by the Vatican Catholic portal “IlSismografo”. Poland was again indignant. These are the known origins of the above-mentioned Polish bill.

However, the point here is not only the above-mentioned unfortunate reservations of world leaders regarding the Nazi camps.

The Polish authorities, in addition, urgently need to block any memories that in Poland in 1919 - 1922. There was a network of concentration camps for Red Army prisoners of war captured during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919–1920.

It is known that due to the conditions of existence of prisoners of war in them, these camps were the forerunners of the Nazi concentration death camps.

However, the Polish side does not want to recognize this documented fact and reacts very painfully when statements or articles appear in the Russian media that mention Polish concentration camps. Thus, a sharply negative reaction from the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in the Russian Federation was caused by an article by Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, associate professor of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Perm), entitled “Indifferent and patient” (02/05/2015.Lenta.ru https://lenta.ru/articles/2015 /02/04/poland/).

The Deputy Polish Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Jaroslaw Ksionzek, in a letter to the editor of Lenta.ru, stated that the Polish side categorically objects to the use of the definition of “Polish concentration camps”, because it in no way corresponds to historical truth. In Poland from 1918 to 1939. such camps allegedly did not exist.

However, Polish diplomats, refuting Russian historians and publicists, once again got into a puddle. I had to face critical assessments of my article “The Lies and Truth of Katyn”, published in the newspaper “Spetsnaz Rossii” (No. 4, 2012). The critic then was Grzegorz Telesnicki, First Secretary of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in the Russian Federation. In his letter to the editors of Spetsnaz Rossii, he categorically asserted that the Poles did not participate in the Nazi exhumation of Katyn graves in 1943.

Meanwhile, it is well known and documented that specialists from the Technical Commission of the Polish Red Cross participated in the Nazi exhumation in Katyn from April to June 1943, fulfilling, in the words of the Minister of Nazi Propaganda and the main falsifier of the Katyn crime J. Goebbels, the role of “objective” witnesses. Equally false is the statement of Mr. J. Książyk about the absence of concentration camps in Poland, which is easily refuted by documentation.

Polish forerunners of Auschwitz-Birkenau

To begin with, I will conduct a small educational program for Polish diplomats. Let me remind you that in the period 2000–2004. Russian and Polish historians, in accordance with the Agreement between the Russian Archives and the General Directorate of State Archives of Poland, signed on December 4, 2000, prepared a collection of documents and materials “Red Army soldiers in Polish captivity in 1919–1922.” (hereinafter referred to as the collection “Red Army Men...”).

So, in the collection “Red Army Soldiers...” document No. 72 is presented, called “Temporary instructions for concentration camps for prisoners of war, approved by the Supreme Command of the Polish Army.”

Let me give a short quote from this document: “...Following the orders of the Supreme Command No. 2800/III of 18.IV.1920, No. 17000/IV of 18.IV.1920, No. 16019/II, and also 6675/San. temporary instructions for concentration camps are issued... Camps for Bolshevik prisoners, which should be created by order of the Supreme Command of the Polish Army No. 17000/IV in Zvyagel and Ploskirov, and then Zhitomir, Korosten and Bar, are called "Concentration camp for prisoners of war No. ...".

So, gentlemen, a question arises. How, having adopted a law on the inadmissibility of calling Polish concentration camps, will you deal with those Polish historians who allow themselves to refer to the above-mentioned “Temporary Instructions...”? But I will leave this issue for consideration by Polish lawyers and return to Polish prisoner of war camps, including those called concentration camps.

Familiarization with the documents contained in the collection “Red Army Soldiers...” allows us to confidently assert that the point is not in the name, but in the essence of the Polish prisoner of war camps. They created such inhuman conditions for keeping Red Army prisoners of war that they can rightfully be considered as the forerunners of Nazi concentration camps.

This is evidenced by the absolute majority of documents placed in the collection “Red Army Men...”.

To substantiate my conclusion, I will allow myself to refer to the testimony of former Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoners Ota Kraus (No. 73046) and Erich Kulka (No. 73043). They went through the Nazi concentration camps of Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz-Birkenau and were well aware of the rules established in these camps. Therefore, in the title of this chapter I used the name “Auschwitz-Birkenau”, since it was this name that was used by O. Kraus and E. Kulka in their book “The Death Factory” (M.: Gospolitizdat, 1960).

The atrocities of the guards and the living conditions of Red Army prisoners of war in Polish camps are very reminiscent of the Nazi atrocities at Auschwitz-Birkenau. For those who doubt, I will give a few quotes from the book “Factory of Death”.

O. Kraus and E. Kulka wrote that

“They didn’t live in Birkenau, but huddled in wooden barracks 40 meters long and 9 meters wide. The barracks had no windows, were poorly lit and ventilated... In total, the barracks housed 250 people. There were no washrooms or toilets in the barracks. Prisoners were forbidden to leave the barracks at night, so at the end of the barracks there were two tubs for sewage...”

“Exhaustion, illness and death of prisoners were caused by insufficient and poor nutrition, and more often by real hunger... There were no utensils for food in the camp... The prisoner received less than 300 grams of bread. Bread was given to the prisoners in the evening, and they ate it immediately. The next morning they received half a liter of a black liquid called coffee or tea and a tiny portion of sugar. For lunch, the prisoner received less than a liter of stew, which should have contained 150 g of potatoes, 150 g of turnips, 20 g of flour, 5 g of butter, 15 g of bones. In fact, it was impossible to find such modest doses of food in the stew... With poor nutrition and hard work, a strong and healthy beginner could only last for three months...”

“For entire groups of prisoners... a punishment commonly used was called 'sport.' Prisoners were forced to quickly fall to the ground and jump up, crawl on their bellies and squat... Transfer to a prison block was a common measure for certain offenses. And staying in this block meant certain death... In the blocks, the prisoners slept without mattresses, right on bare boards... Along the walls and in the middle of the block-infirmary there were bunks with mattresses soaked in human waste... The sick lay next to the dying and already dead prisoners.”

Below I will give similar examples from Polish camps. Surprisingly, the Nazi sadists largely repeated the actions of their Polish predecessors. So, let’s open the collection “Red Army Men...”. Here is document No. 164, called “Report on the results of the inspection of the camps in Dąba and Strzałkowo” (October 1919).

“Inspection of the Dombe camp... The buildings are wooden. The walls are not solid, some buildings do not have wooden floors, the chambers are large... Most of the prisoners are without shoes - completely barefoot. There are almost no beds or bunks... There is no straw or hay. They sleep on the ground or boards... No linen or clothes; cold, hunger, dirt and all this threatens with enormous mortality...".

“Report on the inspection of the Strzalkowo camp. ...The state of health of the prisoners is appalling, the hygienic conditions of the camp are disgusting. Most of the buildings are dugouts with holes in the roofs, earthen floors, planks are very rare, the windows are covered with boards instead of glass... Many barracks are overcrowded. So, on October 19 this year. The barracks for captured communists were so crowded that entering it in the midst of the fog it was difficult to see anything. The prisoners were so crowded that they could not lie down, but were forced to stand, leaning on one another...”

It has been documented that in many Polish camps, including Strzałkowo, the Polish authorities did not bother to resolve the issue of prisoners of war meeting their natural needs at night. There were no toilets or buckets in the barracks, and the camp administration, under pain of execution, forbade leaving the barracks after 6 pm. Each of us can imagine such a situation...

It was mentioned in document No. 333 “Note of the Russian-Ukrainian delegation to the chairman of the Polish delegation with a protest against the conditions of detention of prisoners in Strzalkowo” (December 29, 1921) and in document No. 334 “Note of the Plenipotentiary Mission of the RSFSR in Warsaw of the Polish Foreign Ministry regarding the abuse of Soviet prisoners of war in the Strzalkowo camp" (January 5, 1922).

It should be noted that in both Nazi and Polish camps, the beating of prisoners of war was commonplace. Thus, in the above-mentioned document No. 334 it was noted that in the Strzalkowo camp “to this day, abuses of the personality of prisoners occur. Beatings of prisoners of war are a constant phenomenon...” It turns out that brutal beatings of prisoners of war in the Strzalkowo camp were practiced from 1919 to 1922.

This is confirmed by document No. 44 “Attitude of the Ministry of War of Poland to the Supreme Command of the Supreme Command regarding an article from the newspaper “Courier Nowy” regarding the abuse of Latvians who deserted from the Red Army with a transmittal note from the Ministry of War of Poland to the High Command” (January 16, 1920). It says that upon arrival at the Strzalkovo camp (apparently in the fall of 1919), the Latvians were first robbed, leaving them in their underwear, and then each of them received 50 blows with a barbed wire rod. More than ten Latvians died from blood poisoning, and two were shot without trial.

Responsible for this barbarity were the head of the camp, Captain Wagner, and his assistant, Lieutenant Malinovsky, who were distinguished by their sophisticated cruelty.

This is described in document No. 314 “Letter from the Russian-Ukrainian delegation to the Polish delegation of the PRUSK with a request to take action on the application of Red Army prisoners of war regarding the former commandant of the camp in Strzalkowo” (September 3, 1921).

The Red Army statement said that

“Lieutenant Malinovsky always walked around the camp, accompanied by several corporals who had wire lashes in their hands and ordered whoever he didn’t like to lie down in a ditch, and the corporals beat him as much as was ordered. If the beaten one moaned or begged for mercy, it was time. Malinovsky took out his revolver and shot... If the sentries shot the prisoners then. Malinowski gave them 3 cigarettes and 25 Polish marks as a reward... Repeatedly it was possible to observe how a group led by por. Malinovsky climbed onto machine gun towers and from there fired at defenseless people...”

Polish journalists became aware of the situation in the camp, and Lieutenant Malinowski was “put on trial” in 1921, and Captain Wagner was soon arrested. However, there are no reports of any punishments they suffered. Probably, the case was slowed down, since Malinovsky and Wagner were not charged with murder, but with “abuse of official position”?! Accordingly, the system of beatings in the Strzalkowo camp, and not only there, remained the same until the closure of the camps in 1922.

Like the Nazis, the Polish authorities used starvation as an effective means of exterminating captured Red Army soldiers. Thus, in document No. 168 “Telegram from the fortified region of Modlin to the section of prisoners of the High Command of the Polish Army about the mass disease of prisoners of war in the Modlin camp” (dated October 28, 1920) it is reported that an epidemic is raging among prisoners of war at the concentration station of prisoners and internees in Modlin stomach diseases, 58 people died. “The main causes of the disease are the prisoners’ consumption of various raw peelings and their complete lack of shoes and clothing.” I note that this is not an isolated case of starvation deaths of prisoners of war, which is described in the documents of the collection “Red Army Soldiers...”.

A general assessment of the situation that prevailed in Polish prisoner-of-war camps was given in document No. 310 “Minutes of the 11th meeting of the Mixed (Russian, Ukrainian and Polish delegations) repatriation commission on the situation of captured Red Army soldiers” (July 28, 1921). It was noted there, that “RUD (Russian-Ukrainian delegation) could never allow prisoners to be treated so inhumanely and with such cruelty... RUD does not remember the sheer nightmare and horror of beatings, mutilations and complete physical extermination that was carried out on Russian prisoners of war of the Red Army, especially communists, in the first days and months of captivity... .

The same protocol noted that “The Polish camp command, as if in retaliation after the first visit of our delegation, sharply intensified its repressions... Red Army soldiers are beaten and tortured for any reason and for no reason... the beatings took the form of an epidemic... When the camp command considers it possible to provide more humane conditions for the existence of prisoners of war, then prohibitions come from the Center.”

A similar assessment is given in document No. 318 “From the note of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR to the Charge d'Affaires Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Polish Republic T. Fillipovich on the situation and death of prisoners of war in Polish camps” (September 9, 1921).

It said: “The Polish Government remains entirely responsible for the unspeakable horrors that are still being committed with impunity in places like the Strzałkowo camp. It is enough to point out that within two years, out of 130,000 Russian prisoners of war in Poland, 60,000 died.”

According to the calculations of the Russian military historian M.V. Filimoshin, the number of Red Army soldiers who died and died in Polish captivity is 82,500 people (Filimoshin. Military History Magazine, No. 2. 2001). This figure seems quite reasonable. I believe that the above allows us to assert that Polish concentration camps and prisoner of war camps can rightfully be considered the forerunners of Nazi concentration camps.

I refer distrustful and inquisitive readers to my research “Antikatyn, or Red Army soldiers in Polish captivity”, presented in my books “The Secret of Katyn” (M.: Algorithm, 2007) and “Katyn. Modern history of the issue" (M.: Algorithm, 2012). It gives a more comprehensive picture of what was happening in the Polish camps.

Violence due to dissent

It is impossible to complete the topic of Polish concentration camps without mentioning two camps: the Belarusian “Bereza-Kartuzskaya” and the Ukrainian “Bialy Podlaski”. They were created in 1934 by the decision of the Polish dictator Jozef Pilsudski, as a means of reprisal against Belarusians and Ukrainians who protested against the Polish occupation regime of 1920–1939. Although they were not called concentration camps, in some ways they surpassed the Nazi concentration camps.

But first, about how many Belarusians and Ukrainians accepted the Polish regime established in the territories of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine captured by the Poles in 1920. This is what the newspaper Rzeczpospolita wrote in 1925. “...If there are no changes for several years, then we will have a general armed uprising there (in the eastern cresses). If we don’t drown it in blood, it will tear several provinces away from us... There is a gallows for an uprising and nothing more. Horror must fall on the entire local (Belarusian) population from top to bottom, from which the blood in their veins will freeze.”

In the same year, the famous Polish publicist Adolf Nevchinsky, on the pages of the Slovo newspaper, stated that it was necessary to conduct a conversation with Belarusians in the language of “gallows and only gallows... this will be the most correct resolution of the national question in Western Belarus.”

Feeling public support, Polish sadists in Bereza-Kartuzska and Biała Podlaska did not stand on ceremony with the rebellious Belarusians and Ukrainians. If the Nazis created concentration camps as monstrous factories for the mass extermination of people, then in Poland such camps were used as a means of intimidating the disobedient. How else can one explain the monstrous tortures to which Belarusians and Ukrainians were subjected? I will give examples.

The management of Bereza-Kartuzskaya cynically called it “the most athletic camp in Europe.” It was forbidden to walk here - only run. Everything was done on the whistle. Even the dream was on such a command. Half an hour on your left side, then the whistle, and immediately turn over to your right. Anyone who hesitated or did not hear the whistle in a dream was immediately subjected to torture. Before such a “sleep”, several buckets of water with bleach were poured into the rooms where the prisoners slept, for “prevention”. The Nazis failed to think of this.

The commandant of Bereza-Kartuzska, Józef Kamal-Kurganski, in response to statements that prisoners could not withstand the torture conditions of detention and preferred death, calmly declared: “The more of them who rest here, the better it will be to live in my Poland.”

I believe that the above is enough to imagine what Polish camps for the rebellious are, and the story about the Biala Podlaska camp will be redundant.

In conclusion, I will add that the use of feces for torture was a favorite means of Polish gendarmes, apparently suffering from unsatisfied sadomasochistic tendencies. There are known facts when employees of the Polish defense forces forced prisoners to clean toilets with their hands, and then, without allowing them to wash their hands, they gave them lunch rations. Those who refused had their hands broken. Sergei Osipovich Pritytsky, a Belarusian fighter against the Polish occupation regime in the 1930s, recalled how Polish police poured slurry into his nose.

This is the unpleasant truth about the “skeleton in the Polish closet” called “concentration camps” that forced me to tell the gentlemen from Warsaw and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in the Russian Federation.

P.S. Panova, please keep this in mind. I am not a Polonophobe. I enjoy watching Polish films, listening to Polish pop music, and I regret that I did not master the Polish language at one time. But I “hate it” when Polish Russophobes brazenly distort the history of Polish-Russian relations with the tacit consent of official Russia.

Concentration camps in Poland were 20 years before the German “death factories”

The hell of Polish concentration camps and captivity destroyed tens of thousands of our compatriots. Two decades before Khatyn and Auschwitz.
The military Gulag of the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is more than a dozen concentration camps, prisons, marshalling stations, concentration points and various military facilities such as the Brest Fortress (there were four camps here) and Modlin. Strzałkowo (in western Poland between Poznan and Warsaw), Pikulice (in the south, near Przemysl), Dombie (near Krakow), Wadowice (in southern Poland), Tuchole, Shipturno, Bialystok, Baranovichi, Molodechino, Vilna, Pinsk, Bobruisk...

And also - Grodno, Minsk, Pulawy, Powazki, Lancut, Kovel, Stryi (in the western part of Ukraine), Shchelkovo... Tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers who found themselves in Polish captivity after the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1920 found a terrible, painful death here .

The attitude of the Polish side towards them was very clearly expressed by the commandant of the camp in Brest, who stated in 1919: “You, Bolsheviks, wanted to take our lands away from us - okay, I’ll give you the land. I have no right to kill you, but I will feed you so much that you yourself will die.” Words did not diverge from deeds. According to the memoirs of one of those who arrived from Polish captivity in March 1920, “We did not receive bread for 13 days, on the 14th day, it was at the end of August, we received about 4 pounds of bread, but it was very rotten, moldy... The sick were not treated, and they died in dozens...”

From a report on a visit to the camps in Brest-Litovsk by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the presence of a doctor of the French military mission in October 1919: “A sickening smell emanates from the guardhouses, as well as from the former stables in which prisoners of war are housed. The prisoners are chillingly huddling around a makeshift stove where several logs are burning - the only way to warm themselves. At night, sheltering from the first cold weather, they lie in close rows in groups of 300 people in poorly lit and poorly ventilated barracks, on planks, without mattresses or blankets. The prisoners are mostly dressed in rags... Complaints. They are the same and boil down to the following: we are starving, we are freezing, when will we be freed? It should be noted, however, as an exception that proves the rule: the Bolsheviks assured one of us that they would prefer their present fate to the fate of soldiers in the war. Conclusions. This summer, due to overcrowding of premises unsuitable for habitation; close cohabitation of healthy prisoners of war and infectious patients, many of whom died immediately; malnutrition, as evidenced by numerous cases of malnutrition; swelling, hunger during the three months of stay in Brest - the camp in Brest-Litovsk was a real necropolis... Two severe epidemics devastated this camp in August and September - dysentery and typhus. The consequences were aggravated by close living together of sick and healthy, lack of medical care, food and clothing... The mortality record was set in early August, when 180 people died from dysentery in one day... Between July 27 and September 4, t .e. In 34 days, 770 Ukrainian prisoners of war and internees died in the Brest camp. It should be recalled that the number of prisoners imprisoned in the fortress gradually reached, if there is no mistake, 10,000 people in August, and on October 10 it was 3,861 people.”

This is how the Soviets came to Poland in 1920

Later, “due to unsuitable conditions,” the camp in the Brest Fortress was closed. However, in other camps the situation was often even worse. In particular, a member of the League of Nations commission, Professor Thorwald Madsen, who visited the “ordinary” Polish camp for captured Red Army soldiers in Wadowice at the end of November 1920, called it “one of the most terrible things he saw in his life.” In this camp, as former prisoner Kozerovsky recalled, prisoners were “beaten around the clock.” An eyewitness recalls: “Long rods were always lying at the ready... I was spotted with two soldiers caught in a neighboring village... Suspicious people were often transferred to a special punishment barracks, and almost no one came out from there. They fed “once a day a decoction of dried vegetables and a kilogram of bread for 8 people.” There were cases when starving Red Army soldiers ate carrion, garbage and even hay. In the Shchelkovo camp, “prisoners of war are forced to carry their own excrement on themselves instead of horses. They carry both plows and harrows” AVP RF.F.0384.Op.8.D.18921.P.210.L.54-59.

Conditions in transit and in prisons, where political prisoners were also kept, were not the best. The head of the distribution station in Pulawy, Major Khlebowski, very eloquently described the situation of the Red Army soldiers: “obnoxious prisoners in order to spread unrest and ferments in Poland” constantly eat potato peelings from the dung heap. In just 6 months of the autumn-winter period of 1920-1921, 900 prisoners of war out of 1,100 died in Pulawy. The deputy head of the front sanitary service, Major Hakbeil, most eloquently said about what the Polish concentration camp at the collection station in the Belarusian Molodechino was like: “The prisoner camp at collection station for prisoners - it was a real dungeon. No one cared about these unfortunate people, so it is not surprising that a person unwashed, unclothed, poorly fed and placed in inappropriate conditions as a result of infection was doomed only to death.” In Bobruisk “there were up to 1,600 captured Red Army soldiers (as well as Belarusian peasants of the Bobruisk district sentenced to death - Author), most of whom were completely naked”...

According to the testimony of the Soviet writer, an employee of the Cheka in the 20s, Nikolai Ravich, who was arrested by the Poles in 1919 and visited the prisons of Minsk, Grodno, Powązki and the Dombe camp, the cells were so crowded that only the lucky ones slept on bunks. In the Minsk prison there were lice everywhere in the cell, and it was especially cold because outer clothing had been taken away. “In addition to an ounce of bread (50 grams), hot water was provided in the morning and evening, and at 12 o’clock the same water, seasoned with flour and salt.” The transit point in Powązki “was filled with Russian prisoners of war, most of whom were cripples with artificial arms and legs.” The German revolution, writes Ravich, freed them from the camps and they spontaneously went through Poland to their homeland. But in Poland they were detained by special barriers and driven into camps, and some were forced into forced labor.”

And such a “reception” awaited them in captivity...

Most of the Polish concentration camps were built in a very short period of time, some were built by the Germans and Austro-Hungarians. They were completely unsuited for long-term detention of prisoners. For example, the camp in Dąba near Krakow was an entire city with numerous streets and squares. Instead of houses there are barracks with loose wooden walls, many without wooden floors. All this is surrounded by rows of barbed wire. Conditions of detention of prisoners in winter: “most of them without shoes - completely barefoot... There are almost no beds and bunks... There is no straw or hay at all. They sleep on the ground or boards. There are very few blankets.” From a letter from the chairman of the Russian-Ukrainian delegation at peace negotiations with Poland, Adolf Joffe, to the chairman of the Polish delegation, Jan Dombski, dated January 9, 1921: “In Domb, most of the prisoners are barefoot, and in the camp at the headquarters of the 18th division, most do not have any clothes.”

The situation in Bialystok is evidenced by letters preserved in the Central Military Archive from a military medic and the head of the sanitary department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, General Zdzislaw Gordynski-Yukhnovich. In December 1919, he reported in despair to the chief doctor of the Polish Army about his visit to the marshalling station in Bialystok: “I visited the prisoner camp in Bialystok and now, under the first impression, I dared to turn to Mr. General as the chief doctor of the Polish troops with a description of that terrible picture , which appears before the eyes of everyone who ends up in the camp... Once again, the same criminal neglect of their duties by all authorities operating in the camp brought shame on our name, on the Polish army, just as happened in Brest-Litovsk... In The camp is in unimaginable dirt and disorder. At the doors of the barracks there are piles of human waste, which are trampled and carried throughout the camp by thousands of feet. The patients are so weakened that they are unable to reach the latrines. Those, in turn, are in such a state that it is impossible to get closer to the seats, since the entire floor is covered with a thick layer of human feces. The barracks are overcrowded, and there are many sick people among the healthy. According to my data, among the 1,400 prisoners there are no healthy people at all. Covered in rags, they hug each other, trying to keep warm. The stench reigns, emanating from patients with dysentery and gangrene, legs swollen from hunger. Two particularly seriously ill patients lay in their own excrement, leaking from their torn pants. They did not have the strength to move to a dry place. What a terrible picture.” A former prisoner of the Polish camp in Bialystok, Andrei Matskevich, later recalled that a prisoner who was lucky received a day “a small portion of black bread weighing about 1/2 pound (200 grams), one shard of soup, which looked more like slop, and boiling water.”

The concentration camp at Strzałkowo, located between Poznań and Warsaw, was considered the worst. It appeared at the turn of 1914-1915 as a German camp for prisoners from the fronts of the First World War on the border between Germany and the Russian Empire - near the road connecting two border areas - Strzalkowo on the Prussian side and Sluptsy on the Russian side. After the end of World War I, it was decided to liquidate the camp. However, instead it passed from the Germans to the Poles and began to be used as a concentration camp for Red Army prisoners of war. As soon as the camp became Polish (from May 12, 1919), the mortality rate of prisoners of war in it increased more than 16 times during the year. On July 11, 1919, by order of the Ministry of Defense of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it was given the name “prisoner of war camp No. 1 near Strzałkowo” (Obóz Jeniecki Nr 1 pod Strzałkowem).

One could only dream of such a dinner...

After the conclusion of the Riga Peace Treaty, the concentration camp in Strzalkowo was also used to hold internees, including Russian White Guards, military personnel of the so-called Ukrainian People's Army and the formations of the Belarusian “father”-ataman Stanislav Bulak-Bulakhovich. What happened in this concentration camp is evidenced not only by documents, but also by publications in the press of that time.

In particular, the New Courier of January 4, 1921 described in a then sensational article the shocking fate of a detachment of several hundred Latvians. These soldiers, led by their commanders, deserted from the Red Army and went over to the Polish side in order to return to their homeland. They were received very cordially by the Polish military. Before they were sent to the camp, they were given a certificate that they voluntarily went over to the side of the Poles. The robbery began already on the way to the camp. The Latvians were stripped of all their clothes, with the exception of underwear. And those who managed to hide at least part of their belongings had everything taken away from them in Strzałkowo. They were left in rags, without shoes. But this is a small thing compared to the systematic abuse to which they were subjected in the concentration camp. It all started with 50 blows with barbed wire whips, while the Latvians were told that they were Jewish mercenaries and would not leave the camp alive. More than 10 people died from blood poisoning. After this, the prisoners were left for three days without food, forbidden to go out for water on pain of death. Two were shot without any reason. Most likely, the threat would have been carried out, and not a single Latvian would have left the camp alive if its commanders - Captain Wagner and Lieutenant Malinovsky - had not been arrested and put on trial by the investigative commission.

During the investigation, among other things, it turned out that walking around the camp, accompanied by corporals with wire whips and beating prisoners, was Malinovsky’s favorite pastime. If the beaten person moaned or asked for mercy, he was shot. For the murder of a prisoner, Malinovsky rewarded the sentries with 3 cigarettes and 25 Polish marks. The Polish authorities tried to quickly hush up the scandal and the matter.

In November 1919, the military authorities reported to the Polish Sejm commission that the largest Polish prisoner camp No. 1 in Strzałkow was “very well equipped.” In reality, at that time the roofs of the camp barracks were full of holes, and they were not equipped with bunks. It was probably believed that this was good for the Bolsheviks. Red Cross spokeswoman Stefania Sempolowska wrote from the camp: “The Communist barracks were so crowded that the squashed prisoners were unable to lie down and stood propping each other up.” The situation in Strzałkow did not change in October 1920: “Clothes and shoes are very scanty, most walk barefoot... There are no beds - they sleep on straw... Due to lack of food, prisoners, busy peeling potatoes, secretly eat them raw.”

The report of the Russian-Ukrainian delegation states: “Keeping prisoners in their underwear, the Poles treated them not as people of an equal race, but as slaves. The beating of prisoners was practiced at every step...” Eyewitnesses say: “Every day, those arrested are driven out into the street and, instead of walking, are forced to run, ordered to fall into the mud... If a prisoner refuses to fall or, having fallen, cannot rise, exhausted, he is beaten with blows from rifle butts.”

The victory of the Poles and their inspirer Jozef Pilsudski

As the largest of the camps, Strzałkowo was designed for 25 thousand prisoners. In reality, the number of prisoners sometimes exceeded 37 thousand. The numbers changed quickly as people died like flies in the cold. Russian and Polish compilers of the collection “Red Army Men in Polish Captivity in 1919-1922.” Sat. documents and materials” claim that “in Strzałkowo in 1919-1920. About 8 thousand prisoners died.” At the same time, the RCP(b) committee, which operated clandestinely in the Strzalkowo camp, stated in its report to the Soviet Commission on Prisoners of War Affairs in April 1921 that: “in the last epidemic of typhoid and dysentery, 300 people each died. per day... the serial number of the list of those buried has exceeded the 12th thousand...". Such a statement about the enormous mortality rate in Strzałkowo is not the only one.

Despite claims by Polish historians that the situation in Polish concentration camps had once again improved by 1921, documents indicate otherwise. The minutes of the meeting of the Mixed (Polish-Russian-Ukrainian) Commission on Repatriation dated July 28, 1921 noted that in Strzalkow “the command, as if in retaliation after the first arrival of our delegation, sharply intensified its repressions... Red Army soldiers are beaten and tortured for any reason and for no reason... the beatings took the form of an epidemic.” In November 1921, when, according to Polish historians, “the situation in the camps had radically improved,” RUD employees described the living quarters for prisoners in Strzalkow: “Most of the barracks are underground, damp, dark, cold, with broken glass, broken floors and thin roof. Openings in the roofs allow you to freely admire the starry sky. Those placed in them get wet and cold day and night... There is no lighting.”

The fact that the Polish authorities did not consider “Russian Bolshevik prisoners” to be people is also evidenced by the following fact: in the largest Polish prisoner of war camp in Strzałkowo, for 3 (three) years they were unable to resolve the issue of prisoners of war taking care of their natural needs at night. There were no toilets in the barracks, and the camp administration, under pain of execution, forbade leaving the barracks after 6 pm. Therefore, the prisoners “were forced to send their natural needs into the pots, from which they then had to eat.”

The second largest Polish concentration camp, located in the area of the city of Tuchola (Tucheln, Tuchola, Tuchola, Tuchol, Tuchola, Tuchol), can rightfully challenge Strzałkowo for the title of the most terrible. Or, at least, the most disastrous for people. It was built by the Germans during the First World War, in 1914. Initially, the camp held mainly Russians, later they were joined by Romanian, French, English and Italian prisoners of war. Since 1919, the camp began to be used by the Poles to concentrate soldiers and commanders of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian formations and civilians who sympathized with the Soviet regime. In December 1920, a representative of the Polish Red Cross Society, Natalia Krejc-Welezhinska, wrote: “The camp in Tuchola is the so-called. dugouts, which are entered by steps going down. On both sides there are bunks on which the prisoners sleep. There are no hay fields, straw, or blankets. No heat due to irregular fuel supply. Lack of linen and clothing in all departments. The most tragic are the conditions of the new arrivals, who are transported in unheated carriages, without appropriate clothing, cold, hungry and tired... After such a journey, many of them are sent to the hospital, and the weaker ones die.”

From a letter from a White Guard: “...The internees are housed in barracks and dugouts. They are completely unsuited for winter. The barracks were made of thick corrugated iron, covered on the inside with thin wooden panels, which were torn in many places. The door and partly the windows are fitted very poorly, there is a desperate draft from them... The internees are not even given bedding under the pretext of “malnutrition of the horses.” We think with extreme anxiety about the coming winter” (Letter from Tukholi, October 22, 1921).

Camp in Tukholi then and now...

The State Archive of the Russian Federation contains memoirs of Lieutenant Kalikin, who passed through the concentration camp in Tukholi. The lieutenant who was lucky enough to survive writes: “Even in Thorn, all sorts of horrors were told about Tuchol, but the reality exceeded all expectations. Imagine a sandy plain not far from the river, fenced with two rows of barbed wire, inside which dilapidated dugouts are located in regular rows. Not a tree, not a blade of grass anywhere, just sand. Not far from the main gate are corrugated iron barracks. When you pass by them at night, you hear some strange, soul-aching sound, as if someone is quietly sobbing. During the day the sun in the barracks is unbearably hot, at night it is cold... When our army was interned, the Polish minister Sapieha was asked what would happen to it. “She will be dealt with as required by the honor and dignity of Poland,” he answered proudly. Was Tuchol really necessary for this “honor”? So, we arrived in Tukhol and settled in iron barracks. The cold weather set in, but the stoves were not lit for lack of firewood. A year later, 50% of the women and 40% of the men who were here fell ill, mainly from tuberculosis. Many of them died. Most of my friends died, and there were also people who hanged themselves.”

Red Army soldier Valuev said that at the end of August 1920 he and other prisoners: “They were sent to the Tukholi camp. The wounded lay there, unbandaged for weeks, and their wounds were full of worms. Many of the wounded died; 30-35 people were buried every day. The wounded lay in cold barracks without food or medicine.”

In the frosty November of 1920, the Tuchola hospital resembled a conveyor belt of death: “The hospital buildings are huge barracks, in most cases iron, like hangars. All the buildings are dilapidated and damaged, there are holes in the walls through which you can stick your hand... The cold is usually terrible. They say that during frosty nights the walls become covered with ice. The patients lie on terrible beds... All are on dirty mattresses without bed linen, only 1/4 have some blankets, all are covered with dirty rags or a paper blanket.”

Representative of the Russian Red Cross Society Stefania Sempolovskaya about the November (1920) inspection in Tuchol: “The patients are lying in terrible beds, without bed linen, only a fourth of them have blankets. The wounded complain of terrible cold, which not only interferes with the healing of wounds, but, according to doctors, increases the pain during healing. Sanitary personnel complain about the complete lack of dressings, cotton wool and bandages. I saw bandages drying in the forest. Typhus and dysentery were widespread in the camp and spread to prisoners working in the area. The number of sick people in the camp is so great that one of the barracks in the communist section has been turned into an infirmary. On November 16, more than seventy patients lay there. A significant part is on the ground."

The mortality rate from wounds, disease and frostbite was such that, according to the conclusion of American representatives, after 5-6 months there should have been no one left in the camp. The commissioner of the Russian Red Cross Society, Stefania Sempolovskaya, assessed the mortality rate among prisoners in a similar way: “...Tukholya: The mortality rate in the camp is so high that, according to calculations made by me with one of the officers, with the mortality rate that was in October (1920), the entire camp would have died out in 4-5 months.”

Tombstones of Soviet prisoners of war in dirt and oblivion

The emigrant Russian press, published in Poland and, to put it mildly, had no sympathy for the Bolsheviks, directly wrote about Tukholi as a “death camp” for Red Army soldiers. In particular, the emigrant newspaper Svoboda, published in Warsaw and completely dependent on the Polish authorities, reported in October 1921 that at that time a total of 22 thousand people had died in the Tuchol camp. A similar figure of deaths is given by the head of the II Department of the General Staff of the Polish Army (military intelligence and counterintelligence), Lieutenant Colonel Ignacy Matuszewski.

In his report dated February 1, 1922 to the office of the Minister of War of Poland, General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Ignacy Matuszewski states: “From the materials available to the II Department ... it should be concluded that these facts of escapes from camps are not limited only to Strzałkow, but also occur in all other camps, both for communists and for white internment. These escapes were caused by the conditions in which the communists and internees were (lack of fuel, linen and clothing, poor food, and long waits to leave for Russia). The camp in Tukholi became especially famous, which internees call the “death camp” (about 22,000 captured Red Army soldiers died in this camp."

Analyzing the contents of the document signed by Matuszewski, Russian researchers, first of all, emphasize that it “was not a personal message from a private person, but an official response to the order of the Polish Minister of War No. 65/22 of January 12, 1922, with a categorical instruction to the head of the II Department of the General Staff : “...to provide an explanation under what conditions the escape of 33 communists from the Strzalkowo prisoner camp took place and who is responsible for this.” Such orders are usually given to special services when it is necessary to establish with absolute certainty the true picture of what happened. It was no coincidence that the minister instructed Matuszewski to investigate the circumstances of the escape of communists from Strzałkowo. The head of the II Department of the General Staff in 1920-1923 was the most informed person in Poland on the real state of affairs in the prisoner of war and internment camps. The officers of the II Department subordinate to him were not only involved in “sorting” arriving prisoners of war, but also controlled the political situation in the camps. Due to his official position, Matushevsky was simply obliged to know the real state of affairs in the camp in Tukholi. Therefore, there can be no doubt that long before writing his letter of February 1, 1922, Matuszewski had comprehensive, documented and verified information about the death of 22 thousand captured Red Army soldiers in the Tucholi camp. Otherwise, you have to be a political suicide to, on your own initiative, report unverified facts of this level to the country's leadership, especially on an issue that is at the center of a high-profile diplomatic scandal! Indeed, at that time in Poland passions had not yet had time to cool down after the famous note of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR Georgy Chicherin dated September 9, 1921, in which he, in the harshest terms, accused the Polish authorities of the deaths of 60,000 Soviet prisoners of war.”

In addition to Matuszewski’s report, reports in the Russian émigré press about the huge number of deaths in Tukholi are actually confirmed by reports from hospital services. In particular, a relatively “clear picture regarding the death of Russian prisoners of war can be observed in the “death camp” in Tukholi, in which there were official statistics, but only for certain periods of the prisoners’ stay there. According to these, although not complete, statistics, from the opening of the infirmary in February 1921 (and the most difficult winter months for prisoners of war were the winter months of 1920-1921) and until May 11 of the same year, there were 6,491 epidemic diseases in the camp, 17,294 non-epidemic ones. In total - 23785 diseases. The number of prisoners in the camp during this period did not exceed 10-11 thousand, so more than half of the prisoners there suffered from epidemic diseases, and each of the prisoners had to get sick at least twice in 3 months. Officially, 2,561 deaths were registered during this period, i.e. in 3 months, at least 25% of the total number of prisoners of war died.”

A modern monument on the site of a Polish concentration camp for Soviet

According to Russian researchers, the mortality rate in Tukholi during the most terrible months of 1920/1921 (November, December, January and February) “can only be guessed at. We must assume that it was no less than 2,000 people per month.” When assessing the mortality rate in Tuchola, it must also be remembered that the representative of the Polish Red Cross Society, Krejc-Wieleżyńska, in her report on visiting the camp in December 1920, noted that: “The most tragic of all are the conditions of the new arrivals, who are transported in unheated carriages, without appropriate clothing, cold , hungry and tired... After such a journey, many of them are sent to the hospital, and the weaker ones die.” The mortality rate in such echelons reached 40%. Those who died on the trains, although they were considered sent to the camp and were buried in camp burial grounds, were not officially recorded anywhere in general camp statistics. Their number could only be taken into account by the officers of the II Department, who supervised the reception and “sorting” of prisoners of war. Also, apparently, the mortality rate of newly arrived prisoners of war who died in quarantine was not reflected in the final camp reports.

In this context, of particular interest is not only the above-cited testimony of the head of the II Department of the Polish General Staff, Matuszewski, about mortality in the concentration camp, but also the recollections of local residents of Tucholy. According to them, back in the 1930s there were many areas here “where the ground collapsed under your feet, and human remains protruded from it”...

...The military Gulag of the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth lasted relatively short time - about three years. But during this time he managed to destroy tens of thousands of human lives. The Polish side still admits the death of “16-18 thousand”. According to Russian and Ukrainian scientists, researchers and politicians, in reality this figure may be about five times higher...

Nikolay MALISHEVSKY, “Eye of the Planet”

In the city of Auschwitz, 60 km from Krakow, there is the State Museum of Poland, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, - Auschwitz-Birkenau. During World War II, the largest complex of German concentration camps in Poland was located here. The complex included 3 concentration and death camps: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (Birkenau) and Auschwitz III (Monowitz).

The city of Auschwitz in German sounds like Auschwitz, in September 1939 it was occupied by Hitler's troops and became part of the Third Reich. In 1940, a concentration camp was erected in the buildings of former barracks in Auschwitz Auschwitz I. It subsequently became the administrative center of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex. All one-story buildings were built up to two-story ones, and the former vegetable storehouse became a crematorium and morgue. The first builders of the camp were members of the Jewish community of Auschwitz, and here they would
whether destroyed.

A gate leads to the Auschwitz I concentration camp, above which there is still a cast-iron cynical inscription in German “Arbeit macht Frei” - “Work makes you free” or “Work sets you free.” The buildings in Auschwitz I were called blocks and there were 24 of them in total. In the basements of block No. 11 in 1941, the first test of mass poisoning of people with Zyklon B gas was carried out. Since the experiment was considered successful, the morgue in Crematorium I was converted into a gas chamber. The ovens and chambers exist to this day as a kind of monument to the cruelty of the Nazis. In the yard
Between blocks 10 and 11, prisoners were tortured and shot, now there are wreaths and candles burning here.

The perimeter of the concentration camp was surrounded by a double barbed wire fence, through which a high voltage current was passed, and in 1942, Auschwitz I was additionally surrounded by a high reinforced concrete wall.

Construction Auschwitz II known as Birkenau(or in Polish Brzezinka, from the name of a nearby village), began in October 1941. Usually it is this part of the concentration camp that is meant when talking about the death camp at Auschwitz, since Birkenau was created specifically for mass extermination
The area of the Jews was much larger than Auschwitz I. Here, in one-story barracks, which in reality were ordinary stables, hundreds of thousands of people were kept. The composition of the prisoners was constantly changing: new prisoners from all over occupied Europe poured in a constant stream to replace those destroyed.

A railway was built to the Auschwitz II camp, along which new prisoners were brought in trains every day
V. They were divided into 4 groups:

Prisoners of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp were tattooed on their bodies with an assigned number, and also had triangle stripes attached to their camp clothes. The color of the patch depended on the reasons for the arrest: red was worn by political prisoners, green by criminals, black by gypsies and antisocial persons, pink by homosexuals,
purple - Jehovah's Witnesses. In addition to this, Jews also wore a yellow patch, which together looked like the Star of David.

The prisoners wore thin clothing that did not protect them from the cold, practically did not wash, and very rarely ate food made from rotten waste. All this, combined with exhausting labor, led to rapid deaths from various diseases.

Auschwitz III (Monsheep) was a group of approximately 40 small labor camps that were created around a common complex to serve the needs of mines and factories. Here were prisoners who worked for the needs of the German concern I. G. Farben, for example, produced synthetic rubber at the Buna plant. There are no excursions here.

In November 1944, before the offensive of the USSR army, some of the able-bodied prisoners were transported deep into Germany. On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops entered Auschwitz and freed the prisoners remaining there. The exact number of victims who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp is still unknown; according to various sources, it ranges from 1.2 to 4 million people.

In the modern Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum you can see the barracks in which prisoners lived, the “medical” room where people were killed by injection, gas chambers, crematorium ovens, an execution wall and many evidence of the horror of those times: photographs, lists of the dead, historical
certificates, belongings and letters of prisoners. About a million people visit the Auschwitz concentration camp museum complex, which is in fact the “largest cemetery”, every year. The site of the former concentration camp makes a depressing impression and makes you think that humanity should never allow such Nazi atrocities to happen again.

Nazi sadists largely repeated the actions of their Polish predecessors. ( And if the Germans acted more like ants - doing routine work, then the Poles killed with passion and pleasure - arctus)

Original taken from arctus in Polish concentration camps of the 20s surpassed the Nazi ones in atrocities

I note that for 70 years after World War II, the phrase “Polish death camp” was generally understood as a Nazi death camp located on Polish territory.

The problems began when US President Barack Obama in May 2012, posthumously awarding J. Karski the Presidential Medal of Freedom, mentioned the “Polish death camp” in his speech. Poland was outraged and demanded an explanation and apology,since such a phrase allegedly cast a shadow on Polish history. Pope Francis' visit to Poland in July 2016 added fuel to the fire. Then, in Krakow, Francis met with the only woman born and survivor of the Nazi camp Auschwitz (Auschwitz). In his speech, the Pope called her birthplace "the Polish concentration camp Auschwitz." This clause was replicated by the Vatican Catholic portal “IlSismografo”. Poland was again indignant. These are the known origins of the above-mentioned Polish bill.

However, the point here is not only the above-mentioned unfortunate reservations of world leaders regarding the Nazi camps.

It is known that due to the conditions of existence of prisoners of war in them, these camps were the forerunners of the Nazi concentration death camps.

However, the Polish side does not want to recognize this documented fact and reacts very painfully when statements or articles appear in the Russian media that mention Polish concentration camps. Thus, the article caused a sharply negative reaction from the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in the Russian Federation Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky Associate Professor of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Perm) entitled “ Indifferent and patient"(05.02.2015.Lenta.ru https://lenta.ru/articles/2015/02/04/poland/).

In this article, the Russian historian, analyzing the difficult Polish-Russian relations, called Polish prisoner of war camps concentration camps, and also called the Nazi death camp Auschwitz Auschwitz. He thereby allegedly cast a shadow not only on the Polish city of Auschwitz, but also on Polish history. The reaction of the Polish authorities, as always, was immediate.
The Deputy Polish Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Jaroslaw Ksionzek, in a letter to the editor of Lenta.ru, stated that the Polish side categorically objects to the use of the definition of “Polish concentration camps”, because it in no way corresponds to historical truth. In Poland from 1918 to 1939. such camps allegedly did not exist.

Polish forerunners of Auschwitz-Birkenau
To begin with, I will conduct a small educational program for Polish diplomats. Let me remind you that in the period 2000-2004. Russian and Polish historians, in accordance with the Agreement between the Russian Archives and the General Directorate of State Archives of Poland, signed on December 4, 2000, prepared a collection of documents and materials “ Red Army soldiers in Polish captivity in 1919-1922"(hereinafter referred to as the collection "Red Army Soldiers...").

This 912-page collection was published in Russia in a circulation of 1 thousand copies. (M.; St. Petersburg: Summer Garden, 2004). It contains 338 historical documents revealing the very unpleasant situation that prevailed in Polish prisoner of war camps, including concentration camps. Apparently, for this reason, the Polish side not only did not publish this collection in Polish, but also took measures to buy up part of the Russian circulation.
So, in the collection “Red Army Soldiers...” document No. 72 is presented, called “Temporary instructions for concentration camps for prisoners of war, approved by the Supreme Command of the Polish Army.”
Let me give a short quote from this document: “... Following the orders of the High Command No. 2800/III of 18.IV.1920, No. 17000/IV of 18.IV.1920, No. 16019/II, as well as 6675/San. temporary instructions for concentration camps are issued... The camps for Bolshevik prisoners, which should be created by order of the Supreme Command of the Polish Army No. 17000/IV in Zvyagel and Ploskirov, and then Zhitomir, Korosten and Bar, are called “Concentration camp for prisoners of war No....».

To substantiate my conclusion, I will allow myself to refer to the testimony of former prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau Ota Krausa(No. 73046) and Erich Kulka(No. 73043). They went through the Nazi concentration camps of Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz-Birkenau and were well aware of the rules established in these camps. Therefore, in the title of this chapter I used the name “Auschwitz-Birkenau”, since it was this name that was used by O. Kraus and E. Kulka in their book “The Death Factory” (M.: Gospolitizdat, 1960).

The guard atrocities and living conditions of Red Army prisoners of war in Polish camps are very reminiscent of the Nazi atrocities at Auschwitz-Birkenau. For those who doubt, I will give a few quotes from the book “Factory of Death”.
O. Kraus and E. Kulka wrote that

“They didn’t live in Birkenau, but huddled in wooden barracks 40 meters long and 9 meters wide. The barracks had no windows, were poorly lit and ventilated... In total, the barracks housed 250 people. There were no washrooms or toilets in the barracks. Prisoners were forbidden to leave the barracks at night, so at the end of the barracks there were two tubs for sewage...”

“Exhaustion, illness and death of prisoners were caused by insufficient and poor nutrition, and more often by real hunger... There were no utensils for food in the camp... The prisoner received less than 300 grams of bread. Bread was given to the prisoners in the evening, and they ate it immediately. The next morning they received half a liter of a black liquid called coffee or tea and a tiny portion of sugar. For lunch, the prisoner received less than a liter of stew, which should have contained 150 g of potatoes, 150 g of turnips, 20 g of flour, 5 g of butter, 15 g of bones. In fact, it was impossible to find such modest doses of food in the stew... With poor nutrition and hard work, a strong and healthy beginner could only last for three months...”

Mortality was increased by the punishment system used in the camp. The offenses varied, but, as a rule, the commandant of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, without any analysis of the case“... announced the sentence to the guilty prisoners. Most often, twenty lashes were prescribed... Soon bloody shreds of old clothes were flying in different directions...". The person being punished had to count the number of blows. If he got lost, the execution started all over again.
« For entire groups of prisoners... usually a punishment was applied, which was called "sport". Prisoners were forced to quickly fall to the ground and jump up, crawl on their bellies and squat... Transfer to a prison block was a common measure for certain offenses. And staying in this block meant certain death... In the blocks, prisoners slept without mattresses, right on bare boards... Along the walls and in the middle of the block-infirmary, bunks with mattresses soaked in human waste were installed... The sick lay next to the dying and already dead prisoners».

Below I will give similar examples from Polish camps. Surprisingly, the Nazi sadists largely repeated the actions of their Polish predecessors. So, let’s open the collection “Red Army Men...”. Here is document No. 164, called “ Report on the results of the inspection of the camps in Dąba and Strzałkowo"(October 1919).

“Inspection of the Dombe camp... The buildings are wooden. The walls are not solid, some buildings do not have wooden floors, the chambers are large... Most of the prisoners without shoes are completely barefoot. There are almost no beds or bunks... There is no straw or hay. They sleep on the ground or boards... No linen or clothes; cold, hunger, dirt and all this threatens with enormous mortality...".

Right there.

“Report on the inspection of the Strzalkowo camp. ...The state of health of the prisoners is appalling, the hygienic conditions of the camp are disgusting. Most of the buildings are dugouts with holes in the roofs, earthen floors, planks are very rare, the windows are boarded up instead of glass... Many barracks are overcrowded. So, on October 19 this year. The barracks for captured communists were so crowded that entering it in the midst of the fog it was difficult to see anything. The prisoners were so crowded that they could not lie down, but were forced to stand, leaning on one another...".

It was mentioned in document No. 333 “ Note from the Russian-Ukrainian delegation to the chairman of the Polish delegation protesting against the conditions of detention of prisoners in Strzałkowo" (December 29, 1921) and in document No. 334 " Note from the Plenipotentiary Mission of the RSFSR in Warsaw to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland regarding the abuse of Soviet prisoners of war in the Strzałkowo camp"(January 5, 1922).

It should be noted that in both Nazi and Polish camps, the beating of prisoners of war was commonplace. Thus, in the above-mentioned document No. 334 it was noted that in the Strzałkowo camp “ To this day, violations of the personalities of prisoners occur. The beating of prisoners of war is a constant phenomenon..." It turns out that brutal beatings of prisoners of war in the Strzalkowo camp were practiced from 1919 to 1922.

This is confirmed by document No. 44 “ Attitude of the Ministry of War of Poland to the High Command of the Eastern Military District regarding an article from the newspaper “Courier Nowy” regarding the abuse of Latvians who deserted from the Red Army with a transmittal note from the Ministry of War of Poland to the High Command"(January 16, 1920). It says that upon arrival at the Strzalkovo camp (apparently in the fall of 1919), the Latvians were first robbed, leaving them in their underwear, and then each of them received 50 blows with a barbed wire rod. More than ten Latvians died from blood poisoning, and two were shot without trial.

Those responsible for this barbarity were the head of the camp, Captain Wagner and his assistant lieutenant Malinovsky, characterized by sophisticated cruelty.
This is described in document No. 314 “ Letter from the Russian-Ukrainian delegation to the Polish delegation of the PRUSK with a request to take action on the application of Red Army prisoners of war regarding the former commandant of the camp in Strzałkowo"(September 03, 1921).

The Red Army statement said that

“Lieutenant Malinovsky always walked around the camp, accompanied by several corporals who had wire lashes in their hands and ordered whoever he didn’t like to lie down in a ditch, and the corporals beat him as much as was ordered. If the beaten one moaned or begged for mercy, it was time. Malinovsky took out his revolver and shot... If the sentries shot the prisoners then. Malinowski gave them 3 cigarettes and 25 Polish marks as a reward... Repeatedly it was possible to observe how a group led by por. Malinovsky climbed onto machine gun towers and from there fired at defenseless people...”

“The main causes of the disease are the prisoners eating various raw peelings and their complete lack of shoes and clothing" I note that this is not an isolated case of starvation deaths of prisoners of war, which is described in the documents of the collection “Red Army Soldiers...”.

A general assessment of the situation prevailing in Polish prisoner of war camps was given in document No. 310 “ Minutes of the 11th meeting of the Mixed (Russian, Ukrainian and Polish delegations) repatriation commission on the situation of captured Red Army soldiers"(July 28, 1921) It was noted that "

RUD (Russian-Ukrainian delegation) could never allow prisoners to be treated so inhumanely and with such cruelty... RUD does not remember the sheer nightmare and horror of beatings, mutilations and complete physical extermination that was carried out on Russian prisoners of war of the Red Army, especially communists, in the first days and months of captivity... .
The same protocol noted that “The Polish camp command, as if in retaliation after the first visit of our delegation, sharply intensified its repressions... Red Army soldiers are beaten and tortured for any reason and for no reason... the beatings took the form of an epidemic... When the camp command considers it possible to provide more humane conditions for the existence of prisoners of war, then prohibitions come from the Center».

A similar assessment is given in document No. 318 “ From a note from the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR to the Charge d'Affaires Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Polish Republic T. Fillipovich on the situation and death of prisoners of war in Polish camps"(September 9, 1921).
It said: "

The Polish Government remains entirely responsible for the unspeakable horrors that are still being committed with impunity in places such as the Strzałkowo camp. It is enough to point out that within two years, out of 130,000 Russian prisoners of war in Poland, 60,000 died ».

I refer distrustful and inquisitive readers to my research " Antikatyn, or Red Army soldiers in Polish captivity”, presented in my books “The Secret of Katyn” (M.: Algorithm, 2007) and “Katyn. Modern history of the issue" (M.: Algorithm, 2012). It gives a more comprehensive picture of what was happening in the Polish camps.

Violence due to dissent
It is impossible to complete the topic of Polish concentration camps without mentioning two camps: the Belarusian " Birch-Kartuzskaya" and Ukrainian " Bialy Podlaski" They were created in 1934 by decision of the Polish dictator Jozef Piłsudski, as a means of reprisal against Belarusians and Ukrainians who protested against the Polish occupation regime of 1920-1939. Although they were not called concentration camps, in some ways they surpassed the Nazi concentration camps.

But first about how many Belarusians and Ukrainians accepted the Polish regime established in the territories of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine captured by the Poles in 1920 . This is what the newspaper Rzeczpospolita wrote in 1925.« ...If there are no changes within several years, then we will have a general armed uprising there (in the eastern cresses). If we don’t drown it in blood, it will tear several provinces away from us... There is a gallows for an uprising and nothing more. Horror must fall on the entire local (Belarusian) population from top to bottom, from which the blood in their veins will freeze » .

In the same year, the famous Polish publicist Adolf Nevchinsky on the pages of the newspaper “Slovo” stated that with Belarusians it is necessary to conduct a conversation in the language of “gallows and only gallows... this will be the most correct resolution of the national question in Western Belarus».

In Bereza-Kartuzskaya, 40 people were crammed into small cells with a cement floor. To prevent prisoners from sitting down, the floor was constantly watered. They were forbidden to even talk in the cell. They tried to turn people into dumb cattle. A regime of silence for prisoners was also in force in the hospital. They beat me for moaning, for grinding teeth from unbearable pain.
The management of Bereza-Kartuzskaya cynically called it “the most athletic camp in Europe.” It was forbidden to walk here - only run. Everything was done on the whistle. Even the dream was on such a command. Half an hour on your left side, then the whistle, and immediately turn over to your right. Anyone who hesitated or did not hear the whistle in a dream was immediately subjected to torture. Before such a “sleep”, several buckets of water with bleach were poured into the rooms where the prisoners slept, for “prevention”. The Nazis failed to think of this.

The conditions in the punishment cell were even more terrible.The offenders were kept there from 5 to 14 days. To increase the suffering, several buckets of feces were poured onto the floor of the punishment cell.. The pit in the punishment cell had not been cleaned for months. The room was infested with worms. In addition, the camp practiced group punishment such as cleaning camp toilets with glasses or mugs.
Commandant of Bereza-Kartuzskaya Jozef Kamal-Kurgansky in response to statements that prisoners could not stand the torture conditions and preferred death, calmly stated: “ The more of them rest here, the better it will be to live in my Poland.».

I believe that the above is enough to imagine what Polish camps for the rebellious are, and the story about the Biala Podlaska camp will be redundant.

In conclusion I will add that the use of feces for torture was a favorite means of Polish gendarmes, apparently suffering from unsatisfied sadomasochistic tendencies. There are known facts when employees of the Polish defense forces forced prisoners to clean toilets with their hands, and then, without allowing them to wash their hands, they gave them lunch rations. Those who refused had their hands broken. Sergey Osipovich Pritytsky, a Belarusian fighter against the Polish occupation regime in the 1930s, recalled how Polish police poured slurry into his nose.

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