KL Stutthof, German nazi concentration camp, Sztutowo, Poland (part 2 of 2)

It was said that the camp was created by neighbors for neighbors. Survivors recalled that they recognized their old German friends among the supervisors, with whom they had good neighborly relations before the war. However, KL Stutthof quickly became a real death factory. During its nearly six years of existence, from September 2, 1939 to May 9, 1945, 110,000 people from 28 countries passed through it. The Germans murdered about 65,000 people there, mostly Jews. Today, the Stutthof Museum is located on this site, which occupies only one sixth of the former camp. The rest is covered by forest.

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KL Stutthof, German nazi concentration camp, Sztutowo, Poland (part 1 of 2)

Konzentrationslager Stutthof was established in 1939 on the annexed territories of the Free City of Gdańsk (Freie Stadt Danzig), near the town of Sztutowo. It was the longest-operating concentration camp outside the pre-war borders of Germany. The first transport of prisoners arrived here on September 2, 1939, and numbered about 150 people. In total, about 110,000 prisoners from 28 countries passed through the camp.

Initially, ten wooden barracks were erected on an area of about 4 hectares, where prisoners were placed. This was the so-called Old Camp. From the very beginning, they were overcrowded, poorly insulated, lacking sanitary facilities and basic equipment. In such conditions, various types of parasites and vermin appeared. It quickly turned out that the plans had to be modified - Stutthof was to be larger than the camp in Auschwitz. At the turn of 1940 and 1941, an SS guardhouse and the camp commandant’s office building were built. When Heinrich Himmler arrived there in November, a decision was made for the Concentration Camps Inspectorate in Oranienburg to take over the camp from the local authorities to whom it was formally subordinate. On January 7, 1942, the camp formally became a concentration camp.

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