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Salomon Morel and the Camp at Świętochłowice-Zgoda - 2 |
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Epidemics and mortalityHunger reigned in the camp from the very beginning. Some groups of prisoners received nothing to eat at all for several days, and the normal daily ration was a slice of bread and watery soup. Prisoners’ descriptions of the ingredients of the soup vary - nettles, hair, sometimes a piece of cabbage, maize or carrot – but all agree that basically, it was just hot water without any fat. All the witnesses talk of the hunger that reigned in the camp; some recall eating grass or scraps of food that they found. The prisoners had no plates or cutlery – they only had old, rusted tin cans, and sometimes one can had to be shared between many prisoners. They were given no soap or other cleaning agents, in the shower block there was only cold water[31].The tragic sanitary conditions and low food rations led to a widespread epidemic of dysentery, typhus and typhoid. Realising the danger, the doctors vaccinated the camp staff against typhus.[32] But they did not bother about the prisoners – there was no delousing, no isolation of the sick. Franz Brachmann recalls that the camp administration was indifferent to the deaths of inmates, and only when almost every single prisoner in barrack 7 (accommodating chiefly members of Nazi organisations) was ill were they provided with medicinal charcoal[33]. The guards did not enter the barrack through fear of infection. The epidemic spread to the whole camp and was of such intensity that barracks 4, 6 and 7 were soon completely empty[34]. The lightning spread of the epidemic was encouraged by the fact that the prisoners were jam-packed inside the barracks and in a weakened state. Mass deaths occurred. The death records indicate that the epidemic began to reap a rich harvest as of 26 July 1945, when for the first time, the number of deaths in a single day exceeded 15. Over the next 7 weeks, until 8 September, between 8 and 34 deaths of prisoners were recorded daily. In August alone, 632 prisoners died in Zgoda. The final days of July and first days of August saw the greatest number of victims: 28 July – 27 deaths, 29 July – 24, 30 July – 28, 31 July – 34, 1 August – 35, 2 August – 38, 3 August – 38 and 4 August - 35. Altogether, a total of 259 deaths of prisoners was recorded during these eight most tragic days[35]. In the middle of July, a typhus epidemic broke out which caused the gradual depopulation of the camp. The final days of July and first days of August saw the greatest number of victims; altogether, a total of 259 deaths of prisoners was recorded during these eight most tragic days[36]. Morel did not inform his superiors of the epidemic. During meeting between 10-13 August 1945, the director of the Department of Prisons and Camps of the MBP expressed his misgivings about the fact that he learned that “there are 716 sick prisoners in Świętochłowice, and even the newspapers are reporting it”[37]. However, Morel did inform the prosecutor’s office. On 9 August 1945, Mieczysław Dobromęski, Prosecutor at the Special Criminal Court in Katowice, notified the voivode that as a result of a report from the commandant of Świętochłowice camp about a typhus fever epidemic, he had ordered that no more prisoners be taken into Zgoda [38]. However, this did not stop the epidemic. In the autumn of 1945, 1,419 prisoners were sick[39]. It should also be noted that the camp personnel did not report every single death. Thirty-nine mass graves, containing over 357 people, are said to be noted in the death records of the Evangelical Parish Office. However, this entry is accompanied by the annotation: “The number of buried civilian internees is greater”[40]. The official dearth tolls is 1,855, because “that is the number of the files of dead prisoners, including their death certificates,” that Morel conveyed to Jaworzno following the liquidation of the Labour Camp at Świętochłowice[41]. The deaths of 1,581 prisoners were recorded in the Registry Office in Świętochłowice on the basis of written reports by the camp management – most of them were signed personally by Salomon Morel[42]. The earlier deaths in the Market Hall and Świętochłowice hospital, and of those buried without their deaths being notified, remain unqualified.Responsibility for such a terrible death toll of the epidemic was shouldered upon the camp commandant, who had failed to ensure that prisoners had basic sanitary conditions. Lieutenant-Colonel Teodor Duda, director of the Department of Prisons and Camps, punished Morel with a three-day house arrest and a deduction of 50% of his pay for allowing the spread of the typhus epidemic and for failing to notify his superiors in good time, as well as for other distortions in running the camp[43]. Morel claimed that he was not responsible for the spread of the typhus epidemic. He explained that the camp held 1,000-1,200 more prisoners than its capacity allowed. He said that prior to the epidemic, out of the 2,500 prisoners in the camp, the camp doctor had not even found 50 people who were fit for work; the remainder were old people and invalids, which was supposed to explain such a rich harvest of the typhus[44]. But these explanations do not match the data on older people in the camp which Morel conveyed to the MBP. According to this data, on 1 July, out of a total of 4,996 prisoners, there were only 397 people above the age of 60[45]. In assessing the conduct of Salomon Morel, who said in his correspondence from Israel that he had no possibility of effectively stopping the typhus epidemic, an important role is played by the testimony of Józef C., one of the interrogated guards who worked at the camp in Świętochłowice. He describes a situation where in the absence of Salomon Morel, an officer acting as his replacement ordered that about 10 sick prisoners be taken to the hospital in Świętochłowice. They all had typhus, and this was before the outbreak of the epidemic. But when two carts carrying the sick prisoners were leaving the camp (escorted by Józef C., among others), Salomon Morel appeared in his car and ordered the prisoners to be returned to the camp[46]. The intentions that guided Salomon Morel’s behaviour are illustrated by quotations provided by various witnesses of remarks made by Morel, mainly when receiving fresh groups of prisoners. The witnesses report the following threats: “you’re going to perish here”, “Auschwitz was nothing (...),” “what the Germans failed to do in 5 years, I will do in 5 months” and so on. The guards announced their intentions in a similar way, saying that “there’ll still be room” on the bunks in which prisoners slept three to a bunk[47].Commandant Morel did not obey the directives of the MBP regarding sanitary conditions. In November 1945, Stanisław Pizło, deputy director of the Department of Prisons and Camps, said in memorandum no. 107 that in some camps and prisons, the inmates are not deloused, there are no transitory cells, there are no cells in which to isolate patients in the case of infectious diseases, such cases are deliberately kept secret, etc. He added that some commandants of prisons and camps had already been punished for these offences[48]. One can certainly refer this to the situation in the Zgoda camp, where all these offences were committed.Only after the typhus epidemic had been overcome and living conditions had improved were prisoners allowed to send information to their families telling them where they were. The camp commandant himself did not even notify the prosecutor of the fate of prisoners inside the camp[49]. According to the regulations, prisoners were supposed to be sent to a camp on the basis of a sentence of detention, and following decision on their arrest they were supposed to be confined to prison. This procedure, too, was not observed in camp in Świętochłowice, for one of the prosecutors reminded Commandant Morel of the need to refer to prison anyone covered in an arrest warrant[50].Prisoners recalled that food parcels sent in by their families were confiscated by the guards. There were cases where the relatives of dead prisoners brought food parcels without knowing that the prisoners were already dead. The guards received the parcels, without telling the relatives that the addressee was dead[51]. For instance, prisoners were not given their rations of sugar, and yet it was recorded in the documentation that they had received this ration. No record was made of the personal belongings taken from the prisoners, as a result of which the belongings became the booty of the camp personnel. For these offences, Karol Zaks was dismissed from his post as head of the economic department in the Świętochłowice camp[52].The torture of prisonersDeath in the camp was caused not just by the typhus epidemic, the malnutrition of prisoners and the tragic sanitary conditions. Prisoners also died as a result of wilful mistreatment by the camp personnel.From the very beginning, the most varied methods of torment were applied to prisoners (extensive evidence of this has been gathered during investigations). Groups of prisoners brought to the camp were made to stand in the camp square for many hours, without food or drink, and sometimes in bad weather. Some prisoners spent at least a dozen or so hours in this state, and some as much as 72 hours.The beating of prisoners was a daily occurrence. The ritual of the organised tormenting of prisoners took place virtually every night, especially in barrack no. 7, known as the Deutsches Haus or the “brown barrack,” where mostly men accused of membership of the Nazi party and Hitler Youth were accommodated.On many occasions, Salomon Morel beat prisoners personally, using his bare hands or implements such as a pistol butt, truncheon or stool. Other camp officials also beat prisoners in his presence.One particularly cruel way of tormenting prisoners was to make them stand in two rows facing each other and beat each other. If someone did not want to beat his fellow prisoner or did so too weakly, he was himself beaten by the camp personnel. Prisoners succumbed to this and beat each other. In several documented cases, fathers and sons were forced to beat each other. Turnkeys, so-called “capos,” were also compelled to take part in beatings. Some of them refused to do so and were themselves beaten if they beat other prisoners too weakly, but others became just as cruel as the regular camp personnel.Prisoners were debased and terrorised. For instance, they were forced to sing Nazi songs, which Salomon Morel himself ordered. To avoid an extra beating, the witness Gerhard Gruschka had to learn the words of a Nazi song in a Polish camp.A particularly drastic form of torture was making prisoners lie on top of each other in layers, resulting in a so-called pyramid consisting of over a dozen men. According to various descriptions, one layer was formed of three or four men, and the men in the next higher layer lay perpendicular to those below. In this way, a pyramid was created as tall as an adult male. All the prisoners were beaten continuously, and those in the bottom layers suffered extensive internal injuries, resulting in the deaths of many of them.Many prisoners were also forced to lie on the ground and were trodden upon. This, too, caused internal injuries and, in some cases, death.Furthermore, prisoners were placed in a cell for several hours and made to stand in water that reached up to their chests. Some of them drowned. Some witnesses directly indicate Salomon Morel as the one who issued such order[53].Some prisoners attempted to escape – according to the documentation, 69 of them succeeded[54]. The Dutchman Eric van Calsteren, housed in the “brown barrack,” hit upon the idea of hiding in the toilet at midnight and leaving with other prisoners in the morning to go to work outside the camp. When he reached the Zgoda steelworks, he managed to escape in the general confusion[55]. A group of prisoners who tried to dig a tunnel in from of the kitchen barracks were not so lucky. The prisoners were supposed to remove the excavated soil in their trouser pockets, but their plan was betrayed[56]. Attempted escapes are also evidenced by the death certificates of two prisoners, bearing the annotation that they were shot while trying to escape[57].The extreme camp conditions, hunger and torture resulted in the psychological collapse of prisoners held in Zgoda. On many occasions, prisoners recalled cases of other prisoners throwing themselves against the high-tension fence (Morel wrote in November 1992: ”there was not a single case of a prisoner throwing himself against the fence, There was absolutely no reason to do so, because the people there felt good and had no illnesses, and the barracks were open and they could stroll around the square”[58]). At least two persons hanged themselves (a resident of Świerklany in group III of the Volksliste and a father of three children from Rydułtowy)[59].Liquidation of the campThe release of prisoners from the Swiętochłowice camp should be associated with by Minister Stanisław Radkiewicz’s order of 15 September 1945 regarding the settlement of the question of persons detained without a prosecutor’s indictment. As we know, virtually all the prisoners in Zgoda were placed there without a prosecutor’s indictment[60]. A tragic message is imparted by lists of documents of prisoners who died and of prisoners who were released, these lists having been prepared at the moment of the camp’s liquidation. According to these lists, 1,341 persons were released from the camp (there was documentary evidence of this in the form of release orders), and 1,855 died[61]. On the threshold of October and November 1945, a three-man board headed by Prosecutor Jerzy Rybakiewicz visited the Świętochłowice camp. Having perused the prisoner files and interviewed the prisoners, they released almost all of them. However, this was not to apply to those who were suspected of collaborating with the Germans or were proved to have done so. As shown by the case of Gerhard Gruschka, a teenager at the time, in order to remain imprisoned, it was enough to demonstrate one’s attachment to Germany. Asked whether he knew that he would be released to the Polish town of Gliwice and whether he wanted to receive Polish citizenship, Gruschka replied that he comes from Gliwice, “and Gliwice is, after all, a German town”[62]. He was not released until he had signed an undertaking that he would not discuss what had happened in the camp with anyone, or else he would receive a prison sentence of up to 15 years. All the formalities regarding the closure of the Labour Camp at Świętochłowice were completed on 20 November 1945. On 23 November 1945, Henryk Studencki, head of the Department of Prisons and Camps at the Voivodship Office of Public Security in Katowice, was able to inform the Head of Department that according to orders, the Labour Camp at Świętochłowice had been liquidated and taken over by the Central Labour Camp in Jaworzno[63]. Those prisoners who had not been released by the prosecutor were moved to the Central Labour Camp in Jaworzno (301 persons). Four prisoners remained in the steelworks hospital in Świętochłowice[64].One should note that out of the several thousands of prisoners, only a handful were subsequently brought to justice – documents were found indicating that several former prisoners at Świętochłowice were convicted of crimes connected with the German occupation. One of them, a resident of Bielsko from group II on the Volksliste, received four years in prison for belonging to the National Socialist Corps of Motor Vehicle Drivers [NSKK] and for tormenting the Polish population during the war[65]. Naturally the prisoners included former members of the Nazi party, e.g. several dozen from Prudnik and Głubczyce (several of whom bore the rank of Ortsgruppenleiter)[66].On the basis of the preserved reports on the population of the Świętochłowice camp, it can be established that during the camp’s almost nine months of operation, at least 5,764 prisoners were accommodated in it. One third of them did not survive.Investigations and chargesInvestigations into the functioning of the Zgoda camp at Świętochłowice in 1945 were initiated by a letter dated 11 December 1989 to the Minister of Justice from Erno Kołodziejczyk about the death of his father Paweł Benczek in Świętochłowice. Action in this matter was undertaken by the Regional Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Atrocities in Katowice, which interviewed a series of witnesses. Salomon Morel was one of those interviewed in this connection in 1991. According to the regulations governing the competencies of individual bodies of authority at the time, in 1995 the matter was handed over to the Voivodship Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice, with a request that charges be formulated against Morel. The Voivodship Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice prepared an indictment containing 9 charges against Salomon Morel, and then,, in March 1998, the Polish Ministry of Justice submitted to the authorities of Israel a first application for Morel’s extradition. It was rejected because under Israeli law, the crimes of which Morel was accused had lapsed under the statute of limitations.On 27 July 2001, the Regional Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Atrocities in Katowice took over the investigation, interviewing successive witnesses and – thanks to the cooperation of historians from the IPN Bureau of Public Education in Katowice – obtaining access to many hitherto unknown documents on the subject of the camp’s functioning.On the basis of the evidence thus gathered, the charges against Salomon Morel were extended and the legal qualification of his deeds was changed to Communist crimes against the population. This stance was shared by the Regional Court in Katowice which, on 19 December 2003, issued a warrant for the temporary arrest of Salomon Morel on the basis of the modified charges.The main charge against Salomon Morel is that, as commandant of the Zgoda camp at Świętochłowice, he created for the prisoners in this camp, out of ethnic and political considerations, conditions that jeopardised their lives, and in particular he:· starved the prisoners by introducing glaringly low food rations;· he deprived the prisoners of elementary health care and hygienic-sanitary conditions, allowing the emergence and spread of pediculosis, dysentery, typhus and typhoid;· he personally applied, and permitted the officials under his authority to apply, various forms of torture to prisoners, involving:- beating them all over their bodies, including on the head and hands; kicking and beating them with the aid of various objects: sticks, wooden stool legs, rubber truncheons, tubes sheathed in rubber, metal rods and wooden stools, which in many cases caused extensive injuries and, on many occasions, death;- Placing prisoners in cells for several hours with water reaching up to their chests, which, in some cases caused death by drowning;- Making prisoners lie on top of each other in layers, resulting in a so-called pyramid consisting of over a dozen men, which caused extensive internal injuries to the men in the lower layers and, consequently, death;- Making prisoners lie on the ground and treading upon them, which caused extensive injuries and, in some cases, death;The second charge involves various forms of physical and mental torment of prisoners, including:
· forcing them to sing Nazi sons and giving them additional beatings if they did not know the words.The charges against Morel have been based primarily on the evidence of over 100 witnesses, including 58 former inmates of the Zgoda camp at Świętochłowice.Further information on the functioning of the Świętochłowice camp can be found in::Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945. Dokumenty, zeznania, relacje, listy [Labour Camp in Świętochłowice in 1945. Documents, testimonies, reports, letters] selected and edited by and with an introduction by Adam Dziurok, Warsaw 2002, p. 248, series: IPN Documents, vol 7.Obozowe dzieje Świętochłowic Eintrachthűtte - Zgoda [History of the Świętochłowice Eintrachthűtte-Zgoda camp], ed. Adam Dziurok, Katowice-Świętochłowice 2002, pp. 160, series: IPN Conferences, vol. 5 (contains a list of victims – also on the IPN website at ipn.gov.pl)
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