Publishing Department

This publication is based on the Polish edition of volume 24 of the Polish edition of the Ringelblum Archive, entitled Obozy pracy przymusowej.  The Germans used the free (or almost free) Jewish labour from the first days of the occupation, though the forms of its organisation changed over time. The accompanying terror and the primacy of ideology over economic calculus remained constant elements. The development of the camp network in the territory of the General Government was related to three issues: desire to make economical use of the conquered territories (with drainage camps, agricultural camps, factories and mines), preparations for the war with the USSR (with road construction camps) and strengthening the armed potential of the Reich (with camps in armament factories). According to the brochure Nazi Camps in Polish Territories 1939–1945, there were about 450 forced labour camps for Jews operating in Poland at various times. The vast majority of documents in this volume are accounts of witnesses handwritten or submitted orally, and then edited by the Oyneg Shabes associates. It also includes official documents preserved in the Archives, such as reports and accounts by the ŻSS, the Joint (Reichman and Goldman) and the Warsaw Judenrat (Braff) delegates to the camps. Almost all of the documents date from between the summer of 1940 and the summer of 1941, a time when the Germans were massively setting up temporary labour camps.

The women’s labour camp in Lublin

Notebook II

After three hours of sleep – following several days of not sleeping – we sat down to resume work. Our eyes were closing of their own accord, our fingers were swollen and painful. But there was nothing to be done – we had to keep working.

The chief – whom we called ‘Bolek’ because of his incessant beating, which caused the girls to cry out: ‘Boli! Boli!’ – would skult around with a large whip in his hand. If he noticed that one of the girls had fallen asleep, he would immediately hit her over the head with the whip. Several girls were left bleeding as a result.

At 12 o’clock at night the ‘Prison’ went to sleep. We continued working. The ‘Prison’ slept until 5 o’clock in the morning. During the night a few more girls fainted from fatigue and exhaustion. At first the chief continued to forbid us from helping. He took one girl and led her to the washroom. Three more girls lay collapsed on the floor of the work room. The girl he took to the washroom was apparently out for the count; the chief came back out to us and asked if any of us from the ‘Ghetto’ knew how to revive the unconscious girl, but no one spoke up. A woman from the ‘Prison’ named Kapłan, a Jewish midwife from Lublin, came forward. She declared that she could revive her and that she also had the necessary medicines to do so. The chief then took the other fainted girls into the washroom too. The chief and Mrs Kapłan were able to revive these last three girls without much trouble, but it took an hour before the first girl regained consciousness.

From that moment on, the chief allowed Mrs Kapłan to help him treat the girls who were in a bad state.

At 5 o’clock in the morning the ‘Prison’ got up. Around 6 [o’clock] they were brought breakfast: coffee and bread. They gave us some of it too. The ‘Prison’ had larger portions of bread; ours were much smaller. After we ate we had to get to work again. The ‘Prison’ also sat down to work.

– excerpt from the account of an unknown author The labour camp for Jewish women in Lublin

Publication co-financed by the Claims Conference and Taube Philanthropies.