German concentration camps (in this text, the term is used to refer to various types of camps, including concentration camps, forced labor camps, and extermination camps) became symbols of German crimes against many nations in Europe during World War II. The first of these places, such as Dachau, were established by Germany in 1933, under the rule of the newly elected Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Initially, they were used to eliminate anti-Hitler opposition within Germany.
With the onset of World War II, the officials of the Third Reich began mass establishment of concentration camps, or KZS. Many of them, though not all, were created on the territory of occupied Poland, including areas annexed to Germany and in the General Government.
Initially, these places were intended for the Polish intelligentsia, whom the Germans decided to exterminate. Additionally, representatives of various religious clergy, victims of street roundups, activists of the Polish independence conspiracy, and also prisoners of war were held in these camps. Moreover, members of other national and ethnic groups, such as Romani people and Jews, were also detained and killed there. There were also cases where common criminals or individuals deemed as such were sent to the concentration camps. In short, these dreadful places of isolation housed thousands of people from various groups, nations, professions, etc.
However, concentration camps were not only used for the internment of the aforementioned individuals. From September 1939, the Germans decided to utilize the KZs for the physical elimination of those held captive, making concentration camps one of the primary instruments of German terror in the conquered Polish lands and other annexed territories.
The mentioned elimination was carried out in two ways: indirect and direct. The indirect method involved the slave-like exploitation of prisoners. Specifically, the Germans decided to use the millions of people confined in the camps for their own economic-military purposes. These prisoners were forced to work under conditions that deviated from all civilized norms. The work was grueling, exhausting, and often led to death. The Germans did not provide adequate nutrition to the prisoners, causing mass starvation, and they did not ensure proper clothing. During the autumn-winter periods, the inmates were not given warm clothing or heated barracks where they „lived.” Moreover, no one from the „master race” cared about the working hours. People had to work until they were exhausted. When their vitality began to wane, they were either ruthlessly murdered or deemed unfit for further use.
In addition to the above, German concentration camps became terrible laboratories where experiments were conducted on humans. Prisoners became experimental subjects for German pseudo-doctors, leading to the death of a significant group of people subjected to various experiments unrelated to medicine.
Furthermore, the described concentration camps gained notorious fame as places of extermination. Initially, Poles and representatives of other nationalities were primarily murdered there. At some point, however, the Germans decided to increase the slave-like exploitation of the aforementioned individuals, which was related to the frontline needs of the German armed forces fighting against the Allies in various parts of the globe. Thus, the annihilation of Poles was mainly intended to be indirect, through forced labor. This element did not apply to the Jewish population, which, from the end of 1941, was mechanically exterminated. This began in the extermination camp in Chełmno nad Nerem and then spread to other similar places, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, or Sobibór.
Presumably, German crimes would have continued for some time if German forces had not started losing the war. Faced with the approaching Red Army units from the east, the Germans decided to cover up their crimes in concentration camps, and they intended to continue inhumanly exploiting the still-living prisoners, but in different locations. They forced them to leave the camps and directed them westward, to the Third Reich.
In this way, the phenomenon of death marches emerged. This name was coined directly by the prisoners. Nevertheless, it so accurately reflected those events that it permanently ingrained itself in the Polish journalistic and scientific language.
The first march of this kind departed from the German concentration camp in Majdanek, Lublin, in 1944. Later, there were marches that originated in camps such as Gross-Rosen or Stutthof, as well as in the largest site of German crimes, Auschwitz-Birkenau.
On January 17, 1945, over fifty thousand prisoners left the latter place, heading west, specifically to Wodzisław Śląski. In total, it was over sixty kilometers. People left the barracks as they stood, in scanty clothing, i.e., camp stripes, despite the air temperature dropping to minus twenty degrees Celsius. Additionally, no transport was prepared for them. In other words, they were forced to cover twenty, thirty kilometers a day, often „overnighting” outdoors. Despite the risk of losing their lives, people attempted to escape. However, very few succeeded. Additionally, a substantial group of individuals, exhausted by camp life, did not live to see freedom; they died due to malnutrition, fatigue, or low temperatures.
After arriving in Wodzisław, the prisoners were loaded onto trains and sent deeper into the Third Reich. In this way, one of the last acts of German crimes against Polish and non-Polish citizens from the annexed areas of Europe took place.
