Tiurma-łagier Tost
Sebastian Rosenbaum2017
Tyurma-Lager Tost. The History of the NKVD Camp in Toszek in 1945 During the Second World War the Germans organised camps for prisoners of war (western and Soviet) and the so called Ilag – an internment camp for eastern European civilians – in the mental hospital building in Toszek (Tost). In January 1945, facing the frontline approach, the camp became deserted, and on the 23rd of January 1945, Toszek was taken over by the Red Army. As soon as three weeks later the Soviets kept – for a short time – about 500 of interned Upper-Silesians in the hospital, who were then deported for forced labour to the USSR. In the meantime, in the territories of the former German Reich occupied by the Soviet army, NKVD started arresting people suspected of hostile activities: members of Nazi organisations, public offcial, workers, police offcers, people known for their anti-communist views. This was the so called “clearing the rear” action. It was also done in the territory of the Soviet Occupation Zone in Germany (later on: German Democratic Republic), and in the eastern part of Germany, which then became part of Poland. Its goal was to create a network of camps for civilians, where about 140 thousand people were placed. There were ten large camps in East Germany, known as special labour camps, over 30 camps in Poland. One of the biggest special camps was established by the Soviets in Bautzen in Saxony, in the premises of a prison known as “Yelllow Misery” (“Gelbes Elend”). As the prison cells were soon full, they decided to transfer some of the prisoners to one of the camps in the east. They chose Toszek. NKVD established the camp in Toszek some time at the end of May and the beginning of June 1945 in the premises of the former mental asylum. The camp was known as “tyurma-lager Tost” – i.e. “Toszek prison and labour camp”, though the Soviets used the German name of the place. At the beginning they put about 800 interned civilians there, mainly from Lower Silesia, particularly from Wrocław, and from Upper Silesia. The latter group included people who were previously kept in a prison in Bytom. Meanwhile, from mid-June until mid-July, three transports of over one thousand people each were sent from Bautzen to Toszek. Altogether, there were 3654 prisoners brought from Bautzen to Toszek. There were about 4.5 thousand prisoners placed in that camp at the same time, mainly the inhabitants of Saxony, also from Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Sudetenland, Lower and Upper Silesia. They were arrested on various charges, some were former Nazi party ocials, but for others the reasons for internment cannot be determined. All the more so, given that the prisoners were never indicted for anything in particular. Most of the interned were middle-aged and older males (40–60 years of age); there were about 60 women and a pretty large group of minors, too. Some account state that there were also about 30–40 Poles – the Home Army soldiers – kept in the camp. The conditions of work in the camp were very harsh. The prisoners would sleep in hospital rooms and in the chapel, on the oor. For the rst weeks they could not wash themselves and they were deprived of even the basic personal hygiene. In order to get rid of louse, their heads were shaved and kerosene was rubbed into them. Each day they were woken up at 5.00 in the morning. After the morning calls and serving meals, the so called work commands were given and the prisoners were sent to work. They would mainly work on the surrounding elds where they would remove weeds, collect cereal and cut trees in the woods. Specialists were used to work in the water and gas station. Some labour groups were sent to other towns e.g. to collect coal from sunken barges in the area of Kozle. The work lasted until 8.00 p.m. The daily food ratio was composed of one loaf of bread per four prisoners, watery low-calorie soup and half a litre of warm liquid in the morning and in the evening. The meals did not satisfy the needs of the prisoners, especially those who performed hard physical work. Low calori c value and lack of vitamins resulted in abrupt weakening of their bodies, diseases and ultimately deaths of the people kept in the camp. The prisoners were tortured in many ways. The guards would beat them with rubber hoses filled with sand and with wooden truncheons. Other painful forms of harassment included all kinds for “plays”, such as e.g. putting a mouse in one’s trousers and tying the legs, pouring water in the shoes, forcing one to eat live frogs. Another form of tormenting the prisoners was organising races in the basement of the facilities. A prisoner would sit on the back of another prisoner being on all fours. The guards would rush such dyads with whips. The race would last until the prisoner dropped from exhaustion. Women were better treated in the camp than men. They worked in the kitchen, in the laundry and in the lazaretto or as servants for the Soviet officers’ families. The guards would not beat them nor abuse them. Horrible living and sanitary conditions, low-calorie food, overworking, physical and mental abuse of the prisoners and nally insucient medical care led to exhaustion of their bodies and resulted in a number of incidents of typhus, dysentery, tuberculosis, erysipelas, phlegmon and skin diseases. Camp doctors did not have enough measures to help the patients. Every week there were more and more deaths. The corpses would be taken away by a wagon and buried in mass tombs located outside the camp: in the Jewish cemetery and in the sand mine (today: Wielowiejska Street). The corpses were buried naked. They were put in layers and covered with lime and soil. The camp functioned until about 25th of November 1945. Then, some of the prisoners who were still alive – about one thousand people – were transported to the NKVD camp in Grudziadz and some were left free. Very few prisoners were kept in Toszek until the end of December 1945. It is certain that the number of people who died in the camp is over 1.3 thousand as the list of the deceased with this number of names is preserved. However, it is assumed that the real number could be as high as three thousand deaths. 223 After 1945 a veil was drawn over the events that took place in the labour camp in Toszek. The families of the deceased, living in Germany, tried to look for any traces of their kin. After the breakthrough of 1989 the inhabitants of Toszek also reclaimed remembrance of the crimes committed in the camp. There was a meeting of former prisoners and the kin of the victims with the inhabitants of Toszek. On the 23rd of November 1991 a cross with a bilingual plate was unveiled near the place of the mass tomb of the victims. The event was attended by the inhabitants and by guests from Germany. On the 28th of June 1991 the Regional Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Katowice initiated an investigation on “deprivation of liberty of German citizens, combined with extreme cruelty” in the period form January to September 1945 in the NKVD camp in Toszek. In course of the investigation a huge amount of evidence was collected. Based on the ndings the investigators could ascertain that NKVD ocers in Toszek committed crimes against humanity and the crime of homicide. It was also established that the goal of the camp was “to turn people into slaves, and there were no criminal nor investigation procedures carried out against the prisoners”. However, it was impossible to nd those who were guilty of the crimes committed in the camp, therefore in November 1998 the proceedings were discontinued. At that time a new monument was erected in the place of the mass tomb, and there are regular ceremonies commemorating the victims organised there. In the very same year of 1998, Sybille Krägel – the daughter of one of the camp victims – and Siegfried Petschel who was imprisoned in Toszek when he was 15 years old, published the rst book about the camp in German, which is a mine of knowledge on the subject. This work is the rst book on the NKVD Tost prison and labour camp in Polish.
