The Concentration Camp in Warsaw (Konzentrationslager Warschau)
Located in Warsaw, which was the capital of the Warsaw District (Distrikt Warschau) of the General Government, in the destroyed Warsaw ghetto near the prison at Pawiak (the area of the-then Zamenhofa, Wołyńska, Ostrowska, Gliniana, Okopowa and Gęsia Streets).
It began to function as a concentration camp on August 15, 1943. Jews constituted a decisive majority of its prisoners, who cleared the area of the destroyed ghetto and pulled down the buildings within its borders. There was a working crematorium in the camp, but some bodies were also burnt on piles of timber. The camp did not have gas chambers. Its prisoners were not only Jewish. There were also Poles captured during street round-ups, along with hostages and Pawiak prisoners.
In chronological order the camp commandants were: SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Goecke and SS-Hauptsturmführer Nikolaus Herbet.
On 1 May 1944 it ceased to be an autonomous concentration camp, becoming Majdanek’s laborsubcamp (Arbeitslager Warschau). SS-Obersturmführer Friedrich Wilhelm Ruppert became its new commandant.
In July 1944 ca. 4,000 prisoners were evacuated to the concentration camps in the Reich. On August 5, 1944 insurgents of the Warsaw Uprising from the “Zośka” Home Army battalion liberated a group of 348 prisoners, whom the Germans had left there to work on the closure of the camp.
The number of people murdered in the camp amounts to ca. 20,000 people (including those shot in the camp or near the enclosed camp zone).