Archive/File: holocaust/poland/stutthof stutthof.001
Last-Modified: 1995/01/08


   "The purpose of these labour camps was actual physical work, albeit
   in cruel conditions. But from the first days of the German conquest
   of Poland, two other types of camp had been created, both near the
   Free City of Danzig, annexed to the Reich on the outbreak of war.
   The first was [Piascnica]. The second camp was in the village of
   Stutthof, twenty miles east of Danzig. Several hundred Danzig Jews
   had been deported to Stutthof in the third week of September, among
   them the writer and journalist Jacob Lange, and the cantor of the
   Danzig synagogue, Leopold Shufftan. Within a few weeks, most of
   them had died.<28> A Polish Socialist leader, who was imprisoned at
   Stutthof for fifteen months, later described a 'mass slaughter' of
   Jews at Stutthof during the Passover of 1940. This festival of
   Jewish liberation from bondage began, in 1940, on the evening of
   April 23:

      All the Jews were assembled in the courtyard; they were ordered
      to run, to drop down and to stand up again. Anybody who was slow
      in obeying the order was beaten to death by the overseer with
      the butt of his rifle.

      Afterwards Jews were ordered to jump right into the cesspit of
      the latrines, which were being built; this was full of urine.
      The taller Jews got out again since the level reached their
      chin, but the shorter ones went down. The young ones tried to
      help the old folk, and as a punishment the overseers ordered the
      latter to beat the young. When they refused to obey they were
      cruelly beaten themselves. Two or three dired on the spot and
      the survivors were ordered to bury them.

   The surviving Jews were then sent to a smaller camp at Gransdorf
   where discipline, the Polish Socialist reported, 'was even more
   severe.' His account continued:

      One single Jew, a sculptor, was left in Stutthof. The SS men
      took all his works, put him to a carriage loaded with sand, and
      forced him to run while flogging him with a lash. When he fell
      down then turned the carriage over on him; and when he
      nevertheless succeeded in creeping out of the sand they poured
      water on him and hung him; but the rope was too thin and gave
      way. They then brought a young Jewess, the only one in the camp,
      and with scornful laughter they hanged both on one rope.

   Women were also detained at Stutthof, the Polish Socialist
   recalled. 'The beautiful ones had to clean the houses of the
   everseers and officers; most of them were pregnant, and were
   released from the camp. The young Jewess above mentioned was also
   pregnant, but instead of being released she was hanged.<29>"
   (Gilbert, 115-116)

   Notes

   <28> Stefan Krakowski, 'Stutthof': Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem
	1972, volume 15, column 464.
   <29> 'The Sufferings of Jews in the Concentration Camp at Stutthof
	(near Danzig)': Bulletin of the Rescue Committee of the Jewish
	Agency for Palestine, March 1945, Foreign Office papers, 371/51116 

                            Work Cited

   Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe
   during the Second World War. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
   1985

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