Polenlager

Polenlager
Nazi concentration camp
Remnants of Polenlager 10 at Donnersmarck manor in Siemianowice Śląskie, with over 700 prisoners.
Operation
Period	1942–1945

The Polenlager (German pronunciation: [ˈpoːlənˌlaːɡɐ], Polish Camps) was a system of labor and Nazi concentration camps in Silesia that held Poles during the World War II Nazi German occupation of Poland. The prisoners, originally destined for deportation across the border to the new semi-colonial General Government district, were sent to the Polenlager between 1942 and 1945, once the other locations became too overcrowded to accommodate the prisoners.

There were over 30 Polenlager camps, mostly in Silesia.

All Polenlager camps were classified by the Germans as "labour reformatories". They were built near major military work-sites for the steady supply of slave labor. The camps had permanent German staff, augmented by captives and volunteers from other Eastern European countries (known as Hiwis). The Poles were delivered to Polenlagers by trainloads from German temporary transit camps, after they had been evicted from their homes to make way for new settlers (see: Action Saybusch). Some of the Silesians who were imprisoned there, refused to sign the Volksliste (DVL) or claim German nationality.

The Polenlager idea was part of Adolf Hitler's plan, known as Lebensraum, which involved Germanization of all Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany with the help of settlers from Bukovina, Eastern Galicia and Volhynia. The main purpose of the forcible displacement of Poles was to create a German-only enclave known as Reichsgau Wartheland across the formerly Polish territories.