Poniatowa concentration camp
| Poniatowa concentration camp | |
|---|---|
| Concentration camp | |
Forced labor camp at Poniatowa, the workshop of WC Toebbens
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| Coordinates | 51°06′19″N 22°02′27″E / 51.1054°N 22.0407°ECoordinates: 51°06′19″N 22°02′27″E / 51.1054°N 22.0407°E |
| Other names | Stalag 359 Poniatowa |
| Location | Poniatowa, Poland |
| Operational | 1941-1943 |
| Notable inmates | Israel Shahak |
Poniatowa concentration camp in the town of Poniatowa in occupied Poland, 36 kilometres (22 mi) west of Lublin, was established by the SS in the latter half of 1941 initially, to hold Soviet prisoners of war following Operation Barbarossa. By mid-1942, about 20,000 Soviet POWs had perished there from hunger, disease and executions. The camp was known at that time as the Stalag 359 Poniatowa. Afterwards, the Stammlager was redesigned an expanded as a concentration camp to provide slave labour supporting the German war effort, with workshops run by the SS Ostindustrie (Osti) on the grounds of the prewar Polish telecommunications equipment factory founded in the late 1930s. Poniatowa became part of the Majdanek concentration camp system of subcamps in the early autumn of 1943. The wholesale massacre of its mostly Jewish workforce took place during the Aktion Erntefest, thus concluding the Operation Reinhard in General Government.
Two years into the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, in October 1942 Hauptsturmführer Amon Göth – soon to become the commandant of Kraków-Płaszów – visited Poniatowa with a blueprint for redevelopment. The construction of a brand new forced labor camp was assigned to Erwin Lambert. The camp was meant to supply workers for the Walter Többens army-uniform factory relocated from the vanishing Warsaw Ghetto, where at least 254,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka extermination camp in two months of summer 1942. Obersturmführer Gottlieb Hering was appointed the camp commandant. He was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer by Himmler in March 1943.
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