Szebnie concentration camp

Szebnie concentration camp
Concentration camp
Top: plan of the camp, September 1943 Location of KL Szebnie in World War II, east of Plaszow concentration camp
Location of Szebnie in Poland today
Coordinates	49°46′N 21°36′E / 49.767°N 21.600°E / 49.767; 21.600Coordinates: 49°46′N 21°36′E / 49.767°N 21.600°E / 49.767; 21.600
Location	Szebnie, occupied Poland
Operated by	Schutzstaffel (SS)
Original use	Internment
Operational	June 1941 – August 1944
Inmates	Jews, Poles, Ukrainians, Roma
Killed	10,000
Liberated by	The Red Army
Website	Szebnie at Virtual Shtetl

The Szebnie concentration camp (German: Lager Szebnie) was established during World War II by Germany, within the semi-colonial territory of General Government in the south-eastern part of occupied Poland. It was located near the town of Szebnie approximately 10 kilometres (6 mi) east of Jasło and 42 km (26 mi) south-west of Rzeszów. The facility was constructed in 1940 originally as horse stables for the Wehrmacht, adjacent to a manorial estate where the German officers stationed (photo). Over the course of the camp's operation thousands of people perished there, including Soviet prisoners of war, Polish Jews, non-Jewish Poles, Ukrainians, and Romani people. The charred remains of the camp were entered by the Soviets on 8 September 1944.

The camp covered an area of about 10 hectares with some 35 barracks eventually. First, it became a POW camp (Kriegsgefangenenlager) in late June 1941 for some 6,000 Red Army soldiers, captured in the Soviet zone of occupied Poland after the implementation of Operation Barbarossa. The POWs built the first 20 barracks with three-level bunk-beds (not enough for all). Most of them perished from disease and hunger with no heat in winter, and no laundry or bath; up to 200 a day. The only person who courageously helped the sick during typhus epidemic was a young lady, Helena Gorayska, who paid for it with her own life in 1942 infected with typhus. Some other locals also offered foodstuffs.

In the spring of 1943 the camp was reinstated as concentration camp (Arbeitslager und Konzentrationslager), for Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, and Gypsies. The first new prisoners arrived in Holocaust trains from the Jewish ghettos liquidated across occupied Poland. By August, it held 1,040 people. By the fall of 1943 the number of prisoners reached 5,000 including Jews and non-Jews from Rzeszów,Tarnów, Bochnia,Jasło, Frysztak, Dukla and Pustków. The Jews had been appointed the camp's only Kapos compelled to maintain discipline and administer torture. Eventually, the camp held about 10,000 deportees, men, women, and children. Some prisoners were employed at a tailor shop for the German military, but most worked at various earth works in the area; at the gravel pit, in the SS farm, at the oil refinery in Niegłowice, and at the Hitler's Bunker in Stępina. The camp was surrounded by barb-wire fences with six guard towers and search lights around the perimeter.