Warsaw concentration camp

The Warsaw concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager Warschau, short KL or KZ Warschau) was an associated group of the German Nazi concentration camps, including an extermination camp, located in German-occupied Warsaw, capital city of Poland. Its main target was the Polish population of the city.

According to the Nazi Pabst Plan, Warsaw was to be turned into a provincial German city. To accomplish this, the Jewish population was grouped together in the Warsaw Ghetto before being eventually removed and mostly exterminated. The Nazis' next step in their plan was the intended killing of the Polish population of the city, which thus became the target of the łapanka roundup policy of closing-off a street, in an attempt to detain large numbers of civilians at random. Between 1942 and 1944, daily there were about 400 victims of such roundups in Warsaw, with the detainees first being transferred to KL Warschau custody.

The earliest official mention of the Warsaw concentration camp (KZ Warschau) is from June 19, 1943, which referred to the concentration camp in the ruins of the former Warsaw Ghetto. However, the term KZ Warschau was also used to describe similar camps that were discovered at an earlier date. Nevertheless, it is estimated that the camp was in operation from autumn 1942 until the Warsaw Uprising. The first commandant of the camp was SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Göcke, a former warehouse manager in Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. In addition to its genocidal purposes, the camp was designed to provide a work force to clean up the leveled ruins of the former Warsaw Ghetto and ultimately turn this area into a planned recreational park for the SS.

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