JACOB JR, MY JEWISH WORLD. KONZENTRATIONSLAGER STUTTHOF. SZTUTOWO/POLAND

Monday, Shvat 29, 5779. February 4, 2019.

Konzentrationslager Stutthof. Sztutow/Poland.

Shalom! World.

An important problem in the research of history of the Konzentrationslager Stutthof is the extermination of  its Jewish prisioners. The aim of this work is to present that issue through the whole period of the camp's existence, from September 2, 1939, until May 1945. The previous publications on the subject put emphasis on presenting the fate of Jews imprisioned in KL Stutthof in the second half of 1944, with marginal or no mention of those who were there in the first years of camp's existence. The main cause of this is scarcity of preserved sources, as well as the fact that the Jews, compared to other nationalities, comprised only a relatively minor percentage of the camp's inmates, as registered in the camp's documentation from 1939-1943. This proportion changed significantly in the second half of 1944, when Jews became the dominant nationality among the KLStutthof's prisioners, and then a system of terror leading to genocide was applied to them on a scale not witnessed before. 

Just as tragic was the fate of  Jews incarcerated in Stutthof in the years 1942-1943. Despite having obtained the status of a concentration camp on January 7, 1942, Stutthof, away on the north-eastern priphery of the Third Reich, far from main industrial areas, wasn't a conveniente place to  receiving Jews who were to  be deported from all over Europe. Placed in the region, enlarged just then, though the camp was limited by the narrowness of the Vístula Spit, stuck between the villages  of  Sztutowo (Stutthof) and Stegna (Steegen), inhabited by Germans. In a wooded área, it had no conveniente rail or road connection to the rest of the country. After all,the selection of camps for direct genocide was based on their rail connections with big urban agglomerations, where, according to recommendations and instructions of R. Heydrich, the Jews were to be concentrated first.  

The majority of Jews imprisioned in 1942 and 1943, including 11 from the Warsaw ghetto and tens from Germany, Ausria and Bohemia, who came to KL Stutthof from concentration camp deeper in Germany, died soon after coming to this camp. 

More data were available about the group  of inmates from Bialystok ghetto, whose arrival was recorded in the documents of KL Stutthof  in November 1943. After 255 of them were sent away to KL Auschwitz on January 10, 1944, a few of them remained in KL Stutthof, emplyed in camp workshops. The camp documents contain personal cards, annotations in the registers of inmates, remarks in individual prisioners' relations, allowing to present the story of some people in that transport.

The developments in the second half of  1944 caused a sudden increase  in number of prisioners of the Stutthof camp, which was unable to provide even the most basic conditions for most of them. Since then, "selections", gas chamber killings, mass shootings and extermination through work were the fate of thousands of Jews from all the countries of Nazi-occupied Europe. Meanwhile Germany's difficult economic position resulted in including Jews in the Germany war effort. This was also the fate of a part of KL Stutthof inmates, of whom some 11.100 were transported to concentration camps in the Reich's heartland.  Thus the Stutthof camp became a part of the Germany system of governing the workforce, which applied work as one more method leading finnaly to biological destruction of Jews.  This factor as well as the systematic action of extermination in the camp itself allow us to claim the KL Stutthof was one of the camps involved  in "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" (Endlosung).

In the second half of  1944 some 49.000 Jews were imprisioned inn the Stutthof concentration camp. The transports from KL Aischwitz as  well as these from Riga and Kaunas brought in Jews from all the states of  occupied Europe, already doomed to death, which was delayed due to the defeats of German troops in the East. For most of those prisioners Stutthof became the place of death. The question arises if this proves that the program of  !Final Solution to the Jewish Question" (Endlosung) was being implemented in KL Stutthof. The program's main aim, was the biological extinction of the Jewsih nation, conducted through direct extermination in gas chambers or mass executions, which also took place in the Stutthof camp. The extermination program was executed indirectly, for instance by exploiting the slave labores in concentration camps, by German arms industry. Jews in concentration camps, including KL Stutthof, were a transitory element, in advance doomed to die.

The extermination of the Jewish nation in KL Stutthof is evidente in the death rate in this group of  inmates. Just in the period form September 1939 until the end of 1942 it was nearly 100%, excluding only those few, who were transferred to KL Auschwitz on February 8, 1943. This is  an absolute proof that the Stutthof concentration camp from its very beginning was a place for physical extermination of the Jews. This was also brought about by evacuations of inmates, which caused nearly 100% mortality in some Kommandos, and the death rate was never less 50% of the initial number of evacuees.

The camp system created in occupied Europe, including both extermination and concentration camps, since 1942 was geared for exterminating Jews. The mortality among them, no matter whether they died in a gas chamber immediately after arriving at a camp, or as  a  result of toil, hunger and illness, was always high enough to be considered genocidal. 

Shalom! Aleichem.

Cultural Suppport: Jacob Jr Benleumi, Advisory, Consulting and Education. International Relations Analyst.