Pustkow
Pustkow is a small
village located in the south-east of Poland. Originally, the German
occupation administration had planned to build there a huge SS
training camp, including shops and military installations. In order
to do build a first work camp, 15 villages were evacuated by force
and burned. The first prisoners arrived in 1940, most of them were Jews coming from every regions of Poland. Due to the terrible
conditions of life in this first camp, most of these prisoners died
in the next months. The survivors were executed.
In 1941, the German forces built a
camp for the Russian prisoners of war. The camp had no barrack or
building so the Russian prisoners had to sleep on the ground without
any protection. There was no food distribution and, in order to
prevent any escape, the prisoners were forced to remove their
uniforms. During the winter 1941-1942 (one of the rudest winter ever
seen in Europe), these prisoners stayed outside, without any place to
sleep and only wearing underwear. It is proved that many prisoners
were eating grass or roots in order to survive. Most of these
prisoners died during the winter and the survivors were executed.
In September 1942, the Nazi
administration built a third camp dedicated for the Polish workers.
The conditions of life in this last camp were the same than in the
two others. These prisoners were forced to work on the development of
the rocket V2.
In spite of the terror regime
created by the German occupation administration, a Polish partisan
organization succeeded in an incredible action: the capture of an
intact V2 rocket. This rocket had been launched for a test flight.
The test failed and the rocked fell but didn't exploded. The Polish
partisans succeed to retrieve the rocket intact, to transfer it
secretly to Warsaw and to evacuate the rocket to London by an English
plane.
In the beginning of August 1944,
the three camps were totally evacuated and destroyed. All the
survivors were transferred to other camps. The total amount of victims
of Pustkow is unknown, but there were probably more than 15.000
people killed in this place.
Sources: The Forgotten Camps |