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Publication date :21 July 2005

Response by the State of Israel to
the application for the extradition of Salomon Morel and a report by
Dr. Adam Dziurok and Prosecutor Andrzej Majcher on the subject of
Salomon Morel and the history and operation of the camp at
Świętochłowice-Zgoda.

Adam Dziurok, District Bureau of National Education, Institute
of National Remembrance [“IPN”] Katowice; Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński
University, Warsaw.

Andrzej Majcher, prosecutor at the Regional Commission for the
Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation, IPN
Katowice.

Salomon Morel and the camp at
Świętochłowice-Zgoda

Salomon[1] Morel was born on 15
November 1919 in Garbów (powiat of Puławy). Until 1934 he lived in
his home village, where his father owned a bakery. Later, until
1939, he worked in a clothing firm in Łódż. When war broke out he
returned to Garbów. Morel began his adventures with communism in
November 1942, when he and his brother joined the partisans. In a
resume written in 1947, he recalls that upon orders from the Polish
Workers Party [PPR] cell, his unit destroyed dairies and burned
local government offices[2]. In the partisan
units of the People’s Army, Morel fought under the command of Capt.
Chil, who said that Morel took part in all his unit’s ”operations
and engagements” and “performed his tasks very well”[3]. Because they were
in the forest at the time, Salomon and his brother Icek escaped the
fate of other members of their family – in December 1942, the
navy-blue police arrested and then shot their mother, father and
brother. For a while, Morel and his brother hid at the house of a
neighbour - Józef Tkaczyk[4].

Following the
occupation of the Lublin region by the Red Army in the summer of
1944, Morel and a group of Jewish partisans lived at Ogrodowa St. in
Lublin. Soon (probably as of 1 August), all of them found work in
the militia or Office of Public Security [UB]. Morel was hired as a
guard in the infamous prison inside Lublin Castle, where members of
the Home Army [AK] were tortured, among others. He was formally
appointed a guard only on 9 November 1944. Chances of a rapid career
for him seemed hopeless when a report, dated 30 November 1944, was
produced by Lieutenant-Colonel Antoni Stolarz, commandant of the
investigative prison in Lublin. In this report, Stolarz suggested
the dismissal - as a “harmful element in the prison administration”-
of six guards, including Morel,  “because they do not perform
their duties conscientiously, do not attempt to comply with prison
regulations and behave arrogantly, whereby they sow rumours about
me, as a result of which they make my work difficult and undermine
my authority”. A decision was quickly reached by the Department of
Prisons and Camps. Contrary to what one might expect, the
insubordinate guards were not dismissed. Instead, they strengthened
the ranks of guards in other prisons - SergeantSalomon Morel was
referred to the prison in Tarnobrzeg. On 18 December 1944, Walenty
Warchoł, commandant of the Tarnobrzeg Prison, wrote that Morel had
reported for duty in that prison[5]. Less than 2 months
later, on 15 February 1945, Morel and an operational group from the
Ministry of Public Security [MBP] left for Upper Silesia. There, he
was almost immediately placed in charge of the camp at
Świętochłowice.  Morel assumed such an important position
despite the negative opinion about him as a “harmful element in the
prison administration” (he was then 26 years old), though he himself
claimed that he was not prepared for this work – having received no
training ”either in schools or on courses”[6].

“Eintrachthütte”

Located in the
industrial part of Upper Silesia, Świętochłowice belonged to Poland
before the war. The Zgoda [“Harmony”] plant in the town was engaged
in the manufacture of machinery for the mining and steel industries.
When the German armed forces entered Świętochłowice, the plant was
adapted to the manufacture of anti-aircraft cannon, and in this way
the Zgoda plant  (Eintrachthütte) became a munitions factory.
To ensure adequate manpower, forced labour was introduced to the
plant in 1942, and 180 Jews were assigned to the plant. This did not
fully satisfy needs, therefore in May 1943 it was decided to employ
inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp in the Eintrachthütte.
The average rate of mortality in the camp was several dozen
prisoners per week. The evacuation of the prisoners took place in
two stages: in December 1944 and on 23 January 1945. There were
still over 1,200 prisoners in the camp prior to the final
evacuation[7].

The beginnings of the Zgoda camp

After the
prisoners had been evacuated, the sub-camp belonging to the
Auschwitz concentration camp was empty only for a few weeks. Its
well-preserved infrastructure (fencing, watch towers, barracks for
prisoners, accommodation for personnel) and its convenient location
were quickly exploited by the communist authorities. Because of its
localisation in a densely populated industrial zone only a dozen or
so kilometres from the centre of Katowice, it was easy to transport
prisoners to the camp. Prisoners from Katowice and surrounding area
were marched to the camp on foot. Some were taken there by
streetcar, and those from outlying parts of Silesia, such as Bielsko
or Nysa, were taken by train. The prisoners held in the camp could
be used as labour in the numerous industrial plants in the area. The
fact that Świętochłowice was the seat of the UB administration for
the powiat of Katowice was certainly not without significance. This
was located near the Market Hall, to which several hundred detainees
were sent at the end of February 1945 before being accommodated in
the Zgoda camp. Already in the Market Hall, the prisoners were
tortured by the UB officials. Before the prisoners were relocated to
the camp, the place was tidied up and disinfected. Some detainees
awaited the completion of this work in the neighbouring sub-camp
close to the Polska mine[8].

At the beginning
of its period of operations, the camp was probably governed by two
men: Aleksy Krut and Salomon Morel. Aleksy Krut, a 20 year-old UB
officer who came to Upper Silesia with the operational group in
February 1945, wrote in his resume in 1947 that he was commandant of
the Labour Camp at Świętochłowice between March and May 1945[9].  Salomon
Morel, who became commandant of this Labour Camp on 15 March 1945,
also claims that originally, he was meant to govern the camp
together with Aleksy Krut.  But it is certain that Salomon
Morel was sole commandant as of the middle of June 1945[10].

The camp
inmates

The basis for placing
persons inside the camp was provided by several legal instruments,
but according to the records of the Special Prosecutor’s Office of
the Criminal Court in Katowice, the firm majority of the internees
at the Świętochłowice camp were placed there under the terms of the
decree of the Polish National Liberation Committee [PKWN] of 4
November 1944 “on security measures vis-a-vis traitors to the
Nation”[11]. Formally
speaking, the terms of this decree did not apply to the territory of
Upper Silesia because they concerned Volksdeutsche from the General
Government. Although the decree did contain a clause whereby its
applicability could be extended “to other areas of the Polish
State”, this was never done. The extension of this decree to Upper
Silesia meant that the inhabitants of this area contained in the
Volksliste were treated in the same way as Volksdeutsche from the
General Government. The remaining prisoners were interned in the
camp on the basis of the “August” decree of 31 August 1944 on
“Fascist-Nazi criminals and traitors to the Polish Nation” and the
law of 6 May 1945 on the exclusion of hostile elements from Polish
society. According to this law, persons included in Group II of the
Volksliste were treated as Germans and traitors and had to apply for
rehabilitation. Until their civil rights were restored, their
property was to be recorded and confiscated and they themselves were
to be placed in detention centres (camps). The August decree applied
mainly to war criminals, collaborators and members of the Nazi
movement.

Many Upper Silesians with German citizenship who
lived inside the Third Reich before the war were also sent to the
labour camps. As early as 9 February 1945, the voivode of Silesia
decreed that all Germans and Volksdeutsche from groups I and II had
to register for work[12]. The security
authorities detained Germans under various pretexts and referred
them to compulsory work.

However, questions regarding the Volksliste and
the internment of German nationals do not explain everything, for
people were sent to the camp on the basis of rather vague criteria,
and one of the reasons for doing so was certainly material gain, in
other words a desire to seize an internee’s property. Many people
were imprisoned in the camp only because they had no identity
documents with them[13]. However, an
effort was made to convince the inhabitants of Silesia that only
Germans and hated Nazi activists were being placed in the camp.
When, in early March 1945, persons detained in Katowice were formed
into columns and marched to Świętochłowice, each column was headed
by someone bearing a Nazi flag[14].

When one examines the lists of prisoners who died
at the Świętochłowice camp, one might conclude that most of them
were in Group II of the Volksliste (chiefly inhabitants of Katowice,
Bielsko, Chorzów and Świętochłowice). A smaller group comprised
citizens of the Third Reich (Reichsdeutsche) – mainly from Bytom and
Gliwice. Among those who died in the camp were at least 139 people
from Group III of the Volksliste, which means that many more such
people were interned there. Thirty nine people who died in the camp
were not on the Volskliste at all. The firm majority of the
internees were inhabitants of Upper Silesia and the Opole area, but
there were also inhabitants of, for example, Lwów, Drohobycz,
Tomaszów, Poznań and Nowy Sącz; a small number of people from the
Dąbrowa Basin (10 of them died in the camp), Germans from deep
inside the Reich, and at least 38 citizens of other countries (19
Austrian citizens, one Belgian, seven Romanians, seven Czechs, two
Yugoslavs and two Frenchmen). This has been determined on the basis
of lists of persons of various nationalities interned in the camps
and prisons[15]. However, the
lists are incomplete. They do not include, among others, Wanda
Lagler – a U.S. citizen; Franciszek Godes, a Lithuanian; and a Swiss
woman mentioned by Dorota Boreczek in her testimony[16]. They also do not
include the best known foreigner inside the Świętochłowice camp –
the Dutchman Eric van Calsteren. During his interrogation at the
militia headquarters in Gliwice, van Calsteren tried to explain that
he was born in the Hague and was a Dutch citizen. In reply, he
heard: “You have blue eyes and fair hair, you are one hundred
percent German, because the Dutch all have dark hair and speak
French”. Shortly afterwards, he was transferred to the Zgoda camp in
Świętochłowice[17]. Therefore, the
internees in Zgoda consisted of a total of 13 nationalities
(including Ukrainians, recorded in other prisoner lists). The
Austrian citizens inside the Świętochłowice labour camp were mainly
prisoners of war, but they also included an Austrian women who had
come to visit her husband working in Poland. Several other
foreigners (a resident of Vienna, a Czech and a Yugoslav) ended up
in the camp because they had no identity documents. Some foreigners
were apprehended by the Soviet forces and handed over to the Polish
investigative authorities or sent directly to Zgoda.

Other preserved
documents of the Ministry of Public Security contain lists of
internees divided into the following categories: Poles, Jews,
Ukrainians, Germans, Volksdeutsche, German collaborators, and
others. The Poles included primarily members of independence
organisations: the Home Army and the National Armed Forces.
According to the statistics, there were only a few such people in
the Świętochłowice camp. Several Ukrainians were imprisoned there,
and many Germans (the most numerous group in August 1945, when there
were 1,733 of them in the camp, 1/3 of the total number of
prisoners). All Upper Silesians living on the territory of the Reich
were also included among the Germans. During the camp’s early days,
prisoners of war were also accommodated there (there were 25 of them
in April), as well as persons held under Soviet authority[18]. The firm majority
of the inmates of Zgoda were above the age of 40. Several hundred
were above the age of 60[19]. There were also
children; the official statistics indicate that several children
aged up to 13 were held in Zgoda[20]. The children were
brought to the camp with their mothers, who did not want to leave
them without care. The camp authorities agreed to the presence of
children in the camp, though they must have realised the conditions
under which the children were going to live and the dangers in store
for them. For instance, the son of a woman from Świętochłowice died
in the camp. He was probably born in the camp and on the date of his
death – 9 September 1945  - was 4 weeks old[21]. In June 1945
there were as many as 716 women in the camp, almost 17% of all the
detainees. In July, a group of women was transferred to Libiąż – a
branch of the Jaworzno Central Labour Camp. In September, the number
of women in the camp fell to over 300[22]. The women lived
in a separate barrack and were also put to work beyond the camp
premises.

The camp
authorities estimated that the camp can accommodate 1,400-1,500
people. Already at the end of March 1945 there were 1,062 in the
Świętochłowice camp. It quickly became full. Morel said that
initially, as much as 300-500 new prisoners were accepted per
day[23]. In May, the camp
statistics revealed that there were already over 2,000 prisoners.
The camp was overcrowded almost from the very beginning. Morel
himself admitted that in July 1945 there were 1,000-1,200 prisoners
more than the number which the camp had been planned to
accommodate[24]. As shown in the
following table, the number of prisoners was highest in the summer
months of 1945. Later, the number of prisoners fell considerably as
a result of typhus.

Table 1. Number
of prisoners at the Labour Camp in Świętochłowice

Categories of
prisoners

Number as at

Volksdeutsche

Germans

Others

Total

31 III 1945

-

-

1062

1062

1 V 1945

1879

328

6

2213

1 VI 1945

3015

695

49

3759

1 VII 1945

3584

1346

68

4996

1 VIII 1945

3249

1733

66

5048

1 IX 1945

2652

1211

66

3929

Source: AAN, MBP, call no. 13/1,
pp. 3, 22, 178, 261, 360; call no. 13/3, p. 30; see also: „Obóz
Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku..., Raporty statystyczne o
zaludnieniu obozu”[the Labour Camp at Świętochłowice in
1945....Statistical reports on the camp population], pp. 37-39,
41-44, 46-47, 51-52.

Although the
Świętochłowice camp bore the official title of a labour camp, it
also fulfilled the function of a penal camp. The prisoners of
barrack 7 worked neither inside nor outside the camp, therefore for
them it was a penal camp, though of course none of them had been
sentenced by a court verdict. Many people from the Świętochłowice
camp were sent to work in neighbouring coalmines and steelworks
where there were camps. Prisoners also worked at the Zgoda
steelworks opposite the camp, where they dismantled machines and
loaded them onto carriages[25]. Some of the
female inmates were employed as cleaners in the Polska mine[26]. There were cases
where inmates were taken away for work under the supervision of the
Soviet forces near Nowy Bytom or for loading carriages at
Katowice-Ligota station[27]. In the camp there
were several workshops (including carpentry, sewing, tailoring and
metalworking), where inmates were also employed[28]. Prisoners were
marched in columns to work in the industrial plants near the camp,
and after work they retuned to the camp. Those employed in very
distant steelworks and coal mines were accommodated at the sub-camps
there. The living conditions at the camps attached to the mines were
somewhat better than in Zgoda. It should be added that at least
several prisoners (four at the moment of the camp's liquidation)
were "farmed out" to work at the Voivodship Civil Militia
Headquarters in Katowice[29]. The prisoners
received no wages for their work. At the moment of the camp’s
liquidation, the Employment Section had accumulated over 118,000
zlotys[30].

Epidemics and mortality

Hunger reigned
in the camp from the very beginning. Some groups of prisoners
received nothing to eat at all for several days, and the normal
daily ration was a slice of bread and watery soup. Prisoners’
descriptions of the ingredients of the soup vary - nettles, hair,
sometimes a piece of cabbage, maize or carrot – but all agree that
basically, it was just hot water without any fat. All the witnesses
talk of the hunger that reigned in the camp; some recall eating
grass or scraps of food that they found. The prisoners had no plates
or cutlery – they only had old, rusted tin cans, and sometimes one
can had to be shared between many prisoners. They were given no soap
or other cleaning agents, in the shower block there was only cold
water[31].

The tragic
sanitary conditions and low food rations led to a widespread
epidemic of dysentery, typhus and typhoid. Realising the danger, the
doctors vaccinated the camp staff against typhus.[32] But they did not
bother about the prisoners – there was no delousing, no isolation of
the sick. Franz Brachmann recalls that the camp administration was
indifferent to the deaths of inmates, and only when almost every
single prisoner in barrack 7 (accommodating chiefly members of Nazi
organisations) was ill were they provided with medicinal
charcoal[33]. The guards did
not enter the barrack through fear of infection. The epidemic spread
to the whole camp and was of such intensity that barracks 4, 6 and 7
were soon completely empty[34]. The lightning
spread of the epidemic was encouraged by the fact that the prisoners
were jam-packed inside the barracks and in a weakened state. Mass
deaths occurred. The death records indicate that the epidemic began
to reap a rich harvest as of 26 July 1945, when for the first time,
the number of deaths in a single day exceeded 15. Over the next 7
weeks, until 8 September, between 8 and 34 deaths of prisoners were
recorded daily. In August alone, 632 prisoners died in Zgoda. The
final days of July and first days of August saw the greatest number
of victims: 28 July – 27 deaths, 29 July – 24, 30 July – 28, 31 July
– 34, 1 August – 35, 2 August – 38, 3 August – 38 and 4 August - 35.
Altogether, a total of 259 deaths of prisoners was recorded during
these eight most tragic days[35]. In the middle of
July, a typhus epidemic broke out which caused the gradual
depopulation of the camp. The final days of July and first days of
August saw the greatest number of victims; altogether, a total of
259 deaths of prisoners was recorded during these eight most tragic
days[36]. Morel did not
inform his superiors of the epidemic. During meeting between 10-13
August 1945, the director of the Department of Prisons and Camps of
the MBP expressed his misgivings about the fact that he learned that
“there are 716 sick prisoners in Świętochłowice, and even the
newspapers are reporting it”[37]. However, Morel
did inform the prosecutor’s office. On 9 August 1945, Mieczysław
Dobromęski, Prosecutor at the Special Criminal Court in Katowice,
notified the voivode that as a result of a report from the
commandant of Świętochłowice camp about a typhus fever epidemic, he
had ordered that no more prisoners be taken into Zgoda [38]. However, this did
not stop the epidemic. In the autumn of 1945, 1,419 prisoners were
sick[39]. It should also be
noted that the camp personnel did not report every single
death.  Thirty-nine mass graves, containing over 357 people,
are said to be noted in the death records of the Evangelical Parish
Office. However, this entry is accompanied by the annotation: “The
number of buried civilian internees is greater”[40]. The official
dearth tolls is 1,855, because “that is the number of the files of
dead prisoners, including their death certificates,” that Morel
conveyed to Jaworzno following the liquidation of the Labour Camp at
Świętochłowice[41]. The deaths of
1,581 prisoners were recorded in the Registry Office in
Świętochłowice on the basis of written reports by the camp
management – most of them were signed personally by Salomon
Morel[42]. The earlier
deaths in the Market Hall and Świętochłowice hospital, and of those
buried without their deaths being notified, remain unqualified.

Responsibility
for such a terrible death toll of the epidemic was shouldered upon
the camp commandant, who had failed to ensure that prisoners had
basic sanitary conditions. Lieutenant-Colonel Teodor Duda, director
of the Department of Prisons and Camps, punished Morel with a
three-day house arrest and a deduction of 50% of his pay for
allowing the spread of the typhus epidemic and for failing to notify
his superiors in good time, as well as for other distortions in
running the camp[43]. Morel claimed
that he was not responsible for the spread of the typhus epidemic.
He explained that the camp held 1,000-1,200 more prisoners than its
capacity allowed. He said that prior to the epidemic, out of the
2,500 prisoners in the camp, the camp doctor had not even found 50
people who were fit for work; the remainder were old people and
invalids, which was supposed to  explain such a rich harvest of
the typhus[44]. But these
explanations do not match the data on older people in the camp which
Morel conveyed to the MBP. According to this data, on 1 July, out of
a total of 4,996 prisoners, there were only 397 people above the age
of 60[45]. In assessing the
conduct of Salomon Morel, who said in his correspondence from Israel
that he had no possibility of effectively stopping the typhus
epidemic, an important role is played by the testimony of Józef C.,
one of the interrogated guards who worked at the camp in
Świętochłowice. He describes a situation where in the absence of
Salomon Morel, an officer acting as his replacement ordered that
about 10 sick prisoners be taken to the hospital in Świętochłowice.
They all had typhus, and this was before the outbreak of the
epidemic. But when two carts carrying the sick prisoners were
leaving the camp (escorted by Józef C., among others), Salomon Morel
appeared in his car and ordered the prisoners to be returned to the
camp[46]. The intentions
that guided Salomon Morel’s behaviour are illustrated by quotations
provided by various witnesses of remarks made by Morel, mainly when
receiving fresh groups of prisoners. The witnesses report the
following threats: “you’re going to perish here”, “Auschwitz was
nothing (...),” “what the Germans failed to do in 5 years, I will do
in 5 months” and so on. The guards announced their intentions in a
similar way, saying that “there’ll still be room” on the bunks in
which prisoners slept three to a bunk[47].

Commandant Morel
did not obey the directives of the MBP regarding sanitary
conditions. In November 1945, Stanisław Pizło, deputy director of
the Department of Prisons and Camps, said in memorandum no. 107 that
in some camps and prisons, the inmates are not deloused, there are
no transitory cells, there are no cells in which to isolate patients
in the case of infectious diseases, such cases are deliberately kept
secret, etc.  He added that some commandants of prisons and
camps had already been punished for these offences[48]. One can certainly
refer this to the situation in the Zgoda camp, where all these
offences were committed.

Only after the
typhus epidemic had been overcome and living conditions had improved
were prisoners allowed to send information to their families telling
them where they were. The camp commandant himself did not even
notify the prosecutor of the fate of prisoners inside the camp[49]. According to the
regulations, prisoners were supposed to be sent to a camp on the
basis of a sentence of detention, and following decision on their
arrest they were supposed to be confined to prison. This procedure,
too, was not observed in camp in Świętochłowice, for one of the
prosecutors reminded Commandant Morel of the need to refer to prison
anyone covered in an arrest warrant[50].

Prisoners
recalled that food parcels sent in by their families were
confiscated by the guards. There were cases where the relatives of
dead prisoners brought food parcels without knowing that the
prisoners were already dead. The guards received the parcels,
without telling the relatives that the addressee was dead[51]. For instance,
prisoners were not given their rations of sugar, and yet it was
recorded in the documentation that they had received this ration. No
record was made of the personal belongings taken from the prisoners,
as a result of which the belongings became the booty of the camp
personnel. For these offences, Karol Zaks was dismissed from his
post as head of the economic department in the Świętochłowice
camp[52].

The torture of prisoners

Death in the
camp was caused not just by the typhus epidemic, the malnutrition of
prisoners and the tragic sanitary conditions. Prisoners also died as
a result of wilful mistreatment by the camp personnel.

From the very
beginning, the most varied methods of torment were applied to
prisoners (extensive evidence of this has been gathered during
investigations). Groups of prisoners brought to the camp were made
to stand in the camp square for many hours, without food or drink,
and sometimes in bad weather. Some prisoners spent at least a dozen
or so hours in this state, and some as much as 72 hours.

The beating of
prisoners was a daily occurrence. The ritual of the organised
tormenting of prisoners took place virtually every night, especially
in barrack no. 7, known as the Deutsches Haus or the “brown
barrack,” where mostly men accused of membership of the Nazi party
and Hitler Youth were accommodated.

On many
occasions, Salomon Morel beat prisoners personally, using his bare
hands or implements such as a pistol butt, truncheon or stool.
Other camp officials also beat prisoners in his presence.

One particularly
cruel way of tormenting prisoners was to make them stand in two rows
facing each other and beat each other. If someone did not want to
beat his fellow prisoner or did so too weakly, he was himself beaten
by the camp personnel. Prisoners succumbed to this and beat each
other. In several documented cases, fathers and sons were forced to
beat each other. Turnkeys, so-called “capos,” were also compelled to
take part in beatings. Some of them refused to do so and were
themselves beaten if they beat other prisoners too weakly, but
others became just as cruel as the regular camp personnel.

Prisoners were
debased and terrorised. For instance, they were forced to sing Nazi
songs, which Salomon Morel himself ordered. To avoid an extra
beating, the witness Gerhard Gruschka had to learn the words of a
Nazi song in a Polish camp.

A particularly
drastic form of torture was making prisoners lie on top of each
other in layers, resulting in a so-called pyramid consisting of over
a dozen men. According to various descriptions, one layer was formed
of three or four men, and the men in the next higher layer lay
perpendicular to those below. In this way, a pyramid was created as
tall as an adult male. All the prisoners were beaten continuously,
and those in the bottom layers suffered extensive internal injuries,
resulting in the deaths of many of them.

Many prisoners
were also forced to lie on the ground and were trodden upon. This,
too, caused internal injuries and, in some cases, death.

Furthermore,
prisoners were placed in a cell for several hours and made to stand
in water that reached up to their chests. Some of them drowned. Some
witnesses directly indicate Salomon Morel as the one who issued such
order[53].

Some prisoners
attempted to escape – according to the documentation, 69 of them
succeeded[54]. The Dutchman Eric
van Calsteren, housed in the “brown barrack,” hit upon the idea of
hiding in the toilet at midnight and leaving with other prisoners in
the morning to go to work outside the camp. When he reached the
Zgoda steelworks, he managed to escape in the general confusion[55]. A group of
prisoners who tried to dig a tunnel in from of the kitchen barracks
were not so lucky. The prisoners were supposed to remove the
excavated soil in their trouser pockets, but their plan was
betrayed[56]. Attempted escapes
are also evidenced by the death certificates of two prisoners,
bearing the annotation that they were shot while trying to
escape[57].

The extreme camp
conditions, hunger and torture resulted in the psychological
collapse of prisoners held in Zgoda. On many occasions, prisoners
recalled cases of other prisoners throwing themselves against the
high-tension fence (Morel wrote in November 1992: ”there was not a
single case of a prisoner throwing himself against the fence, There
was absolutely no reason to do so, because the people there felt
good and had no illnesses, and the barracks were open and they could
stroll around the square”[58]). At least two
persons hanged themselves (a resident of Świerklany in group III of
the Volksliste and a father of three children from Rydułtowy)[59].

Liquidation of the camp

The release of
prisoners from the Swiętochłowice camp should be associated with by
Minister Stanisław Radkiewicz’s order of 15 September 1945 regarding
the settlement of the question of persons detained without a
prosecutor’s indictment. As we know, virtually all the prisoners in
Zgoda were placed there without a prosecutor’s indictment[60]. A tragic message
is imparted by lists of documents of prisoners who died and of
prisoners who were released, these lists having been prepared at the
moment of the camp’s liquidation. According to these lists, 1,341
persons were released from the camp (there was documentary evidence
of this in the form of release orders), and 1,855 died[61]. On the threshold
of October and November 1945, a three-man board headed by Prosecutor
Jerzy Rybakiewicz visited the Świętochłowice camp. Having perused
the prisoner files and interviewed the prisoners, they released
almost all of them. However, this was not to apply to those who were
suspected of collaborating with the Germans or were proved to have
done so. As shown by the case of Gerhard Gruschka, a teenager at the
time, in order to remain imprisoned, it was enough to demonstrate
one’s attachment to Germany. Asked whether he knew that he would be
released to the Polish town of Gliwice and whether he wanted to
receive Polish citizenship, Gruschka replied that he comes from
Gliwice, “and Gliwice is, after all, a German town”[62]. He was not
released until he had signed an undertaking that he would not
discuss what had happened in the camp with anyone, or else he would
receive a prison sentence of up to 15 years. All the formalities
regarding the closure of the Labour Camp at Świętochłowice were
completed on 20 November 1945. On 23 November 1945, Henryk
Studencki, head of the Department of Prisons and Camps at the
Voivodship Office of Public Security in Katowice, was able to inform
the Head of Department that according to orders, the Labour Camp at
Świętochłowice had been liquidated and taken over by the Central
Labour Camp in Jaworzno[63]. Those prisoners
who had not been released by the prosecutor were moved to the
Central Labour Camp in Jaworzno (301 persons). Four prisoners
remained in the steelworks hospital in Świętochłowice[64].

One should note that out
of the several thousands of prisoners, only a handful were
subsequently brought to justice – documents were found indicating
that several former prisoners at Świętochłowice were convicted of
crimes connected with the German occupation. One of them, a resident
of Bielsko from group II on the Volksliste, received four years in
prison for belonging to the National Socialist Corps of Motor
Vehicle Drivers [NSKK] and for tormenting the Polish population
during the war[65]. Naturally the
prisoners included former members of the Nazi party, e.g. several
dozen from Prudnik and Głubczyce (several of whom bore the rank of
Ortsgruppenleiter)[66].

On the basis of
the preserved reports on the population of the Świętochłowice camp,
it can be established that during the camp’s almost nine months of
operation, at least 5,764 prisoners were accommodated in it. One
third of them did not survive.

Investigations and charges

Investigations
into the functioning of the Zgoda camp at Świętochłowice in 1945
were initiated by a letter dated 11 December 1989 to the Minister of
Justice from Erno Kołodziejczyk about the death of his father Paweł
Benczek in Świętochłowice. Action in this matter was undertaken by
the Regional Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Atrocities in
Katowice, which interviewed a series of witnesses. Salomon Morel was
one of those interviewed in this connection in 1991. According to
the regulations governing the competencies of individual bodies of
authority at the time, in 1995 the matter was handed over to the
Voivodship Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice, with a request that
charges be formulated against Morel. The Voivodship Prosecutor’s
Office in Katowice prepared an indictment containing 9 charges
against Salomon Morel, and then,, in March 1998, the Polish Ministry
of Justice submitted to the authorities of Israel a first
application for Morel’s extradition. It was rejected because under
Israeli law, the crimes of which Morel was accused had lapsed under
the statute of limitations.

On 27 July 2001, the Regional Commission for the
Investigation of Nazi Atrocities in Katowice took over the
investigation, interviewing successive witnesses and – thanks to the
cooperation of historians from the IPN Bureau of Public Education in
Katowice – obtaining access to many hitherto unknown documents on
the subject of the camp’s functioning.

On the basis of the evidence thus gathered, the
charges against Salomon Morel were extended and the legal
qualification of his deeds was changed to Communist crimes against
the population. This stance was shared by the Regional Court in
Katowice which, on 19 December 2003, issued a warrant for the
temporary arrest of Salomon Morel on the basis of the modified
charges.

The main charge
against Salomon Morel is that, as commandant of the Zgoda camp at
Świętochłowice, he created for the prisoners in this camp, out of
ethnic and political considerations, conditions that jeopardised
their lives, and in particular he:

·
starved the prisoners by
introducing glaringly low food rations;

·
he deprived the prisoners of
elementary health care and hygienic-sanitary conditions, allowing
the emergence and spread of pediculosis, dysentery, typhus and
typhoid;

·
he personally applied, and
permitted the officials under his authority to apply, various forms
of torture to prisoners, involving:

-
beating them all over their bodies, including on the head and hands;
kicking and beating them with the aid of various objects: sticks,
wooden stool legs, rubber truncheons, tubes sheathed in rubber,
metal rods and wooden stools, which in many cases caused extensive
injuries and, on many occasions, death;

-
Placing prisoners in cells for several hours with water reaching up
to their chests, which, in some cases caused death by drowning;

-
Making prisoners lie on top of each other in layers, resulting in a
so-called pyramid consisting of over a dozen men, which caused
extensive internal injuries to the men in the lower layers and,
consequently, death;

-
Making prisoners lie on the ground and treading upon them, which
caused extensive injuries and, in some cases, death;

The
second charge involves various forms of physical and mental torment
of prisoners, including:

beating,

forcing them to lick coal dust off
the floor,

forcing them to beat each other –
this includes two documented cases of fathers and sons being
forced to beat each other;

forcing them to stand in the camp
square without food and drink for many hours, sometimes in adverse
weather conditions;

·
forcing them to sing Nazi sons and
giving them additional beatings if they did not know the words.

The charges against Morel have
been based primarily on the evidence of over 100 witnesses,
including 58 former inmates of the Zgoda camp at
Świętochłowice.

Further information on the functioning of the Świętochłowice
camp can be found in::

Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w
1945. Dokumenty, zeznania, relacje, listy [Labour Camp in
Świętochłowice in 1945. Documents, testimonies, reports, letters]
selected and edited by and with an introduction by Adam Dziurok,
Warsaw 2002, p. 248, series: IPN Documents, vol 7.

Obozowe dzieje Świętochłowic
Eintrachthűtte - Zgoda [History of the Świętochłowice
Eintrachthűtte-Zgoda camp], ed. Adam Dziurok,
Katowice-Świętochłowice 2002, pp. 160, series: IPN Conferences, vol.
5 (contains a list of victims – also on the IPN website at
ipn.gov.pl).

[1] According to the testimonies of his
neighbours before the war, Salomon was called Szlam, Testimonies of
file of investigation conducted by the Institute of National
Remembrance, Katowice Branch – hereinafter “IPN Ka”, Case files into
the atrocity perpetrated at the labour camp in Świętochłowice-Zgoda,
call no. S 61/01/ZK, pp. 2316, 2325.

[2] Personnel files of Salomon Morel, resume of
21 IV 1947 r. (photocopy at the IPN Ka, Case files., pages
2156-2157).

[3] His former commander, Mieczysław Moczar,
issued him with a certificate stating that ”he served in partisan
units on the territories of the People’s Army in Lublin and took
active part in the battle against the Germans”, ibidem, pages
2172-2173.

[4] Tkaczyk hid them in his pig sty and stable,
and his mother fed them. Tkaczyk said that a policeman lived in his
house, and it was he who murdered Morel’s family. For hiding Salomon
and Icek Moel, Tkaczyk was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations, IPN Ka, Case files..., Testimony of Józef
Tkaczyk, pp. 2325-2327.

[5] Central Archives of Modern Records [AAN),
MBP, Department of Prisons [DW], call no. 7/24.

[6] Letter from Salomon Morel to the Regional
Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish People
in Katowice dated 7 XI 1992, IPN Ka, Case files..., pp 78-81, see
also Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku. Dokumenty, zeznania,
relacje, listy [Labour Camp in Świętochłowice in 1945. Documents,
testimonies, reports, letters], selected and edited by and with an
introduction by A. Dziurok, Warsaw 2002, pp. 89-92.

[7] F. Piper, Podobóz
„Eintrachthütte“[Eintrachthütte sub-camp], Zeszyty Oświęcimskie
[Auschwitz Journals] no. 17 (1975), p. 91-153.

[8] In the text, excerpts have been used from
A. Dziurok’s article: Więźniowie obozu w Świętochłowicach-Zgodzie w
1945 r., [Prisoners of the camp at Świętochłowice-Zgoda]in: Obozowe
dzieje Świętochłowic. Eintrachthütte- Zgoda [camp history of
Świętochłowice, Eintrachthütte- Zgoda], ed. A. Dziurok,
Katowice-Świętochłowice 2002, p. 69-77.

[9] Aleksy Krut, born 17 VI 1925 to an Orthodox
family in Ostrów, powiat of Chełm. In 1943 he joined the
“Fighting Units” of the Polish Workers’ Party [PPR]. In 1944 he
joined the Powiat Office of Public Security [PUBP] in Chełm, and in
January 1945 he went to the MBP Officers’ School in Lublin. Among
other things, he served as prison commandant in Kluczbork (1946),
Sosnowiec-Radocha (1947), Koronów (1947-1949). He died in 196;
Remand centre in Bydgoszcz, Personnel files of Aleksy Krut.

[10] The Świętochłowice camp was governed by
people who were ignorant of the nationality problem in Upper
Silesia. This is illustrated by Morel’s surprise at being told that
in the camp there was the father of an officer who used to fight in
the German army, but deserted during the Battle of Lenino and became
a solider in the Polish Army. Morel arranged his release – he was in
Group II on the Volksliste. He confessed that this case gave him a
lot of food for thought because he did not know about „population
relationships in Silesia.” He also showed that with the passage of
time, he became more experienced in life, and contacts with the
local population and with footballers from the Ruch Chorzów club
were allegedly of great value to him, see” Letter from Salomon Morel
......dated 7 XI 1992.

[11] Article 1 of this decree stated that “A
Polish citizen who, during the German occupation, declared his
allegiance to German nationality on the territory of the so-called
General Government and voivodship of Białystok (....),shall be
subject to (...) detention for an unspecified period in a detention
centre (camp) and compulsory work”, Dz.U [Official Journal] no.
11/44, item 54.

[12] Gazeta Urzędowa Województwa Śląskiego
[Official Journal of Silesia Voivodship] 1945, no. 1, item 11.

[13] For example, in Syrynia, several people
were arrested on the basis of a list drawn up by the wójt of a
neighbouring town. Over a dozen people on the Volksliste were
detained and sent to the Zgoda camp, but it is not known according
to what criteria. They were all permanently resident in Syrynia,
worked on the land and in the mines, and did not interfere in
politics. None of them had been in the Wehrmacht.  Historia do
wyjaśnienia,[A story to be clarified] Nowiny [News] no. 26/1995, p.
7.

[14] IPN Ka, Akta śledztwa..., Zeznanie Józefa
Wiesiołka, page 57-59; see also Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945
roku.., p. 111-112.

[15] AAN, MBP, DW, call no. 3/200; see also Obóz
Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku..,, p. 224-230.

[16] IPN Ka, Case files..., Testimony of Dorota
Boreczek, pp. 718-724; see also Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945
roku.., p. 139.

[17] IPN Katowice,  Case files..., page
1698.

[18] Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945
roku.., p. 37.

[19] AAN, MBP, DW, Inspection Department,
Statistical reports on older persons and children aged 13 to 60 -
1945, 2/155, part I, pp. 68, 179; part II, pp. 4, 102.

[20] In May there was one child there, and in
August two children aged up to 18 months, AAN, MBP, DW,
Inspection Department, Statistical reports on older persons and
children aged up to 13 and 60 - 1945,  2/155, part I, p. 68,
part II, p. 102; this is certainly not a complete record. One female
prisoner recalls that in her barrack she saw two or three women with
children aged 6-7 years, Report of Melania Uherek, Obóz Pracy w
Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku.., p. 176; this was despite the fact
that as early as 14 April 1945, Major Teodor Duda, Director of the
Department of Prisons and Camps, had already prohibited children
aged up to 13 from being taken into camps and prisons. He had
instructed the commandants of prisons and camps that children
staying with their parents in prisons and camps are subject to the
care of the local People’s Councils, AAN, MBP, DW, Inspection
Department, Statistical reports on old people and children aged up
to 13 and 60  - 1945, 2/155,  part I, p. 53.

[21] IPN Ka, Case files.. Complete extracts of
the death records of prisoners in the Labour Camp at
Świętochłowice.

[22] See: Statistical reports on the camp
population, Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku.., pp. 42,
52.

[23] AAN, MBP, DW, call no. 4/162, page 107-108,
Response by the Head of the Labour Camp in Świętochłowice of 15 IX
1945 to the MBP Department of Prisons and Camps; see also Obóz Pracy
w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku..., pp. 55-56.

[24] Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945
roku.., p. 55.

[25] Ibidem, p. 147.

[26] Ibidem, Report by Melania Uherek, p.
176.

[27] Ibidem, Testimony of Józef Wiesiołek, p.
112.

[28] Ibidem, p. 62; Morel says that there were
also car workshops on the territory of the camp, and a considerable
group of prisoners was allegedly employed in the administration and
in offices, ibidem, p. 89.

[29] Ibidem, p. 77.

[30] Ibidem, p. 76..

[31] See IPN Ka, Case files... .

[32] G. Gruschka, Zgoda-miejsce zgrozy. Obóz
koncentracyjny w Świętochłowicach  [Zgoda, a place of doom. The
concentration camp at Świętochłowice], Gliwice 1998, p. 51.

[33] F. Brachmann, Powrót na Śląsk [Return to
Silesia]„Karta” [Charter] 1998, no. 26, p. 33.

[34] Those who survived the epidemic were
transferred to blocks 1 and 2, whereas women and children were
placed in block 3, G. Gruschka, Zgoda-miejsce zgrozy..., pp. 51,
53.

[35] The statistics were prepared on the basis
of extracts from death records, IPN Ka, Case files..., Complete
extracts of the death records of prisoners in the Labour Camp at
Świętochłowice.

[36] Ibidem

[37] AAN, MBP, DW, call no. 3/2, page 1; see
also Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku..., p. 48.

[38] State Archives in Katowice, Office of the
Voivodship of Silesia, General Department, call no. 271, p. 58.

[39] H. Dominiczak, Organy bezpieczeństwa PRL
1944-1990. Rozwój i działalność w świetle dokumentów MSW, [Security
services of the Polish People’s Republic in 1944-1990. Development
and operations in the light of Interior Ministry documents], Warsaw
1997, p. 72.

[40] This information is reported by Jakub
Ciećkiewicz in a report entitled Niemcy i Polacy [The Germans and
the Poles] (typescript with the IPN Ka, Case files ..., appendix to
the files). The priest who provided this information is no longer in
Świętochłowice, and the present priest is unable to confirm the
existence of these records.

[41] AAN, MBP, DW, call no. 2/137, page 11; see
also Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku.., p. 78.

[42] IPN Ka, Case files..., Complete extracts of
the death records of prisoners in the Labour Camp at
Świętochłowice.

[43] AAN. MBP, DW, call no. 4/162, p. 139, see
also Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku.., p. 49.

[44] AAN, MBP, DW, call no. 4/162, p. 107-108,
Response by the Head of the Labour Camp in Świętochłowice of 15 IX
1945 to the MBP Department of Prisons and Camps; see also Obóz Pracy
w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku..., p. 55-56.

[45] AAN, MBP, DW, Inspection Department,
Statistical reports on older persons and children aged up to 13 and
60 - 1945, 2/155, part I, p. 179.

[46] IPN Ka, Case files..., Testimony of Józef
C., pp. 916-918.

[47] IPN Ka, Case files... .

[48] Memorandum no.107 of 27 XI 1945, copy with
the IPN Ka, Case files..., p. 486.

[49] This is illustrated by the example of one
prisoner, accused of membership of the SA, who died in the
Świętochłowice camp on 2 August 1945 during the typhus epidemic. No
one notified the relevant authorities of his death. Unaware of this,
the prosecutor prepared an indictment against the prisoner four
months after his death, and sent it to the camp. In March 1946, the
prosecutor received the reply that the prisoner cannot appear for
trial because he has been dead since August 1945, Obóz Pracy w
Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku.., p. 24.

[50] A. Dziurok, Śląskie rozrachunki. Władze
komunistyczne a byli członkowie organizacji nazistowskich na Górnym
Śląsku w latach 1945-1956, [Silesian settlement of scores. The
Communist authorities and former members of Nazi organisations in
Upper Silesia in 1945-1956], Warsaw 2000, p. 139.

[51] Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945
roku.., p. 149.

[52] AAN, MBP, DW, call no. 4/162, pp. 107-108,
138; zob. także Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku.., p. 50,
55.

[53] The above cases and methods of tormenting
prisoners inside the Świętochłowice camp have been described in
greater detail in the application for the temporary arrest and
extradition of Salomon Morel, IPN Ka, Case files... pp
2331-2341.

[54] Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945
roku.., p. 78.

[55] IPN Ka, Case files..., p. 735.

[56] Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945
roku.., pp. 53-54.

[57] In the case of Jerzy John of Chorzów, the
death certificate stated that the cause of death was typhus, whereas
the death report signed by Morel stated that the cause of death was
“shooting”.

[58] Letter from Salomon Morel to the Regional
Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish People
in Katowice dated 7 XI 1992, IPN Ka, Case files..., pp. 78-81, see
also Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku..., p. 89.

[59] Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945
roku.., p. 28.

[60] Order dated 15 IX 1945. copy with the IPN
Ka, Case files..., p. 484.

[61] Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945
roku.., p. 78.

[62] Ibidem, p. 145.

[63] AAN, MBP, DW, Inspection Department,
Additional appendices to the protocol of handover of the Labour Camp
at Świętochłowice (in liquidation), call no. 2/138, p. 1.

[64] Obóz Pracy w Świętochłowicach w 1945 roku..
,p. 61-75, 79.

[65] AIPN Wa, Regional Court in Cieszyn, call
no. 131, pp. 67, 31, 58.

[66] Many of them died in camp, such as Paweł
Schmidt – one of the Nazi party Ortsgruppenleiter in Bielsko, APKat,
Polish Western Union Silesian District, Lists of war criminals, p.
52; in the early 1980’s, Jerzy Ziętek allegedly said in an interview
with Henryk Piecuch: “In Świętochłowice there were few Gestapo men
and many Silesians. That is the whole tragedy. The conditions were
terrible. During the space of several months, almost 2,000 persons
died or were murdered there”, H. Piecuch, Akcje specjalne: od
Bieruta do Ochaba [Special operations: from Bierut to Ochab],Warsaw
1996, pp. 27-28.

July 21, 2005

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