Dark history of Hitler's first death camp

Recently, the dark history of Poznan camp in Poland - the first death camp of Adolf Hitler's Nazi boss - has been revealed. This dark history page shows how Nazi Germany killed psychiatric prisoners and nurses to test the gas chambers before using these rooms to purge Jews.

Fort Colomb in the city of Poznan in western Poland was occupied by German troops on October 10, 1939. This fortress was later renamed to Poznan concentration camp. However, instead of being a prisoner, this becomes a systematic murder site, where victims are mental patients, Polish people against Nazi Germany, scholars, intellectuals and Anyone who considers Nazi Germany is a threat.

Trucks are turned into portable gas chambers.

76 years ago, the Nazis decided to consider this fortress to be the first place to test poison gas to kill masses of civilians . Under the direction of the German secret agent Herbert Lange, the guards of a special execution group called SS-Sonderkommando-Lange gathered the patients in the psychiatric hospital in nearby Owinska. They were driven into trucks and taken to the gas chambers that used to be artillery. At first, the guards only took male patients.

Each truck carries 25 people and three cars leave the hospital every day. After all the male patients were killed, the guards began to take the female patients and even, they took the children to execution. By November 30, there were no patients in this hospital alive. The hospital staff was also taken to Poznan camp and inhaled poison gas to death. The hospital was turned into a German barracks.

Upon arriving at Poznan camp, the patient was taken down and driven through a bridge before being led into two gas chambers on the hilltop behind the camp. When they entered the room, the doors were sealed with clay and carbon monoxide was pumped through the hole.

The gate of Poznan camp.

After being successful with disgusting experiments, Nazi Germany began using portable gas chambers in trucks specially designed to kill patients from other hospitals in the area. Gas is fed through the duct directly attached to the back of the truck. The patient will suffocate poison gas to death while the car still runs to the nearby forests to bury the dead body in mass graves.

In mid-1940, Lange and henchmen killed over 1,000 patients in Owinska, 2,750 patients in a mental hospital in the city of Koscina 50km away, 1,558 patients and 300 Polish people in Dzialdowo city 286km away and hundreds of Poles at Poznan concentration camp.

In October 1943, commander of the guard and director of the German Secret Service Heinrich Himmler gave two speeches in Poznan, in which he spoke publicly about mass killings of Jews. In the speeches on October 4 and 6 before 92 members of the Guard team and the leader of the Nazi party, he said the genocide was a historical mission of the German army. At one point, Himmler praised the murderers for saying they were 'nice men'. He said: 'Most of you imagine what 100 dead bodies, 500 corpses or 1,000 dead bodies mean. Going through this while being a decent person has made us tough and this is a brilliant chapter that has not been and will not be talked about. ' Himmler then said in front of the crowded hall in Poznan city hall that they had a good reason for mass murder because: 'If Jews are still part of Germany, we will be able to return to the state of 1916 and 1917 '.

A gas chambers in Poznan camp.

In his second speech, Himmler explained the reason for the mass executions and suggested: 'I suggest that what I tell you will only be heard by you and not discussed.' He said that public opinion might wonder about the fate of women and children and the answer he gave to explain why killing both of these subjects is: don't want those kids to grow up. become a revenge.

Local historian Michal Krzyzaniak, author of the book 'Poznan 1945' , said: 'Officially, this is a prison and a temporary camp for the local people, but in reality it is a destruction camp. Prisoners who are not going to the gas chambers are tortured and beaten to death. The names of the victims are still unknown because all documents have been destroyed. '

An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people were killed through torture, execution and poison gas. There are still photos from that time capturing members of the guards and secret agents standing outside the entrance to Poznan camp. People living in the area of ​​Poznan camp were expelled and their homes were taken by the Germans to serve as agents and guards. This area becomes isolated from the whole city.

In 1942, the camp stopped killing prisoners with gas and two gas chambers were converted into normal prisons because mass executions were carried out in more modern gas chambers in Auschwitz and other death camps. At the end of the war, two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe were killed.

However, prisoners in the camp were still tortured, beaten and shot daily. One place they were abused was called the Death Staircase. Prisoners were forced to carry heavy stones while running up the stairs. When they reached the top, they were kicked in the face by guards, causing them to roll down until they died. If they roll down and are not dead, they will be shot at where they stopped rolling.

When the Nazis began losing the war, in April 1944, the remaining prisoners in Poznan camp were taken to another camp on the outskirts of Zabikowo city. Camp Poznan later belonged to the control of Soviet Red Army in February 1945.