Zgoda Labour Camp - Zgoda Labour Camp Operation

Zgoda Labour Camp Operation

The Nazi German camp was liberated by the Soviets in December 1944, and evacuated before 23 January 1945. However, its infractructure was left intact and after a few weeks the camp was restored by the NKVD, disinfected and repopulated in February 1945 with Silesian prisoners from Katowice, Bielsko and Nysa. It continued to be used until November of the same year, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland. It was one of several camps of this type in Silesia (the central camp was the one in Jaworzno).

Following World War II, the communist authorities of Poland decided that the Silesian Volksdeutsche from the German DVL groups I and II were to be considered ethnically German. They were believed to have willingly collaborated with the Nazi regime in Upper Silesia during the war and were the subject of judiciary. People who signed or were compelled to sign the Nazi lists III and IV were freed from this procedure providing they swore an oath of loyalty to the Polish state. The decision to treat Silesian prisoners as Germans was motivated by prior dealings with the Volksdeutsche from the Nazi General Government, and did not take into account local conditions under which the population found themselves on DVL lists, often unwillingly. The policy was changed in 1946, and the criteria were no longer based on Volksdeutsche list number, but on specific actions of individual prisoners during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

About 6,000 persons were imprisoned at the Zgoda camp, 1/3 of them Germans (1,733 in August 1945 along with those from Upper Silesia). The first inmates were sent there by militia, security services and the Soviet NKVD. Some families took children with them to the camp, but such cases were marginal, and concerned a few mothers who did not want to leave their children alone. Statistics and witness statements speak of about 2 mothers with children below 1,5 years of age and perhaps 2 or 3 children 6 or 7 years old. This was a violation of a directive by Security Department that forbade admitting prisoners along with children below 13 years old, who were ordered to be handed over to state care instead. Most camp inmates were over 40 years old. The majority consisted of Silesians from the Volksliste category I and II as well as ethnic Germans, with some ethnic Poles and at least 38 inmates of other nationalities. Women made up 17% of the camp prisoners in June 1945, but their number went down later (from 716 to just over 300). There was also a large group of people above 60 years old. Among the incarcerated were former Nazi Party members, including those with the rank of Ortsgruppenleiter, for instance several dozen Nazis from Prudnik and Głubczyce. Some inmates have been sentenced by the courts for criminal acts during Nazi occupation of Poland, one was sentenced for four years for oppressing Polish population during the war.