Janinagrube (Libiaz, Poland)


Janinagrube sub-camp was located in Libiaz at the Janina coal mine, which was operated by German company Fürstengrube GmbH. Some 400 prisoners were brought to the site from the main camp at Auschwitz in September 1943 where they were set to work as coal miners. Previously, British POWs, and some Palestinian Jews, had been held on the site, but they had either refused to work or indulged in acts of sabotage.

By late 1944, the number of inmates at the camp had increased to 900. Most of them were Jews from Poland, Bohemia, Greece, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy, but a number of non-Jewish Poles and Germans were held there as well.

Camp accommodation consisted of a brick building and four wooden barracks, along with a kitchen and food store. The working conditions were harsh. There was no protective clothing. More than 45 prisoners had died by January 1945, while several thousand more were returned to Birkenau after being deemed unfit to work. In that same month, the camp was evacuated, with some prisoners being sent by rail from Gliwice to Mauthausen and Buchenwald and others having to walk more than 200 kilometres to Gross-Rosen in Lower Silesia. 60 prisoners were left behind, where Libiaz citizens took care of them.

The camp was commanded by SS-Unterscharführer Franz Baumgartner and SS-Oberscharführer Hermann Kleeman and was guarded by 38 SS men.

In 1965, a memorial stone was erected at the end of the street ul Obieżowa (the street visible upper left in the Google Earth screenshot above bordering the site).

The guardhouse was located in a wooden barrack at this spot along ul Obieżowa where these metal structures stand now

The brick remains of the camp latrine can be seen here, just beyond the car and to its left. The extension of the building to the left served as the typing pool and orderly room.

The SS guards barrack stood beyond the cars on the left where the garden fence can be seen 

The camp laundry stood just here, to the right of the track

This building was used by camp guards

Former administration building and prisoner accommodation with cells in the basement

Openings to the cells in the basement

Area of ground where the wooden barracks were located




























 

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