Charlottegrube

Charlottegrube


Charlottegrube consisted of five camps, only two of them housing prisoners from Auschwitz. 200 prisoners arrived in September 1944 and by October this number had swelled to more than 600. Most of the prisoners were Jews from Hungary, Bohemia, and Slovakia. The prisoners slept on three-tier bunks in brick barracks surrounded by barbed wire fences. The camp was commanded by SS-Oberscharführer Alfred Tschiersky and subsequently by SS-Hauptscharführer Kurt Kirschner. The garrison consisted of 54 SS men.

The prisoners worked in two groups, one of them at the Leon II and Leon III mine shafts at the Charlotte coal mine nearby and the other group above ground where they transported and sorted coal, worked in the colliery workshops and constructed the Charlotte electric power station. Extra guards were drawn from the police, Wehrmacht soldiers, and uniformed members of the SA. 

The working conditions were hard, causing 50 percent of the prisoners to lose their ability to work within the first four months. They were replaced by more prisoners brought in from Auschwitz main camp, swelling camp numbers to 909, although if one adds to that prisoners working in the camp kitchen, storage areas and infirmary, there was probably over a thousand inmates. More than 50 prisoners died at the camp. Several of them through suicide.

In January 1945, the prisoners set off on a march to Gross Rosen, but two days later the route was blocked by Red Army units and so the prisoners were then marched back to Rydułtowy, and then to Włodzisław Śląski where they boarded a train to Mauthausen.

Mine administration building

 
House along Urbana Street probably former SS accommodation



 

 


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