Forgotten Horrors: The Nazi sub-camp system

  Kobior was the largest of the ‘forest’ subcamps serving the forestry operations in the woods between Pszczyna and Tychy. It was established in December 1942 and initially contained around 60 prisoners, expanding to 150 subsequently. They were housed in three barracks surrounded by a barbed wire fence, constructed by civilian labour, and most of them were Jews from Poland, France, Belgium, and Bohemia, with a few Germans, Poles, and Russians. The largest working party (Kommando) was engaged in clearing the forest floor of fallen tree trunks, with the lumber passed on to the forest service and smaller branches and waste used in the cremation pits at Birkenau. The commander (Lagerführer) of the subcamp was initially SS-Unterscharführer Franz Baumgartner, subsequently replaced by SS-Unterscharführer Alfred Schönbohm. The garrison consisted of around 20 SS men. Surviving documents indicate that 31 prisoners from this subcamp were taken to the morgue at Auschwitz I. The numbers of pr...

  This was another small subcamp in Radostowice (Radostowitz in German), near the forest of Pszczyna. As with the Altdorf subcamp, it operated from autumn of 1942 to the spring of 1943, with a break in January and February. The camp consisted of brick stables accommodating around 20 male prisoners, probably Jewish, sleeping on two-tiered bunk beds. The doors and windows were specially strengthened and there were around 8 SS guards. As with Altdorf, the prisoners were employed for the forestry service, felling trees, thus providing fuel for the cremation pits at Birkenau. A forest ranger by the name of Antoni Pastuszka recalls: “During the German occupation I was working in the forest of Radostowice, Forestry Office Kobiór, about 500 metres away from the railway station. The tasks of the foresters were set by the head ranger, a German civilian named Gerlach. Probably at the end of 1941, (exact dates I cannot remember), Jan Kotas and I were instructed to prepare a room for the pris...