Altdorf

 

The cream-coloured building in the picture above was used as Altdorf sub camp  

Altdorf was a small sub-camp in Stara Wieś near Pszczyna, which operated from mid-November 1942 to April 1943, although there was a break in operations from mid-January to early March 1943. It contained between 15 and 30 Jewish prisoners from Poland and various other European countries, accommodated in the cellars of an apartment building located in the middle of the village. There were two rooms in these cellars. The larger room contained bunk beds with blankets and straw mattresses, while the other room served as a kitchen with two stoves. Meals consisted of a crust of bread with pieces of sausage, black pudding or cheese. The cellars were locked at night to prevent escapes, with an SS guard on the cellar stairs and another patrolling around the building.

The prisoners worked for the Pszczyna Forest Authority (Oberforstamt Pless) in nearby woodland, digging up fallen tree roots, turning over the soil and planting spruce trees. The harvested wood was used to fuel the cremation pits at Auschwitz II Birkenau, given that the prisoners carried blocks of wood on their backs and delivered them to Sonderkommando 1005 at Birkenau. These blocks were stored in the basement of the apartment block until they could be transported to Birkenau. Tools were stored in a shed in the forest. There was a brief roll call before the prisoners turned in to bed for the night. The area is now part of the Polish city of Pszczyna and the camp itself was located alongside ul Rybnicka, near a brickyard.

Witness reports state that the SS guards behaved reasonably towards the prisoners, adopting a relaxed attitude. Sometimes the guards performed gym exercises on wooden poles outside the apartment block that the prisoners had constructed. One of the prisoners was a boxer who accompanied the guards when they were exercising. There was also a small shed outside, containing rabbits and chickens. Some witness reports indicate that the guards were often drunk.

Another prisoner was a shoemaker named Lanzbergier. He performed shoe repairs for the guards. According to a local resident, Łucja Anna Larysz:

“From time to time the SS men brought him to us and guarded the prisoner all day while the shoemaker repaired the shoes. The material needed to repair shoes such as leather skins, hooves, and twine they took from my husband without any compensation…..Shoes were always repaired by the same prisoner. Coming in the morning he brought a piece of bread. He worked until the evening; dinner was not brought to him. If the SS man guarding him was a good man then he allowed me to give him (the prisoner) for dinner a bowl of soup, probably because the SS man himself wanted some cooked food. It happened onetime that an SS guard left a prisoner in our apartment under the care of my husband and left (…). 

The apartment block also housed a number of local civilian residents who surreptitiously left food for the prisoners.


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