Forgotten Horrors: The Nazi sub-camp system

      The SS Bauzug (Construction Train) was a mobile work commando and specialised sub-camp established in September 1944. It consisted of around 25 modified freight and passenger railway vehicles and accommodated 505 prisoners, most of them Polish and Russian, along with SS guards. The railway vehicles including living quarters, kitchens, a pantry, a first-aid car, tool cars, and quarters for the SS guards and commandant. It was initially guarded by front-line soldiers who lacked concentration camp training. The prisoners worked on debris removal in the German cities of Karlsruhe and Stuttgart damaged by Allied bombing, rescue and repair, extinguishing fires. The rail line from Stuttgart just outside Karlsruhe    

      The Gestapo HQ marked with a red 'H' The brickworks   There was no major independent standalone concentration camp named "Kattowitz." Instead, the city of Katowice (historically Kattowitz) in occupied Poland housed a small Auschwitz sub-camp called Sonderkommando Kattowitz, alongside several forced labor camps, Nazi prisons, and proximity to the main Auschwitz-Birkenau complex located about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) away. The Sonderkommando was formed in January 1944 and consisted of around ten prisoners operating out of the local Gestapo headquarters, originating from Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union with some Germans. The prisoners were employed on building a long brick barrack for interrogations with an underground tunnel connecting the Gestapo HQ with a nearby villa and an air-raid shelter for the Gestapo. In January 1945, the prisoners were liberated by the Red Army. The former Gestapo HQ   The Sonderkommando was probably commanded by th...