Plaszow Labour Camp

Since its closure in the 1940s, the site of the Plaszow labour camp has been transformed into rather pleasant parkland, in huge contrast to its horrific past. But the mines that were involuntarily dug by the inmates can still be found, if you know where to look. 

On my last Poland blog, I covered the quarry where the Plaszow camp was recreated for the movie, Schindler's List, and it was a difficult topic to research and write about.

It had mostly positive feedback, but with some predictable filth thrown my way on the hub of human misery, Boomer 4chan Facebook. And because it's Facebook, the toilet cubicle wall of the internet, I didn't let it bother me in the slightest. Since starting my blog in 2014, I've been accused of running the Chinese Yulin Festival, single-handedly destroying gay rights, and creating the concept of linear time. That website is the most entertaining cesspit in human history. 

But the fact that talking about the Holocaust does incite anger only makes me think we should talk about it more. 

These old mines are pretty eerie. In the 1940s, the inmates of Plaszow would have been forced down here to dig stone, which was likely then used to build infrastructure for the camp. In a sadistic twist, the inmates were forced to provide the raw materials for their own prison. 

In the early 1940s, Poland's Jewish population had gradually lost their basic human rights under the Nazi regime. They lost their homes, their businesses, and all the little things that we take for granted, like the fact that if we walk down the street and someone spits at us, that person is the asshole in the court of public opinion. There was no discussion to be had on the matter. They simply weren't allowed to have the same things as everyone else anymore, because they were Jewish.

Eventually they were crammed into a tiny walled ghetto that was basically an open-air prison, but with the construction of the Plaszow camp, the ghetto was officially liquidated in 1943. The occupants were rounded up and either sent to Plaszow if they could work, or sent to Auschwitz if they couldn't. Or just shot on the spot. 

These mines are the result of hundreds of involuntary workers, working for fourteen hours a day without breaks or days off, day after day, until they died of exhaustion or were shot for underperformance. And of course, sometimes the camps Big Cheese Amon Göth just felt like it. He wouldn't even have breakfast until he'd put a bullet in some random person from his balcony. For him it was a recreational activity. 

(Amon Göth. Photo not mine, obviously)

Amon Göth was terrifying, purely because he was so sadistic and unpredictable. The saying is that power corrupts. In this case, it didn't so much corrupt as take the leash off a rabid animal. If he felt someone was moving too slowly, he might shoot them. If they peeled a potato five seconds too slow, that day might be their last. On a whim he would have inmates strung up by their ankles and ravaged by his dogs. Whether they got through a day very much depended on what mood he was in. Life under him was one of constant fear, constant work and constant starvation. The food provided for workers was 1.4kg of bread weekly, and one litre of soup daily. Hardly a diet supportive of such long and strenuous working hours. But then that was the point, to destroy their bodies and their spirits, while squeezing out every last ounce of physical energy. 

A survivor named Helena Frand described working in the Plaszow quarries. She said that she had to work the quarry in the freezing cold winter, with a group of seventy other women who had to pull five wagons full of rocks uphill for 4km. And there are photos that support this, taken covertly by a man named Raimund Titsch. 

(Photo credit: Raimund Titsch)

The camp itself was built on top of two Jewish cemeteries. The prisoners were forced to desecrate the graves of their ancestors to pave the camp with their gravestones, making their abuse here as psychological as it was physical, reminding them at every opportunity that they were less than human in the eyes of the regime. 

These tunnels are vast and go on for quite some distance. I'm no stranger to being underground. I've been in scarier mines than this one. I've been in mines with tunnels that require me to crawl on my belly, or wade through water, and dodge massive drops to my splattery demise, all in pitch black conditions. It's all stuff that might make people uncomfortable, and I've taken to it with a barely a second thought.

This area is pretty stable and vast by comparison. It's not claustrophobic in the slightest. I can do star jumps in here if I want. And yet, this is the most uncomfortable I have ever felt underground. Knowing what happened here, and picturing these sad, starving, unwashed, lice-ridden people spending the day down here in the dark, chipping away at these walls and hauling out the stone, is enough to give this place some weight. 

(Photo credit: Probably Raimund Titsch)

It's easy to look back on this from the comfort of the present day, and not grasp the horrors of it. These were actual people that you'd encounter all the time. The doctor who helps you out, the person you pay for your groceries, your school teacher, your work colleague, your neighbour, the author of the book you like, the plumber or electrician that made your home habitable, all quietly shuffled away. One day you'd just never see or hear from them again, and you probably wouldn't even be given an explanation. Their accomplishments in life would be forgotten. They'd be dehumanised, stripped of their dignity, broken, and then murdered. All for a difference that didn't impact your life in the slightest. 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

The Plaszow camp was intended for four thousand inmates, but was quickly expanded to house twelve thousand. By mid 1944 it was said to have a population somewhere around 30,000.  

It's typically believed that around 8000 people were murdered here, either directly through shooting or indirectly through being starved and worked to death, or catching diseases due to poor hygiene conditions. 

A large pit, dug by the inmates themselves, was used for mass executions. The other inmates were forced to watch, adding to both the psychological horror, and the indignity of the condemned victims, as they were forced to undress in front of everyone before being shot, and then stacked in layers in the pit. Once this had been filled to capacity, the inmates were forced to build barracks on the site of this mass grave. The inmates would have to sleep in these barracks, above the mass grave of their friends and family members. 

The documentation of deaths was trusted to a woman named Alice Orlowski, and I genuinely have to wonder if she was the inspiration behind Aunt Lydia in a Handmaid's Tale. Take a look at her. 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Alice Orlowski is said to have been one of the more brutal overseers of the concentration camps. She would regularly whip the women, often aiming for their faces. She was regularly in charge of loading up the wagons of prisoners for transfer to other camps, and once these wagons were full, she would just toss the children on top of the adults as if they were baggage, and bolt the door shut, calling it a "space-saving operation." 

After the war, she served only ten years for crimes against humanity, but was arrested again in 1973 for saying that the Nazis only finished half the work.

What a cunt. 

It would also be doing an injustice to not mention Amon Göth's mistress, Ruth Kalder.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Ruth Kalder was introduced to Göth by Oskar Schindler, whose motives were to butter up the bastard in the hopes of procuring ownership of as many inmates as possible, to save them from execution. To Amon Göth she was a side piece, but she fell madly in love with him. 

Ruth Kalder lived the dream life in Göth's villa, overlooking the camp, acting like she was on a luxury holiday while people starved in squalor down below. She described their lifestyle as being King and Queen overlooking all the dirty people. 

Having said that, she did seem to show regret later in life. She eventually committed suicide, but how much of that was down to regret or being terminally ill anyway is anyone's guess. Her own grand daughter is mixed-race, and the author of the book "My grandfather would have shot me." 

The deepest part of the cave was a cavern littered with rubbish left by those who have been here before. There's also some rather odd graffiti. 

And to be clear, I'm definitely against vandalising something holocaust-related. This is disgusting. 

But at the same time I'm a little intrigued by this writing, because it definitely seems to be some sort of coded language. It probably does mean something.

It's also probably not that interesting. 

Making our way out of the mines, there are a couple of ruined buildings that I also want to check out. 

According to some sources online, any surviving ruins are related to the old Jewish cemeteries that the Nazis forced the inmates to desecrate. But an urbex source says that these are old gunpowder warehouses. 

Of course, that same urbex source claims that the mines are actually the tombs beneath "Kopiec Krakusa," an ancient mound said to be the resting place of Krakow's legendary founder, King Krakus. 

Which is a big load of wank, because you can see the actual mound on Google Maps like a giant pimple on the face of Poland, and it is quite clearly NOT in the same place as these tunnels. 

And if we really think about it, if you want to take over the world, it's probably not a smart move to keep your gunpowder stockpile with your involuntary slave labour. 

I guess the truth just isn't good enough for the social media algorithm. 

This is my life. Perpetually correcting urbexers who don't know how to research and are completely apathetic about disrespect as long as people Like, Share and Subscribe. Sometimes it's funny. My blog on Scarewoods is joyously slathered in sarcasm, and I made a grown man cry over Bontddu Hall when I pointed out that Victorian census documents were a more reliable historic source than Google's AI.

But this is the holocaust we're talking about now. The people who were forced to work here deserve some reverence. These mines are not the ancient tomb of the legendary Krakus. They're the scars of a horrific ordeal that needs to be respected and remembered, not shat on to promote your channel. 

Whatever the purpose of these buildings, they're featureless now, save for the graffiti of the local wazzocks. 

Amon Göth ran Plaszow until September 1944, when he was arrested. It was this arrest that also implicated Oskar Schindler, because Göth was found to be taking bribes from him. The movie "Schindler's List" tells things a little differently. In the movie, Amon Göth prepares to shunt the inmates to Auschwitz, and Oskar Schindler dictates the list of those he wants to save. In reality, Schindler was in jail, and the list was composed on his behalf by a chap named Mietek Pemper, with some input from a shady chap named Marcel Goldberg who would edit the list depending on bribes. The extent of these edits is not known. 

A man named Leopold Pfefferberg was on the original intended list, but booted off it. Luckily (in a roundabout way) a Nazi guard had beaten the crap out of him under orders and then felt guilty about it later, and smuggled in a bottle of alcohol for Pfefferberg as an apology gift. Pfefferberg was then able to offer this to Goldberg to get his family back on the list. And he was later instrumental in convincing Thomas Keneally to write "Schindler's Ark," which was then adapted into the movie "Schindler's List." If that one Nazi guard hadn't brutally beaten Pfefferberg and then felt bad about it afterwards, none of that would have happened. That's crazy to think about. The Butterfly Effect is a scary beast to mess with. 

But I digress. With Amon Göth in jail, leadership of the Plaszow camp fell under a man named Arnold Büscher in September 1944. 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Arnold Büscher's leadership was actually favoured by the inmates. The random shootings came to an end, so they were able to get on with their life of perpetual slavery without quite as much terror. Büscher also let them have milk, eggs and sugar in their diet, so that was an improvement.

But he was still a Nazi and he did still have Nazi ideals. In "Schindler's List," some three hundred women are accidentally sent to Auschwitz, and Schindler has to bribe his arse off in order to get them back. This was portrayed as an admin error. In reality, Büscher sent them to Auschwitz deliberately, and then when Schindler began negotiating their release, Büscher asked Auschwitz to send Schindler 300 different women, forcing Schindler to protest for his original 300. 

I'm not sure what Büscher's motives were, but it looks like he's trying to expose Schindler for having other motives beyond simply wanting employees. 

However, Arnold Büscher's leadership was mainly spent winding down operations here at Plaszow. The camp was evacuated in January 1945, with the Red Army approaching from the East.

And for a group of people so convinced that their behaviour was justified, the Nazis sure didn't act like it when faced with potential discovery. The final months were spent rapidly trying to cover up their antics. Buildings were destroyed, and the mass graves were dug up so that all of the bodies could be burned. Eyewitnesses say that seventeen truckloads of human ashes were taken away from Plaszow. 

(Graves being exhumed. Photo not mine, obviously)

Check it out. The old fence posts are still here. Now this really gives the place an eerie vibe. 

There's a large monument on the hill, depicting five figures bowing their heads under the weight of a huge block. Their hands are interesting, some being open in quiet resignation while some being clenched in defiance, but across the figures chests is a gash, to symbolise that for all of them, their hearts have been ripped out. 

Plaszow has been transformed into parkland, but it also pays respect to its past, reminding us that humans are capable of horrific cruelty, but also of bouncing back. 

It's important to talk about the holocaust, even when it makes us uncomfortable. It's supposed to make us uncomfortable. If you don't like it, then you can still do something to stop it happening again. It's important to re-iterate that it didn't start with concentration camps and mass executions. It started with the "othering" of people. I'm very happy to have people of all different backgrounds in my social circles. If I was a cannibal I'd certainly be able to have my five a day. I've learned something from all of them, and I'm a better person for it. 

The world would be boring if the Nazis had won, let's be honest.

My next blogs will be in the UK again, but I'm not done with Poland or its history. We'll be returning our focus here soon enough. 

In the meantime, I guess the best way to stay updated with my blog is to follow my social media. Well, actually it's to check back here periodically but that's Old Internet thinking. In the modern era, when we've been herded onto corporate algorithmic hellscapes and can't think for ourselves, we just have to pray that the algorithm is in our favour. Follow my page on Boomer 4chan Facebook, and follow me on Instagram. And if the smaller platforms are more your cup of tea, follow me on Bluesky, Vero and Cara.

Thank you for reading!