KL PLASZOW

"Background Information On the Activities Of Amon Leopold Goeth

Within the Camp, the victims of mass executions were being buried. And so behind the barracks , there were the mass graves, of the victims from the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto containing about 4000 persons. Also there , the people brought from the Krakow prison of Montelupich, were being shot. The second mass grave, was on the so called "Chujowa Gorka" which was a artificial mound for artillery, from the first world war. There, almost every day , people were being killed brought there in vans from outside the camp. This continued until the ground evened out , after which they transferred the place of executions , to a second such mound , situated at a lower level. 

In September 1944, an exhumation of the remains was conducted , during which burning of the remains from both of these mass graves was taking place. At that time about 6-8 thousand remains were burned, without any identification , following the removal of any gold teeth or dentures. During 1943/44 the construction of gas chambers in the camp was started, the equipment for this, has been brought there from the now liquidated camp in Lwow, in Janowska street. The construction of this remained unfinished however as the war ended.

The Approach of the Russian front line in the summer of 1944 was the signal to liquidate the camp, preceded by the exhumation and burning of remains, and transportation of remaining prisoners to other camps in order to erase the evidence."

"The Liquidation of the Camp In Szebnia

The liquidation began on the 21st September 1943 with the killing of about 700 Jewish prisoners, who were driven in lorries into a forest in Tarnowiec, at a distance of 3km from the camp , there shot and their remains burned on a pile.

From the remaining 600 Jews in Szebinia they shot and burned about 500 on the 7th of November 1943 again."

Source: The Trial of Goeth. English summary Translation of The Trial of Amon Goeth, 30 July 1946 Krakow.  (archives of the Wiener Library London)