| KL Soldau (Działdowo) | |
|---|---|
| Concentration camp | |
 Działdowo – Monument to Victims of Soldau concentration camp   northwest of Treblinka death camp | |
| Coordinates | 53°14′N 20°11′E / 53.233°N 20.183°E |
| Known for | Forced labor camp |
| Location | Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany |
| Operated by | Schutzstaffel |
| Number of inmates | Around 30,000 |
| Killed | 10,000 |
The Soldau concentration camp established by Nazi Germany during World War II was a concentration camp for Polish and Jewish prisoners. It was located in Działdowo (German: Soldau), a town in north-eastern Poland, which after the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 was annexed into the Province of East Prussia.[1]
The camp was founded in the former Polish Army barracks by SS-Brigadeführer Otto Rasch with the approval of Reinhard Heydrich. The first prisoners were brought by the end of September 1939. They were the Polish Army defenders of the Modlin Fortress who were forced to capitulate due to lack of ammunition and food.[2] The camp served different purposes throughout its existence. The Polish intelligentsia, priests and political prisoners were secretly executed there,[3] in addition to 1,558 patients from all the psychiatric hospitals in the district. It also served as a transit center for deportations from East Prussia to the semi-colonial General Government, and for slave labour to the Reich. Originally intended to be temporary, for the initial 1,000 inmates, the camp soon became permanent and rezoned as an Arbeitserziehungslager for the civilians brought in from across the new German Zichenau.[4] Some 10,000–13,000 prisoners died there, out of a total of 30,000.[1][5] After the war, the International Tracing Service (ITS) initially classified the camp as a Vernichtungslager (extermination camp), due to the sheer number of victims.[4]
- ^ a b Marek Przybyszewski, IBH Opracowania – Działdowo jako centrum administracyjne ziemi sasińskiej (Działdowo as centre of local administration). Internet Archive, 22 October 2010.
- ^ Marcin Hajduk (2011). "4 Pulk Piechoty naciera na Modlin (Attack on Modlin by the 32nd Infantry Division Regiment 4)". Fall Weiss : Infanterie Regiment 4 Kolberg (now Kołobrzeg, Poland). Retrieved 2 August 2014.
- ^ Henry Friedlander (1995). The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, p. 139. The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4675-9.
- ^ a b Stefan M. "Brief Chronology Of The Konzentrationslager System". Source: Das nationalsozialistische Lagersystem by Martin Weinmann, Anne Kaiser, Ursula Krause-Schmitt. International Tracing Service (1949). War Relics, 23 October 2013. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
- ^ Browning, p. 34