Lublin - The Old Airfield Camp

(Alter Flugplatz)

The SS Clothing Works (SS- Bekleidungswerke) was established in the summer of 1941, on the premises of the former Lublin Aircraft Factory, the so-called Plage and Laskiewicz Mechanical Plant located on Chelmska Street.

Initially women prisoners from the Lublin Castle and Jewish specialists from the Lublin ghetto were employed there. Production was developed on a large scale, because Himmler in a note dated 21 July 1941, instructed the SS storehouses to place their orders there.

In effect, the enterprise was subordinated, as of 1 September 1942, to the SS- Clothing firm as a branch. This situation lasted until March 1942, when the Clothing Works was again placed under Globocnik’s administration.

Thenceforth, the enterprise was to engage in the segregation, disinfection, and shipment to the Reich of the property of the murdered Jews, in the death camps of Aktion Reinhard.

In connection with this re-organisation and in order to conceal the true nature of the Works activities, SS- Hauptsturmfuhrer Friedrich Opitz was replaced as the works manager by SS- Hauptsturmfuhrer Josef Obermeyer, Globocnik’s trusted right-hand man.

His task was to expand, from the spring of 1942 till the spring of 1943, both the Clothing Works proper and the prisoner barracks. In the newly erected barracks Jews and Jewesses were accommodated.

Just before Christmas 1942 Christian Wirth the former Belzec death camp commandant and since 1 August 1942 the Inspekteur der SS- Sonderkommando moved into a two-storey villa on Chelmska Street, at the north-west corner of the disused Lublin airfield, and adjacent to the main Lublin- Warsaw – Lvow railway line.

The ground floor rooms were used as offices – staffed by Wirth, Oberhauser, Hausler and a couple of secretaries. On the first floor were located a first-class dining room and living quarters for Wirth and his staff.

Here at the old airfield from the commencement of the mass-murder programme three hangers had been used as the main sorting depot for the great heaps of clothing, belongings and valuables taken from the victims of Aktion Reinhard.

About 2,000 prisoners – predominantly women – were employed in sorting the plunder. The articles of clothing were sorted on arrival into kinds – men’s, women’s and children’s. Then sorted again into outer and under –wear, types of footwear. There were also big crates into which were deposited the gold, the silver, diamonds, pearls, gold watches, and other valuables.

At the end of each day, up to six men were needed to carry each crate to the Kommandantur. A great deal of the accumulated wealth was pilfered daily.

Oberhauser who worked at the Kommandantur recalled that:

“The unregistered jewellery and valuables from the individual death camps were delivered to the SS- Verwaltungsamt, whose head was SS- Sturmbannfuhrer Georg Wippern. I had not the slightest thing to do with this.”

 In 1942 the DAW Company opened a tar-paper factory behind Wirth’s villa and beyond that a railway siding led from the main tracks into the depot. The wagonloads of plunder from the death camps arrived at the siding and after unloading, sorting and cleaning were despatched again by rail to the Reich.

Read the full story here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/labour%20camps/lublinairfield.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

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