Obóz pracy w Świętochłowicach-Zgodzie i jego komendant

Abstract

The activity of the apparatus of repression in Poland during the years 1944-1947 encom­passed both opponents of the „people’s rule” and thousands of persons uninvolved in any undertakings aimed against the new authorities. In addition, in Upper Silesia, the repressions affected the majority of the local population, regarded as German, interned in the former sub-camps of KL Auschwitz, now taken over by the Security Office. The inmates were beaten, starved and employed in mines and metallurgical works. In this way, the system of terror supported production. One of the harshest labour camps was the one in Świętochłowice-Zgoda (February-No- vember 1945). The camp was composed of seven wooden barracks, a brick building housing the camp authorities and economic outbuildings. The whole complex was encircled by a barbed wire fence, with guard towers situated in the corners. In July, the outbreak of a typhoid fever epidemic led to the death of more than 100 inmates daily. It is estimated that in the course of the 300 days-long existence of the camp 1800-4 000 people perished as a result of beatings, starvation and illnesses. The camp commander was Salomon Morel, who personally attacked and murdered the inmates, claiming that he was taking revenge on the Germans who killed his whole family in KL Auschwitz. This was not so: Morel came from a Jewish family in the village of Grabów (the Lublin region) and, together with his brother, was saved by the Poles. ( In November 1983, Józef Tkaczyk received the „Just among the Nations of the World” medal, awarded by the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem, for helping the Morel family to survive the occupa­tion). After the liquidation of the camp, Morel continued to work in the prison system, and even wrote an M. A. thesis on Inmate Labour and its Significance , presented at Wrocław University. He ended his career in May 1968 as the head of a prison in Katowice. At the beginning of the 1990s, his crim inal past was recollected by the inm ates of Świętochłowice-Zgoda , primarily Dorota Boreczek and the American journalist John Sack. In this situation, an inquiry was initiated by the Regional Commission for Research into Crimes against the Polish Nation in Katowice; Morel, however, managed to escape punish­ment and left for Israel.