Poznan- Hitler's First Death Camp

"Behind these gates emblazoned with the symbol of Hitler's dreaded SS, lies one of the lesser known horrors of the Nazi occupation of Poland - the first use of gas chambers for mass extermination.
Seized by the SS on October 10 1939, the 19th century Fort Colomb in the city of Poznan in west Poland was renamed Konzentrationslager Posen (Concentration Camp Poznan).
But rather than serving as a holding space for prisoners of the Reich, what followed was the systematic murder of psychiatric patients, local resistance fighters, academics, the intelligentsia and anyone seen by the Nazis as a threat.
It wouldn't be until three years later that the use of gas chambers to eliminate the Jewish population became a Third Reich policy.
But 76 years ago this month, it was decided that Fort VII, as it is known, would be the first place to experiment with gas in the mass killing of civilians.
Under the command of Gestapo monster Herbert Lange, SS thugs in a special execution group known as the SS-Sonderkommando-Lange, rounded up patients from a psychiatric hospital in the nearby town of Owinska.
They were herded into trucks and taken to the primitive gas chambers which had formerly been used as an artillery depot. Initially, the SS took male patients.
Each truck could fit 25 people and around three trucks left the hospital everyday. After all the men were killed, the SS began taking the female patients and eventually the children.
By November 30, all the patients had been killed.
In the end, no-one was spared. The hospital staff were also driven to the camp and gassed to death and the hospital was turned into an SS barracks."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3266090/Revealed-dark-history-Hitler-s-death-camp-Nazis-murdered-psychiatric-patients-nurses-test-gas-chambers-used-mass-extermination-Jews.html#ixzz3oMa8luGH

 

Reading Himmler's speech justifying the fact that they were still "decent men" is beyond sick.

 

The Nazis were exterminating the mentally and physically ill inside Germany at the same time, even before they started in Poland.

 

When I get time, I shall write about what happened in the local psychiatric hospital near where I live.
Most people know about the death camps, but not so many know about what went on in the hospitals.

Many thanks for posting this article, Gordon. Poznań is only a couple of hours away from where I live.

 

great article...thanks Historian..... the humans being 'human'.....must feel and be haunted right by those doors of the gas chambers......the faces on the ID card pictures look morbid! straight from a movie.......and to think, some of them thought they were doing their country's duty.....would like to see first hand pics of the compound Cecylia, if you could get them

 

https://www.google.pl/search?q=fort+colomb+poznan&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari#imgrc=aY_GzEzfGbv7JM%3A

Some photos of Fort Colomb, Poznań. I'm not sure when we'll be able to go to Poznań next, but I'll try to take some pics when we do go.

 

Looking forward to your contribution, Cecylia.

 

Is this a POLISH DEATH CAMP?

http://www.ww2f.com/topic/57475-implying-polish-guilt-in-holocaust-to-be-outlawed/

 

no, it's an SS death camp (SS were german.)