According to my research, the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto was done in stages and the final liquidation was on March 13th and 14th, 1943. The Plaszow camp was already in existence when the first Jews from the ghetto were taken to the camp in October 1942. At the time of the final liquidation in March 1943, there were already 2,000 Jews in the Plaszow labor camp. After the final liquidation of the ghetto, there were 8,000 Jews at Plaszow.

At first, the Jews who worked in Shindler’s factory had to walk to and from the factory each day. Then Schindler obtained permission to build barracks at his factory so that the Jews could live there and not have to walk 5 kilometers back and forth each day. His factory became a sub-camp of the Plaszow camp.

Amon Goeth became the Commandant of the Plaszow camp in February 1943 when Plaszow was still a labor camp. He was arrested in September 1944 and charged with stealing from the Plaszow warehouses. Plaszow became a concentration camp some time in 1944 when Goeth was already the Commandant.

I have to say that watching photos of them doing manual labor was a real treat. They do *not* look thrilled about it. Weird Nazis would take a photo like that, just before he shot them all in a blood rage!

Sickening lies. Thank you for your work!

Quote from Herb Stolpmann’s blog:

Plaszów camp became particularly infamous for both individual and mass shootings carried out there. Using Hujowa Górka, a large hill close to the camp commonly used for executions, some 8,000 deaths took place outside the camp’s fences with prisoners trucked in 3 to 4 times weekly. The covered lorries from Kraków used to arrive in the morning. The condemned were walked into a trench of the Hujowa Górka hillside and shot, bodies then covered with dirt, layer upon layer. In early 1944 all corpses were exhumed and burnt in a heap to hide the evidence. Witnesses later attested that 17 truckloads of human ashes were removed from the burning site, and scattered over the area.

All documents pertaining to the mass killings and executions were entrusted by commandant Göth to a high ranking female member of the SS, Kommandoführerin Alice Orlowski. She held these documents in her possession until the end of the war, then allegedly destroyed them. Alice Orlowski, a picture-perfect SS-woman, was known for her whippings especially of young women across their eyes. At roll call she would walk through the lines of women, and personally whip them.

During July and August 1944 a number of transports of prisoners left KL Plaszow for Auschwitz, Stutthof, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen and other camps. In January 1945, the last of the remaining inmates and camp staff, left the camp on a death march to Auschwitz, including several female SS guards. Many of those who survived the march were killed upon arrival. When the Nazis realized that the Soviets were already approaching Kraków, they completely dismantled the camp, leaving an empty field in its place. The bodies that were buried there earlier in various mass graves were all exhumed and burned on site. On January 20, 1945 the Red Army had reached only a tract of barren land.
End Quote

Note that Herb mentions that the 8,000 people who were killed at Hujowa Górka were “trucked in 3 to 4 times weekly.” These were executions of people who had been condemned. He does not say whether the people who were executed were Jews or Polish Resistance Fighters who were fighting as illegal combatants. He does mention that all the documents pertaining to the executions were destroyed by a woman named Alice Orlowski.

Why did the Nazis need to destroy the evidence of condemned prisoners being executed? Why was Amon Goeth charged with a war crime for the execution of condemned people? His crime was that he was the Commandant of the camp where prisoners were brought to be executed. Why wasn’t Goeth charged with his real crime: shooting prisoners from the balcony of his house?

Note that Herb wrote on his blog that transports of prisoners left Plaszow for Auschwitz, Stutthof, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen and other camps. So this means that Plaszow was a transit camp, as well as a labor camp, and then a concentration camp.

P.S. The barracks at Plaszow were horse barns that could be dismantled and taken elsewhere to be put up again. The barracks at Plaszow were allegedly taken down so that they could be taken to Bergen-Belsen. For some reason, the barracks never arrived and some of the prisoners had to sleep in tents, including Anne Frank and her sister Margo. Sleeping on the ground inside a tent is allegedly the reason that Anne and Margo got sick and both died before Bergen-Belsen was turned over to the British.