Qualla: Stutthof Concentration Camp

Stutthof Concentration Camp: Introduction

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wisnia6522, Public domain. The marsh swallowed the sound. That was part of why the Germans chose it — a secluded patch of pine and bog twenty-one miles east of Danzig, where what happened could happen quietly. On 2 September 1939, the day after the German invasion of Poland, the first 150 prisoners arrived at Stutthof. They were Poles and Jews from Danzig, arrested in the first hours of the war. Stutthof would operate continuously for five years and eight months — longer than any other Nazi concentration camp. It was the first camp the regime built outside Germany's pre-war borders. It was also the last one the Allies liberated, on 9 May 1945, the day after the war in Europe officially ended.

Image: Wisnia6522 | Public domain

Stutthof Concentration Camp: Built for the Polish Elite

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jake73, CC BY-SA 1.0. Before the German tanks crossed the border, the local German Selbstschutz militia in Pomerania had already drawn up arrest lists. Teachers, priests, lawyers, civic leaders, doctors — the people who held Polish national identity together. The first Stutthof prisoners helped build ...

Image: Jake73 | CC BY-SA 1.0

Stutthof Concentration Camp: The Women Who Stood Guard

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. From 1942 onward, female SS Aufseherinnen guards arrived at Stutthof along with female prisoners. By the end, 295 women had served as camp staff. Thirty-four were later identified as having committed crimes against humanity. After the war, Polish courts in Gdańsk held four trials...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Stutthof Concentration Camp: The Witnesses

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Polimerek, CC BY-SA 3.0. Josef Salomonovic was nearly six years old when his family was transferred to Stutthof from Auschwitz in June 1944. His father was murdered there by phenol injection. Josef survived, and in 2022 he was the only survivor to give testimony in person at the Furchner trial. He descri...

Image: Polimerek | CC BY-SA 3.0

Stutthof Concentration Camp: The Death March and Klintholm Havn

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stöhr, CC BY-SA 3.0 de. The evacuation began on 25 January 1945. Nearly 50,000 prisoners — most of them Jews — were marched westward toward Lauenburg in the brutal Baltic winter. Cut off by Soviet forces, they were marched back toward Stutthof. In late April, with the camp encircled, the SS forced the r...

Image: Stöhr | CC BY-SA 3.0 de