Two young boys sent as forced labour have found an exciting distraction!
The official youngest age that boys and girls were to be exploited as forced labourers was fourteen but in practice many much younger children (see below) were also deported to Germany to work in factories and munitions plants where small and nimble fingers were required in assembly processes.
15 year old boy and "toddler" sister: Women were often deported along with their children no matter what age.
Last edited by StefanM; 12-18-2013 at 10:12 AM.
I collect, therefore I am.
Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.
I collect, therefore I am.
Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.
I would greatly appreciate some accurate translation assistance of this 1940 two page letter in answer to a company requesting PoWs for labour use so that I can post it in the "Forced Labour" thread.
Translation by CfG:
“Economy-group“ sawmill industry
District-group Thuringia
Company
E. & S. Fischer
Steam saw and moulding factory
Wernshausen in Thuringia
Re: Your inquiry about requirement of POWs
The requirement of only 50 or 60 POWs doesn’t seem very cost-effective in consideration of the extensive expenses for separate standard accommodation and custody. The enterprises have therefore founded a collective under the mayor’s guidance to accommodate at least 150 or 200 POWs mostly in a hall or building provided by the city whose preparation is adopted by the collective of enterprises according to the provision of the Auslieferungslager’s commander. Several camps which have proved themselves already arose that way in Thuringia. However it is the mayor who has to be proactive. He has to look for an appropriate accommodation first. Halls associated with guesthouses or abandoned factories or any other easy to guard accommodations –at best, as in a guesthouse, where catering respectively cooking are ensured– come into consideration. In these camps the POWs are supervised by guards, who need a separate accommodation. Cooking is at best done in an appropriate cooking or boiler plant; POWs serve as workers needed for the camp’s maintenance and cooking.
After preparation of the accommodation the mayor has to contact the Auslieferungslager’s commander, whose address he will get from the state’s employment agency “Mitteldeutschland” in Erfurt. All documents needed for standard accommodation are supplied by those Auslieferungslagers, accommodation will be accepted by the Auslieferungslager’s commander or his commissioners.
Expenses are only affordable if camps of at least 150-200 POWs are established for one location. In Wernshausen it would certainly be possible to interest the worsted spinning mill and other companies in the scheme as well as
(page 2)
nearby villages/towns, if there is any need among enterprises or agriculture.
The Auslieferungslager’s commander provides information about the procurement of dishes and blankets. These items can be allocated by it [i.e. the Auslieferungslager]. The cooking plant is a field kitchen or boiler plant at best unless accommodation takes place in a guesthouse which provides catering.
Labour costs amount to 60% of the customary wage in that place so that the wage –together with the expenses for accommodation and custody– gets close to the customary labour costs in that place.
H*** H*****
“Economy-group“ sawmill industry
District-group Thuringia
?????
manager
Regards,
CfG
Last edited by StefanM; 11-01-2014 at 08:28 AM.
I collect, therefore I am.
Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.
Recent acquisition of a 1936 German propaganda book/pamphlet:
Zwangsarbeit in der Sowjetunion (or Forced labour in the Soviet Union)
by dr. Hermann Greife
Institut zur Wissenschaftlichen Erforschung der Sowjetunion.
Berlin : Nibelungen-Verlag, 1936
An illustrated anti-semitic diatribe about Jewish "GPU" thugs and murders etc running the Gulag forced labour camps in the USSR.
I collect, therefore I am.
Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.
Stefan, is this another 'how great it is to be a Polish forced labour worker in Nazi Germany' propaganda photo or do you think its legit? I have a copy of a Nazi documentary about life in the Warsaw Ghetto in which the Nazi propagandists went to great lengths to portray some Jews living in luxury within the ghetto, as others were dying in the streets.
The Nazi mindset was bizarre to say the least.
I think it is legit.
The experience of Polish forced labour was mulitlayered from workers being worked to death in munitions plants and underground factories to those who worked as accountants and book keepers in German companies, some lived in dreadful barrack conditions and some lived in guest houses and could leave as and when they were not required to be at work, as long as they wore the "P" patch.
Of course there were the propaganda photos produced by the German's to convince foreign workers to volunteer for work in Germany but many were photos taken by commercial photographers commissioned by the workers so they could send reassuring photos back home. Western workers were also allowed cameras and since Poles worked alongside men and women from western countries they also asked them to take photos and this could be one of those.
* * *
Some of those in the Warsaw ghetto did live in comparable luxury in complete contrast to the majority. The rich who still had money in the ghetto or who had access to money outside the ghetto could through Polish intermediaries purchase "luxury" foods via black-market traders and with bribes could live in the better appartment blocks of the "little ghetto" on such streets as ul. Sienna. The rich were able to stave of much of the deprived living conditions but their end at Treblinka was as certain as any from the ghetto.
Of course the Nazis also set up scenes to film of exaggerated luxury of the Jewish elite in the ghetto for propaganda purposes...to show how depraved the Jewish race was living the high life whilst they let their fellow Jews starve etc.
Last edited by StefanM; 12-13-2013 at 08:04 PM.
I collect, therefore I am.
Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.
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