ESTABLISHMENT OF AN UNUSUAL FORCED-LABOR AGENCY

Little more is known about the forced labor of Polish Jews in Silesia than about the use of Jews from the Warthegau in the Old Reich. The forced labor and camps predominantly for Jews from eastern Upper Silesia differ more in structure and control from the camps opened in connection with segregated labor deployment than do the camps of the Reich Autobahn authorities, because in Silesia the SS took over control from the labor administration.

In eastern Upper Silesia (occupied after the attack on Poland and later to become part of the restructured province of Upper Silesia) the German authorities quickly shut Jews out of the economy and trade. (See map 8, p. 215.) The number of people without earnings or means grew rapidly. Initially, the plan was to deport the Jewish population out of the region expeditiously, but despite transports to Nisko during the fall, this objective for the most part had not been achieved by summer 1940. Himmler therefore ordered, most likely on September 12, 1940, that an SS agency be established to intern the Jews of eastern Upper Silesia “energetically” in “separate camps” and to force them to work “in quarries and on streets.” He appointed SS Brigadeführer Albrecht Schmelt to the position of “Special Commissioner of the Reichsführer SS for Utilization of Foreign Nationals as Labor in Upper Silesia” (Sonderbeauftragter des Reichsführers der SS für fremdvölkischen Arbeitseinsatz in Oberschlesien) and personally installed him in his new office.