Among the worst of the German concentration camps, the concentration camp on the grounds of Poznań's Fort VII must not be overlooked. This place became infamous not only as a place of suffering of thousands of prisoners, but also as one of the first experiments in the mass gassing of people.

Prisoners' signatures discovered in 2011 in a fortress powder magazine used as a cell. (Photo by Adam Kaczmarek, Institute of National Remembrance)

The first concentration camp established by the Germans in occupied Poland was Konzentrationslager Posen at Fort VII. The decision to establish it was taken by the Germans as early as the end of September 1939. On 10 October, the camp began its operations. It was under the authority of Einsatzgruppe VI. The place kept changing its name, but this did not affect what happened there. In November 1939, the camp came under the administration of the Gestapo and took the name Geheime Staatspolizei Übergangslager Fort VII (Gestapo Transit Camp - Fort VII), and in mid-1941 it began to be called: Security Police Prison and Labour Camp.

It was one of the worst concentration camps the Germans set up during the war. Importantly, it was also the site where the Nazis first experimented with mass gassing of people.

In fact, it was one of the worst concentration camps the Germans set up during the war. Importantly, it was also the site where the Nazis first experimented with mass gassing of people.

In November 1939, in Fort VII, in a special bunker with clay-sealed doors, several groups of mentally ill people from the hospital in Owińska near Poznań, patients from the psychiatric hospital in Dziekanka (Gniezno) and patients from the psychiatric ward of the hospital on ul. Grobla in Poznań were gassed. Carbon monoxide fed into the bunker via pipes from special cylinders was used at the time.

The murderers were members of the Sonderkommando Lange (commander SS-Üntersturmführer Herbert Lange), the same ones who later murdered Jews in the camp at Chełmno nad Nerem.

Portrait photograph of Zdzisław Czubiński

From a minor installation to a place of extermination

Fort VII was built between 1876 and 1880. In 1902, the name Fort VII Colomb was adopted in honour of the Prussian general Friedrich Colomb. Between 1887 and 1888, the fort's fortifications were modernised. Fort Colomb underwent further modernisation before the outbreak of World War I. During the hostilities of 1914-1918, it was not used in combat. In the Greater Poland Uprising, during the insurgents' occupation of the nearby Ławica airfield, the German crew of the fort threatened to blow it up. However, the Poles prevented the destruction of the fort and the airport by cutting the electric cable connecting Poznań to Ławica and the telephone connection. In January 1919, the insurgents captured the airfield. After the war, Fort VII was used as an ammunition depot for the 3rd Airborne Regiment of the Polish Army. In August 1939 the fort was reinforced, but after the outbreak of war, in September 1939, it was not used in the fighting.

During the occupation, Fort VII was a camp where prisoners awaited whether, after being investigated by the Gestapo, they would be brought to trial, sent to another concentration camp or executed on the spot.

Prisoners were shot in mass executions in the forests of Zakrzewo, Palędzie, Dąbrówka, Dębienek, Mosina, Oborniki and many others. Executions were also carried out on the grounds of the fort itself. Towards the end of the war, the Germans exhumed the mass graves and the remains of the oficers were burnt. All this was done to erase the traces of the crime. The documentation concerning the murdered persons was also destroyed. Thus, today it is difficult to determine the number of victims.

The first inmates of Fort VII were the victims of the mass arrests carried out in the first months of the war in 1939 as part of the Intelligenzaktion action by special groups of the security police.

The fort was surrounded by earth ramparts on which a barbed wire fence was built. It was surrounded by a wide and deep moat and a strip of dense greenery. The fort's buildings consisted of three storeys: basement, ground floor and superstructure. Escape from the camp was virtually impossible.

Life proved otherwise, however. On 17 July 1942, Marian Schlegel, a member of Dr. Franciszek Witaszek's group from the Union of Retaliation, escaped from the fort. He was a waiter, carrying out death sentences on Germans by serving them poisoned food and drinks in restaurants. He was arrested together with other members of Witaszek's group (the so-called "witaszkowcy") and imprisoned in Fort VII. There, he worked in rabbit skinning. In the absence of the guards, at lunchtime, using a hook and barbed wire as a rope, he escaped from the camp. He survived the war. This was the only successful escape from the fort.

Correspondence between Zdzisław Czubiński, who was detained at Fort VII in Poznań, and his wife Janina Czubińska.

Correspondence between Zdzisław Czubiński, who was detained at Fort VII in Poznań, and his wife Janina Czubińska.

The camp of bloody revenge

The commandant of Fort VII was subordinate to the head of the Gestapo in Poznań. The camp's crew consisted of between 50 and 80 officers. Initially they were Volksdeutsche from Greater Poland and members of the auxiliary police. These people knew the Polish language and the realities of Greater Poland. They mistreated and took revenge on the prisoners. In the spring of 1941, the crew was replaced and SS men from the Reich arrived at Fort VII. The new guards, however, were no better. They tormented the inmates and abused them at every opportunity. Violence and torture were the order of the day. The Germans themselves called the camp at Fort VII a "camp of bloody revenge" (Lager der Blutrache).

The families of the victims were not informed of the deaths and the bodies of the murdered were not released to relatives. They were buried in mass graves in nearby forests or burned in crematoriums.

The first inmates of Fort VII were the victims of the mass arrests carried out in the first months of the war in 1939 as part of the Intelligenzaktion action by special groups of the security police. They were mainly Greater Poland insurgents, Silesian insurgents, civil servants, teachers and professors, priests, political, local government and social activists, merchants and industrialists, doctors and lawyers, landowners. Most of them died in mass executions in the forests of Palędzie, Zakrzewa, Dąbrówka and Dębienek near Poznań.

In the spring of 1940, members of underground organisations established and operating in Greater Poland began arriving at Fort VII. Members of such organisations as the Polish Military Organisation, the Military Organisation of the Western Territories and the National Fighting Organisation were sent to the camp. In the spring of 1941, mitered prelate Józef Prądzyński, one of the organisers of the Polish Underground State in Greater Poland, and Adolf Count Bniński, the Delegate of the Polish Government for the Territories Incorporated into the Reich, were sent to Fort VII. In the autumn, arrested officers of the Union of Armed Struggle-Home Army (ZWZ-AK) Poznań District headquarters were imprisoned in the fort.

From mid-1941, the fort's prison also held the so-called "Sunday prisoners", i.e. people who evaded working for Germany (incarcerated in the camp for Saturdays and Sundays).

The camp held between 700 and 1,200 prisoners at a time. By 1941, this number had dropped to 400-500. At times of mass arrests, the number of prisoners increased rapidly. It is not known exactly how many people passed through the camp. Prisoners were also made to "go on a hike in the Carpathian Mountains". This consisted of guards preparing a frozen steep slope in winter and then having the prisoners climb on ice to the top of it.

The inmates of Fort VII were taken for interrogation to the Gestapo headquarters in Poznań, located in the Soldier's Home. Once there, in the fort, they were mistreated by the guards. Many prisoners died as a result of injuries and wounds inflicted on them during torture, from exhaustion and as a result of disease. In the fort itself, prisoners were also executed by hanging in cell 58 or by shooting at the death wall. On 8 January 1943, Dr Franciszek Witaszek and his group - members of the Greater Poland Union of Retaliation, the so-called "witaszkowcy" - were executed there.

The families of the victims were not informed of the deaths and the bodies of the murdered were not released to relatives. They were buried in mass graves in nearby forests or burnt in the crematorium of the hospital at today's ul. Święcickiego in Poznań.

However, before a prisoner was hanged or executed, he underwent a Gehenna of interrogation and torture. One of these was the so-called 'bell'. In the camp bathhouse, the prisoner was hung head down, with his hands tied on his back, and then the inert body was rocked until the hanged man hit his head on the washbasins. This ended with a smashed head and death. Prisoners were also forced to "play the hare". This consisted of a race of prisoners jumping like a hare. Guards would then shoot at them with guns. Prisoners were also made to "go on a hike in the Carpathian Mountains". This consisted of the guards preparing a frozen steep slope inside the fort in winter, and then having the prisoners climb on the ice to the top of it. People would fall down, breaking their arms and legs and smashing their heads. They were thrown off the top if they got there. These are just a few examples of the abuse of prisoners by the Germans at Fort VII. There were many more.

Documents concerning the stay in Fort VII in Poznań and the execution of Zdzisław Czubiński (donated to the collection of the Museum for Wielkopolska Martyrs, Fort VII)

Documents concerning the stay in Fort VII in Poznań and the execution of Zdzisław Czubiński (donated to the collection of the Museum for Wielkopolska Martyrs, Fort VII)

A cursed place

If the prisoners did not die as a result of execution or torture, it was the harsh conditions in the camp that killed them. The prison cells were small, low rooms with no windows or access to fresh air. The entrance to each of them was secured by a grille and a door. A long and dark corridor led to them. The cells themselves were unheated and poorly lit. They were extremely damp and water dripped down the walls. In winter, this water would freeze and ice would form. The prisoners satisfied their physiological needs in a bucket standing against the wall in the cell. There were no tables, stools, beds or bunks in these rooms. The prisoners slept on a concrete floor covered with straw. All the cells were overcrowded. Each cell held between 55 and 65 people. They were rife with filth, vermin and disease.

The women's cells were located on the ground floor of the fort and had small windows looking out to the bottom of the moat. These rooms had bunks and benches for sitting. There were 20 or more women in one such cell.

There was only one toilet (five stalls) and one bathroom in the whole camp. Every morning, dozens of prisoners from each cell had to use it within a few minutes. For any minor offence one was sent to the punishment room. These were rooms under the stairs, about 1.8 metres high at the entrance and about 0.5 metres deep. They contained water. The prisoners were kept in the punishment cell for several days without meals.

The worst typhoid epidemic broke out in July 1941 and killed several hundred people.

Hunger and disease took a bloody toll. Starving prisoners was the simplest and most effective method of killing. Breakfast was a cup of coffee and a portion of dry bread. Dinner was half a litre of watery soup, overcooked swede, sometimes kasha. Supper was just coffee. From 1941 there were only two 'meals' a day. There was no sugar, meat or fat. With such a diet and the conditions in the camp, one's strength and health were quickly lost.

Once a month, prisoners received letters from their families and could write a short message to their loved ones on a standard form. They also had no prison clothes and walked in civilian clothes, the ones in which they arrived at the fort. Once in a while, families could provide them with fresh clothes and take away the dirty ones.

Sometimes the prisoners received parcels from relatives. However, these did not reach them in their entirety. The most important products were taken out of them by the guards.

Between 17,000 and 40,000 people passed through the Fort VII camp during the occupation. It is not known exactly how many people lost their lives there. However, the number of victims is estimated at several thousand people.

There were frequent epidemics of infectious diseases in Fort VII, for example: spotted typhus and bloody flux. The worst typhoid epidemic broke out in July 1941 and killed several hundred people. There was no medical care or assistance. The cell for the sick was a room of about 8 square metres. People were placed there to die. No one helped them. Only corpses were taken out of there.

If the prisoners did not die in the fort or were not executed, they were transported from there to concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Gross-Rosen, Mauthausen-Gusen, Stutthof and Ravensbrück.

In mid-1942, a decision was made to liquidate the camp at Fort VII. It was decided to move the prisoners to a larger camp being established in Żabików. On 25 April 1944, the last of them left the fort. The "Telefunken" factory, working for the Wehrmacht, was opened on its premises.

It is estimated that between 17,000 and 40,000 people passed through the Fort VII camp during the occupation. It is not known exactly how many people lost their lives there, as the Germans destroyed the camp's documentation. However, the number of victims is estimated at several thousand people.

After the war, Fort VII was occupied by the Polish People's Army, which located its warehouses there. Today, the Museum for Wielkopolska Martyrs, Fort VII of the Wielkopolska Museum of Independence is located there.

Memorabilia of Zdzisław Czubiński

In the autumn of 1939, Zdzisław Antoni Czubiński, who had previously spent time in camps in Międzychód and Skwierzyna, was sent to Fort VII.

Zdzisław Czubiński was born on 5 March 1902 in Wolsztyn. In 1920, he passed his school-leaving exam at the Karol Marcinkowski Secondary School in Poznań, and in 1926 he graduated from the Faculty of Law and Economics at Poznań University with a degree in economic and political sciences. In the interwar period, he worked in public service. In 1935, he became deputy mayor of the Bydgoszcz district. A year later, Zdzisław Czubiński was transferred to the district starosty in Międzychód as its manager. On 10 March 1939, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski, appointed him as the Międzychód District Starost. He was the last pre-war starost of the Międzychód district. In September 1939 Czubiński was arrested by the Germans and on 29 January 1940 he was shot dead in Fort VII.

The collection of the Branch Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance in Poznań includes documents concerning Zdzisław Antoni Czubiński donated in 2021 by his granddaughter Magdalena Borowiak as part of the nationwide project 'Archive Full of Remembrance'. Among the numerous materials documenting the life and activities of Zdzisław Czubiński there are photographs from the pre-war period, official documents from the 1920s and 1930s and letters written by Czubiński from Fort VII to his wife Janina.

The secured collection also includes a letter dated December 1939, written in German and Polish by Zdzisław Czubiński to his wife, and a notification from the German Red Cross, sent in January 1941 to Janina Czubińska, informing her of Zdzisław Czubiński's death on 29 January 1940 by suicide. This was a lie to cover up the German murder committed at Fort VII.