Trasa Pamięci / Route of Remembrance

trasapamieci.brzeszcze.pl

A A A

Wirtschaftshof Budy (Budy Farm)

Wirtschaftshof Budy (Budy Farm)
In 1941 the KL Auschwitz authorities, having evicted the local inhabitants and confiscated their landed property, set up the so-called Wirtschaftshof Budy (Budy farm) in an area covering Budy, Bór and part of NazieleÅ„ce.

Within this zone they founded a male prisoners’ sub-camp that functioned from 1941 to 1945, a female penal company (1942-1943) and a women’s sub-camp (1943-1944). The male and female Jewish, Polish, French, Gypsy, Ukrainian, Russian and Czech prisoners were made to carry out slave labour for the Third Reich.

The male prisoners were employed in arable farming and stock rearing, the women of the penal company demolished local buildings, built roads and an anti-flooding wall on the Vistula and also cleared ponds, whereas the women’s sub-camp inmates worked in the fields and forests, in tree nurseries, draining fields and cutting wicker.

All the prisoners were made to work for more than twelve hours a day, usually regardless of weather conditions. The fate of the women of the penal company was particularly tragic. They were not only forced to work for many hours beyond their physical abilities, frequently in the cold water of the fish ponds they had to clear, but they were also beaten by the SS-men and prisoner functionaries, all of which contributed to their high death rate. At the start of October 1942 the German female prisoner functionaries and SS guards massacred some 90 female penal company prisoners, mainly French Jewish women.

Despite the threat of being themselves put in a concentration camp, some Brzeszcze inhabitants helped the male and female prisoners, providing them with food, mediating in secret correspondence and assisting in prisoner escapes.
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
OK