The Plaszów camp, originally intended as a forced labor camp, was constructed on the grounds of two former Jewish cemeteries in the summer of 1942 during the Nazi German occupation of Poland. In 1943 the camp was extended and subsequently became a concentration camp with deportations of the Jews from the Krakow Ghetto beginning October 28, 1942.

photo, bottom, left: Jewish prisoners at forced labor in the Plaszow camp. Plaszow, Poland, 1943-1944.

The camp was a slave Arbeitslager (Work Camp), supplying manpower to several armament factories and a stone quarry. The death rate in the camp was very high. Many prisoners, including many children and women, died of typhus, starvation and executions. Płaszów camp became particularly infamous for both individual and mass shootings carried out there.

photo, left: Jewish prisoners in Plaszów at forced labor, 1943-1944.

Commanding the camp was Amon Göth, an SS commandant from Vienna who was known for being uncommonly sadistic in his treatment and killings of prisoners. On March 13, 1943, Göth personally oversaw the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto, forcing its Jewish inhabitants deemed capable of work into the camp. Those who were declared unfit for work were killed.

photo, right: Amon Goeth (front left), commandant of the Plaszow camp, was sentenced to death at his postwar trial on war crimes charges. Krakow, Poland, 1946.