Stutthof Camp

Explore Gdansk's legacy of war and peace during a visit to the Stutthof Concentration Camp Museum.

Located around 50 km from Gdansk, Stutthof Concentration Camp was the first camp created by the Nazis outside Germany. The first prisoners arrived here on 2nd September 1939, exactly 250 Polish citizens and prisoners of war. Not long after that, because only two weeks later, there were around 6,000 prisoners. Most of them were executed by the SS- the plan to annihilate the whole Polish intelligentsia of Pomerania was the main reason why the camp was established. It was also the main place in the fight of the Nazis against the Poles who refused to sign an application for joining the German nationality list and thousands of other people.

The camp was initially composed of eight barracks blocks for the inmates and a huge building (the "kommandantur") for the SS. It was called "the old camp". In 1942, the SS began to build a "new" camp and 30 other barracks were added. In 1943, the Nazis added a crematory and a gas chamber. The gas chamber had a maximum capacity of 150 people at one time. When the SS had too many people to execute, they also used carriages as gas chambers. Between September 2nd 1939 and May 10th 1945, 127,000 prisoners were registered upon their arrival to the camp. However, the real number is certainly much higher- the inmates who were selected for immediate execution at their arrival were not registered. The camp was not liberated until May 9, 1945.

Nowadays, the mission of the museum is to take care of the remains of the former Stutthof camp, preserving knowledge about the period between 1939-1945 in Pomerania and memory about prisoners of Stutthof.