ELBING (OT ELBING COMPLEX) [aka KOMMANDO BEFEHLSSTELLE STRASBURG]

The Elbing camp complex was formed on August 7, 1944, pursuant to a special order of the Stutthof concentration camp commandant issued the day before.1 The prisoners’ employer was the Organisation Todt (OT); therefore, the name Organisation Todt Elbing (OT Elbing) was also used in official correspondence about the camp. Kommando Befehlsstelle Strasburg was another name for the camp: that was the location of the subcamp’s main office and the headquarters of the guard company that watched the prisoners (the 36th SS-Standarte, SS-Stadtwachtkompanie). Bülow was named camp commandant and staff officer. To help him, he was assigned five junior officers from the 1st SS-Wachbataillon and 95 SS men from the Allgemeine-SS. The subcamp initially received 5,000 Jewish women from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania. Upon arrival in Elbing (later Elbląg), an OT representative divided them into work groups of several hundred and placed them in towns along the Vistula Bay, where they dug...