Zgoda labour camp The Zgoda labour camp ( ) was a concentration camp for Silesians , Germans , and Poles , set up in 1945 by the Soviet NKVD in Świętochłowice , Silesia . It was controlled by the communist secret police until its closure by the Stalinist authorities of Poland in November of the same year . Between 1943 and January 1945 during World War II , the camp in Świętochłowice operated as German Nazi Arbeitslager . It was a labour subcamp ( " Arbeitslager Eintrachtshütte " ) or the Eintrachthütte concentration camp of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz . After the NKVD transfer of the facility to MBP , Jewish Colonel Salomon Morel ( age 26 , with no relevant training ) became the commander of the renamed Zgoda camp on 15 March 1945 . Zgoda Labour Camp operation . The Nazi German camp was evacuated by the Germans before 23 January 1945 . However , its infractructure was left intact and after a few weeks the camp was restored by the NKVD , disinfected and repopulated in February 1945 with Silesian prisoners from Katowice , Bielsko and Nysa . It continued to be used until November of the same year , under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland . It was one of several camps of this type in Silesia ( the central camp was the one in Jaworzno ) . Following World War II , the communist authorities of Poland decided that the Silesian " Volksdeutsche " from the German DVL groups I and II were to be considered ethnically German . They were believed to have willingly collaborated with the Nazi regime in Upper Silesia during the war and were the subject of judiciary . People who signed or were compelled to sign the Nazi lists III and IV were freed from this procedure providing they swore an oath of loyalty to the Polish state . The decision to treat Silesian prisoners as Germans was motivated by prior dealings with the " Volksdeutsche " from the Nazi General Government , and did not take into account local conditions under which the population found themselves on DVL lists , often unwillingly . The policy was changed in 1946 , and the criteria were no longer based on " Volksdeutsche " list number , but on specific actions of individual prisoners during the Nazi occupation of Poland . About 6 , 000 persons were imprisoned at the Zgoda camp , 1 / 3 of them Germans ( 1 , 733 in August 1945 along with those from Upper Silesia ) . The first inmates were sent there by militia , security services and the Soviet NKVD . Some families took children with them to the camp , but such cases were marginal , and concerned a few mothers who did not want to leave their children alone . Statistics and witness statements speak of about 2 mothers with children below 1 , 5 years of age and perhaps 2 or 3 children 6 or 7 years old . This was a violation of a directive by Security Department that forbade admitting prisoners along with children below 13 years old , who were ordered to be handed over to state care instead . Most camp inmates were over 40 years old . The majority consisted of Silesians from the Volksliste category I and II as well as ethnic Germans , with some ethnic Poles and at least 38 inmates of other nationalities . Women made up 17 % of the camp prisoners in June 1945 , but their number went down later ( from 716 to just over 300 ) . There was also a large group of people above 60 years old . Among the incarcerated were former Nazi Party members , including those with the rank of Ortsgruppenleiter , for instance several dozen Nazis from Prudnik and Głubczyce . Some inmates have been sentenced by the courts for criminal acts during Nazi occupation of Poland , one was sentenced for four years for oppressing Polish population during the war . Death toll . Documented figures show that 1 , 855 prisoners lost their lives at Zgoda camp from February until November 1945 . Most died during the typhus epidemic , that reached its highest death toll in August , claiming 1 , 600 victims . No medical help was offered to prisoners , and no action taken , until the epidemic spread across the entire camp . The bodies of the dead were being piled up on carts at night and taken outside the camp to hastily dug out mass graves . Eventually , a medical team was sent in , which vaccinated the remaining population . The inmates were systematically maltreated and tortured by the guards including by Morel himself , who used to make pyramids of beaten prisoners ( up to six layers high ) causing suffocation . The camp was one of the most cruel Stalinist detention facilities in Silesia where communist crimes were being committed against the Silesian prisoners under the command of only two men , Aleksy Krut and Salomon Morel , running the camp alone from June 1945 . Morel , a former member of the communist underground army Armia Ludowa , claimed that his family perished during the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis . He did not inform his superiors about the typhus epidemic until the news of the situation was reported by the local newspapers . He notified the local prosecutor , who in response ordered that no new prisoners be sent to the camp . For his negligence and for allowing the epidemic to take its toll , as well as for the failure to uphold his duties as commander of the camp , Morel was punished by a three - day house arrest and temporary reduction of pay by 50 % . In his defence , Morel claimed that the camp was overcrowded and most of the inmates arrived already sick , and that the camp administration left him with no means to stop the disease . His statements however , were contradicted by official records . He was also reprimanded by the prosecutor for failing to send back to prison detainees who had arrest warrants issued against them , and instead keeping them in the camp . The Zgoda camp was closed in November 1945 based on general order of the Minister of Security Stanisław Radkiewicz , issued 15 September 1945 . The paper instructed to resolve all cases of detention of persons without prosecutor sanctions issued upon them . According to Morel , the camp was no longer needed . Almost all the remaining prisoners were released . However , they first had to sign an oath , under the penalty of prison , to never disclose the events witnessed in the camp . For years , the history of the camp lived exclusively in the memories of its former prisoners and their families , carefully hidden for fear of repressions for revealing how the native people of Silesia were treated . After the fall of communism , Morel left Poland for Israel in 1992 . He was subsequently wanted by the Polish authorities for war crimes and crimes against humanity . Poland requested his extradition twice and denied him his police pension . Morel died in Tel Aviv in February , 2007 .