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Background history
An old timeworn notebook of small size, filled with handwritten notes in pencil or made with a ball pen, is the only memento of Gerda Skibitzki (née Skade), following her detention in the Labor Camp in Łambinowice. Additionally, it is an extraordinary memento, since apart from the emotional dimension, it brings along a concrete historical message – it relates to and documents victims from the nearest environment of its owner. Written in secrecy, protected against confiscation and destruction, for many years it retained the memory of those who were dying in one of the most repressive camps designed for the German population, which functioned in the post-war Poland. From July 1945 to October 1946, the Labor Camp in Łambinowice – organized in a close vicinity of the complex of German prisoner-of-war camps of World War II – accommodated between 5 and 6 thousand people, about 1.5 thousand of whom died there. The majority of the detained came from the neighboring places. Inhabitants of Łambinowice were brought here on 7 February 1946 as one of the last groups. Among them there was also the Skade Family: Emilia (born in 1888) and Franz (born in 1895), together with their three children: Gerda (1928), Joachim (1934) and Magda (1923). In the camp, regularly, in a detailed way and in secrecy, hiding away from the Polish guards, the eighteen-year-old Gerda would put down the basic data relating to the deceased inhabitants of Łambinowice. In total, she managed to include information concerning 146 people in her notebook, 74% of which is in compliance with that contained in the preserved part of the camp register. The most reliable and fullest data come from the period between the middle of February and the second half of June 1946, that is until the moment when the majority of the detained left Łambinowice. Gerda, together with her siblings and a few dozen other young people, were kept in the camp to the end of its existence, where they were employed, among others, to pull down the bunkhouses. On 21 December 1946, the Skades’ children were transferred to a transition camp (the name remains unknown), and on 6 January 1947, they were relocated to eastern Germany. At that time, their parents were not there with them as they had died in the Łambinowice camp: Emilia – on 16 March and Franz – on 14 May 1946. In Gerda’s notebook, the relevant notes relating to them – in contrast to the other detained – are recorded in bold. Nowadays Gerda Skibitzki lives in Hessisch Oldendorf (Lower Saxony). She has paid regular visits to Łambinowice since the opening of the Cemetery of the Victims of the Labor Camp in 2002, in which her parents are also commemorated.
Prepared by: Renata Kobylarz-Buła
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Notebook from a labor camp
Source of acquisition
Gerda Skibitzki presented the Museum with her notebook in the fall of 2013. It was sent together with her relation via Alois Barnert, the President of Heimatverein des Kreises Falkenberg O/S (The Society of Aficionados of Niemodlin County). The document is displayed daily on a permanent exhibition devoted to the Labor Camp in Łambinowice (1945-1946).
Description of the item
A notebook from the Labor Camp in Łambinowice (1945-1946) of 10cm x 10cm, hard cover, seriously damaged, number of pages: 22; inside, on 12 pages, there are the names of successive months printed in Dutch, on the other ten pages, there is the inscription “Notities” (Notes). On the inside cover, the heading (in pencil) “Todesnotizen v. Lamsdorferin heimlich aufgeschrieben” (Notes on the deceased recorded in secret by an inhabitant of Lamsdorf). Twelve yellowed pages bear information about the dead, giving in turn: the date of death, the name and family name, his/her approximate age and sometimes the occupation or the note “a child”. In several cases the date of death is missing and sometimes the age is not given. In some cases there is only the surname given. The other part of the notebook is filled with addresses of people inhabiting – in the majority of cases – either of the former German states.
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