The Site of National Remembrance

Repatriation camp (1921–1924)

Following the end of World War 1, a camp designed for German immigrants from the lands which had been incorporated into the newly-formed Polish state was organized in the area of the military range in Lamsdorf. The repatriation camp (called Heimkehrlager ), established by the German authorities in cooperation with the German Red Cross, functioned here in the years 1921–1924. At the beginning it covered the area of the so-called Camp V (Lager V), later also those of Camp I and Camp II (Lager I and II). From 1922 the area of Camp I and Camp II accommodated, on the temporary basis, workers of the Headquarters of the Reich Railway based in Katowice, whose seat was being transferred to Opole. The employees were staying here together with their families.

After the camp had been established, there were German immigrants from Upper Silesia brought to it; in the same year, the camp saw also Germans from Greater Poland and Pomerania transferred here. The total number of the immigrants who stayed in the camp in Lamsdorf is not known precisely, yet it is assessed to have ranged from several hundred people to some or even several dozen thousand. The camp functioned till the fall of 1924 as most of the immigrants left the military range in Lamsdorf that year. The last of them left the place in 1934.

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