On 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Within a day, the first prisoners were being transported to Stutthof, a newly established camp near Danzig, now Gdańsk. Initially used to imprison Polish political and community leaders, Stutthof later became part of the SS concentration camp system. Over the following years, more than 100,000 people passed through Stutthof and its satellite camps. Prisoners endured forced labour, hunger, disease and systematic persecution. From 1944, transports of Jewish prisoners arrived from Auschwitz and camps across the Baltic region. Female SS guards, including Jenny Wanda Barkmann, Wanda Klaff, Elisabeth Becker, Ewa Paradies and Gerda Steinhoff, became associated with the treatment of women held there. As Soviet forces advanced in January 1945, the SS evacuated thousands of prisoners in winter conditions. The camp was liberated in May. Survivors subsequently provided testimony that helped investigators establish what had happened behind its fences. In April 1946, thirteen former Stutthof personnel appeared before a Polish court in Gdańsk. Witnesses described conditions in the camp and identified those responsible for abuses. The proceedings examined the roles of SS supervisor Johann Pauls, five female guards and prisoner functionaries known as kapos. Eleven defendants received the most severe sentences. Although appeals for clemency followed, Poland’s head of state, Bolesław Bierut, upheld the court’s decisions. On 4 July 1946, an estimated 200,000 spectators gathered at Biskupia Górka near Gdańsk to witness the final reckoning. This documentary traces Stutthof’s history from the German invasion of Poland to the postwar trials. Drawing on survivor accounts and courtroom evidence, it explores the responsibilities of camp personnel, the pursuit of justice in postwar Poland and the lasting questions raised by public punishment. It considers how a society emerging from occupation confronted the legacy of Nazi rule and sought accountability for the suffering endured by its citizens.
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