Board has its office. The examination was attended by the city governor⁵⁰² and
the chairman of the Council of the Elders.⁵⁰³ Ten clerks and one director were
selected to work at the registration and examination, and following they constituted
the Labour Camp Office. All those classified as healthy were summoned
to work on 7 May 1940.
Initially, the Labour Camp Office was accommodated in the premises
of the Department of Registration and Statistics, but later it received
its own office at Aleja 6.⁵⁰⁴ The labourers were divided into five companies,
each consisting of 200 people and assigned two paramedics from among
those summoned. Every company had its own assembly point from where
it set out to its work details located from two to six kilometres away. The Water
Management Board assigned five policemen to watch the labourers, initially
from Verkehrspolizei,⁵⁰⁵ then from the Polish police.
The Water Management Board did not pay any remuneration to
the labourers, and neither did the Department of Forced labour, but later the
latter paid 10 zlotys per week to labourers from the “paid” group. Many of
those summoned to work were indigent and the obligation to work in that
form was a heavy burden to them, so a special Complaints Commission was
established to adjudicate with regard to exemption of sole supporters of families,
the sick, etc.
[5] Local labour camps (continued)
Those qualified for exemption were presented by the camp management
appropriately and, as a result, everyone was exempted from that work.
Wishing to aid the water management labourers, two soup kitchens for
them were opened at that time, at Katedralna Street 10 and 13, where all the
labourers were issued free dinner rations, at that time relatively satiating.
Aside from the dinner rations, the labourers began to receive 300 grams
of bread per day.
502 Perhaps city governor (Stadthauptmann) Richard Wendler.
503 Lejb Kopiński. From 1941, he was also the chairman of the Municipal Care Committee in Częstochowa. See AŻIH, ŻSS, 211/317, passim.
504 Probably Aleja Najświętszej Marii Panny (Polish, Saint Virgin Mary Avenue), the main street of Częstochowa.
505 (German) traffic police.
