1944 photo
“Dulag-154” is a prisoner of war camp and concentration camp on the territory of Gatchina , which existed during the Great Patriotic War in 1941-1944 .
The city of Gatchina was captured by German troops on September 13, 1941 . In the same month, special sonder detachments and Ainsatzgroup A were stationed in Gatchina. Soon after, Gatchina became the center of the punitive bodies operating in the vicinity of the city. Several concentration camps were opened on the territory of the modern Gatchina district , but “Dulag-154” was the central camp in the district, several other camps in Rozhdestveno , Vyritsa , and Torfyan were mainly transshipment points. On the territory of the city there were several branches of the concentration camp - on the territory of the military airfield , near the Baltic station , on the streets of Khokhlov , Roshchinsky , in the premises of the Red Barracks in the territory of the current Entry area, in the dilapidated premises of the former gramophone factory.
There were two departments in the camp - the “workers”, from which they were usually sent to work in Germany according to the “Ost” master plan , or to the front-line territories as labor, and the “non-working” - in which the suicide bombers were placed.
The head of the concentration camp was an SS brigadeführer and police major general Franz Stalecker , who was killed on March 23, 1942 when he was left by an unknown patriot from his headquarters in the city.
The camp was intended for prisoners of war , Jews , Bolsheviks and suspicious persons detained by German police. Also, residents from the front line — Krasnoye Selo , Pavlovsk , Pushkin , Peterhof , Strelna , Uritska and many other settlements — drove into the city. The prisoners were first brought to the commandant's office, and from there to the camp. According to documents from the Gatchina Museum of Local Lore, communists, Komsomol members, party workers, Soviet activists, journalists, writers and scholars of different nationalities all passed as "Jews", and members of underground organizations, publishers of underground leaflets and partisans - as "enemies of the Reich." According to documents that fell into the hands of the Soviet authorities, only according to official data in the Dulag-154 system more than 80,000 Soviet citizens, both civilians and prisoners of war, were killed (executed, tortured, died from illness, hunger and cold) RKKA. The Dulag-154 staff was extremely cruel. At least a few cases are known when prisoners of war were doused with gasoline and burned alive. Until now, all the burial places of the dead Soviet citizens have not been established. There are versions that several burials are located in the territory of the palace park, as well as in the Khokhlov field. In place of the central concentration camp on Prospekt 25 October, a shopping center is now located.