The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

KGL Kielce, a collection camp (Sammellager), existed from the spring of 1942 until the end of 1944. The camp was deployed in former army barracks on the outskirts of the town of Kielce, about 100 kilometers (63 miles) north-northeast of Krakau (today Kraków, Poland), in the Generalgouvernement Poland (map 5).

In terms of administration and management, the camp was subordinate to the Armed Forces Commander in the Generalgouvernement Poland (Wehrmachtsbefehlshaber im Generalgouvernement Polen)/Commander of Prisoners of War (Kommandeur der Kriegsgefangenen), but it also answered to the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Ostministerium). [End Page 532]

The camp held Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) who were identified by Germans in other POW camps as potential collaborators. In KGL Kielce, the Germans tested the prisoners’ suitability as propagandists and as various kinds of administrative and managerial workers in organizations that the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories created in occupied Soviet territory and in Germany itself. After careful testing, the prisoners selected for further training were released from captivity and transferred to appropriate training camps of the occupied eastern territories.¹