In early October 1939, the SS had a one-hundred-by-two-hundred-metre area fenced off with barbed wire next to roll call square. A wooden barracks and four large tents were set up as housing, and a stone-lined ditch was constructed as a latrine. Into this specially designated zone, the SS crammed over 1000 Jews from Vienna and 2000 Poles who had been arrested as potential resistance fighters. After an outbreak of dysentery, the SS shortened food rations and largely left these inmates to themselves. By the time this area was dismantled in February 1940, 1,000 men had died in the special camp. Most were Jews from Vienna. Directly next to the special camp, the SS has had previously packed 109 Polish inmates from the region surrounding Bydgoszcz (Bromberg) into a makeshift jumble of barbed wire and had allowed them to starve and freeze in front of everyone's eyes.
The numerous mortalities caused the camp leadership to enforce the construction of a camp
A memorial stone erected in 1954 commemorates the special camp of 1939/1940 in German, Polish, and Russian.
