Salomon Morel (November 15, 1919 – February 14, 2007) was an officer in the Ministry of Public Security in the

Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million ne ...

. Morel was a commander of concentration camps run by the NKVD and communist authorities until 1956. After Nazi Germany occupied Poland., Morel and his family went into hiding to avoid being placed in one of the

Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland Ghettos were established by Nazi Germany in hundreds of locations across occupied Poland after the German invasion of Poland. Yitzhak Arad, ''Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka.'' Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1987.''Biuletyn ...

. Both Salomon and his brother survived part of the war and Holocaust under the protection of a local Polish farmer, before joining communist partisans. In 1944 Morel became warden of the Soviet

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

prison at

Lublin Castle The Lublin Castle ( pl, Zamek Lubelski) is a medieval castle in Lublin, Poland, adjacent to the Old Town district and close to the city center. It is one of the oldest preserved royal residencies in Poland, initially established by High Duke Casimi ...

. During most of 1945, he was commander of the

Zgoda labour camp Zgoda () was a labour camp (sometimes also described as a concentration camp), set up in February 1945 in Zgoda district of Świętochłowice, Silesia. It was controlled by the communist secret police until its closure in November of the same ye ...

Świętochłowice Świętochłowice (; german: Schwientochlowitz; szl, Świyntochłowice) is a town in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. It is also the central district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union metropolis, with a population of 2 million, a ...

. In 1949 he was made commander of

Jaworzno concentration camp The Jaworzno concentration camp was a concentration camp in WW2 German-occupied Poland and later in Communist Poland. It was first established by the Nazis in 1943 during the Second World War and was later used from 1945 to 1956 by the Soviet NK ...

and remained a commandant of numerous concentration camps until they were all closed down in 1956 following the

Polish October Polish October (), also known as October 1956, Polish thaw, or Gomułka's thaw, marked a change in the politics of Poland in the second half of 1956. Some social scientists term it the Polish October Revolution, which was less dramatic than the ...

. He then worked as head of prison in

Katowice Katowice ( , , ; szl, Katowicy; german: Kattowitz, yi, קאַטעוויץ, Kattevitz) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Upper Silesian metropolitan area. It is the 11th most popu ...

and was promoted to the rank

colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge ...

in the

political police Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of a ...

, the MBP. He was dismissed during the

1968 Polish political crisis The Polish 1968 political crisis, also known in Poland as March 1968, Students' March, or March events ( pl, Marzec 1968; studencki Marzec; wydarzenia marcowe), was a series of major student, intellectual and other protests against the ruling Pol ...

which saw the purging of ex-Stalinists. Beginning in the early 1990s Morel was investigated by

Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...

for war crimes and

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

, including the

revenge killing Revenge is committing a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. Francis Bacon described revenge as a kind of "wild justice" that "does... offend the law ndputteth the law out of office." P ...

s of more than 1,500 prisoners in

Upper Silesia Upper Silesia ( pl, Górny Śląsk; szl, Gůrny Ślůnsk, Gōrny Ślōnsk; cs, Horní Slezsko; german: Oberschlesien; Silesian German: ; la, Silesia Superior) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, locate ...

, most of whom were either native speakers of

Silesian German Silesian (Silesian: ', german: Schlesisch), Silesian German or Lower Silesian is a nearly extinct German dialect spoken in Silesia. It is part of the East Central German language area with some West Slavic and Lechitic influences. Silesian G ...

or Polish

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although nu ...

s. In 1996, he was indicted by Poland on charges of torture, war crimes,

and

communist crimes Communist crimes ( pl, zbrodnie komunistyczne) is a legal definition used in the Polish Penal Code. The concept of a communist crime is also used more broadly internationally, and is employed by human rights non-governmental organizations as wel ...

. After his case was publicized by the Polish, German, British, and American media, Morel fled to

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and was granted citizenship under the

Law of Return The Law of Return ( he, חֹוק הַשְׁבוּת, ''ḥok ha-shvūt'') is an Israeli law, passed on 5 July 1950, which gives Jews, people with one or more Jewish grandparent, and their spouses the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Isr ...

. Poland twice requested his

extradition Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdi ...

, once in 1998 and once in 2004, but Israel refused to comply and rejected the more serious charges as being false and again rejected extradition on the grounds that the statute of limitations against Morel had run out and that Morel was in poor health. Polish authorities responded by accusing Israel of applying a

double standard A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for situations that are, in principle, the same. It is often used to describe treatment whereby one group is given more latitude than another. A double standard arises when two ...

, and the controversy over Morel's extradition continued until his death.

Background and youth

Salomon Morel was born on November 15, 1919 in the village of Garbów near

Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, the son of a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

baker who owned a small bakery. During the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, the family business began to falter. Therefore, Morel moved to

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of ca ...

where he worked as a sales clerk, but returned to Garbów following the outbreak of war in September 1939.

World War II and early NKVD service

Morel's family went into hiding during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

to avoid being placed in the ghetto. Morel's mother, father and one brother were killed by the

Blue Police The Blue Police ( pl, Granatowa policja, Navy-blue police), was the police during the Second World War in German-occupied Poland (the General Government). The entity's official German name was ''Polnische Polizei im Generalgouvernement'' (Polish ...

during Christmas of 1942. Solomon Morel and his brother Izaak survived the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

hidden by Józef Tkaczyk, a Polish

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. In 1983, Józef Tkaczyk was designated as one of the

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

for saving the Morel brothers. Morrel's two brothers died during the war, one in 1943, another in 1945. According to the IPN, as the Eastern Front advanced, Morel and other communist partisans came out of hiding. In the summer of 1944, Morel joined the

Milicja Obywatelska Milicja Obywatelska (), in English known as the Citizens' Militia and commonly abbreviated to MO, was the national police organization of the Polish People's Republic. It was established on 7 October 1944 by the Polish Committee of National Libera ...

in Lublin. Later, he became a warden at the

, where many soldiers of the

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...

Armia Krajowa The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) e ...

(Home Army) were imprisoned and tortured. The Israeli

mass media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit informati ...

and government presented yet a different version of his life. The Israeli letter rejecting extradition states that Morel joined the partisans of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

in 1942, and was in the forests when his parents, sister-in-law, and one brother were allegedly killed by

. According to a number of media sources, Morel claimed that he was at one point an inmate in

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed int ...

and over thirty of his relatives were killed in the

Commander of Zgoda labour camp

On March 15, 1945, Morel became commander of the infamous Zgoda camp in

. The Zgoda camp was set up by the Soviet

, or

, after the

Soviet Army uk, Радянська армія , image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg , alt = , caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army , start_date ...

entered southern Poland. In February 1945 the camp was handed over to the Polish Ministry of Public Security. Most prisoners in the camp were

Silesians Silesians ( szl, Ślōnzŏki or Ślůnzoki; Silesian German: ''Schläsinger'' ''or'' ''Schläsier''; german: Schlesier; pl, Ślązacy; cz, Slezané) is a geographical term for the inhabitants of Silesia, a historical region in Central Euro ...

and German citizens, while a small number were from "central Poland", and about 38 foreigners. Sometimes children were sent to the camp along with parents. Prisoners were not accused of any crime, but were sent by decision of Security Authorities. Authorities tried to convince society that prisoners were only ethnic Germans and former Nazi war criminals and collaborators. Keith Lowe notes that "in reality almost anyone could end up there" and the memorial in front of the camp's main gate describes the prisoners as mainly local population. It is estimated that close to 2,000 inmates died in the camp where torture and abuse of prisoners were chronic and rampant and resulted in an average 100 inmate deaths a day. Solomon Morel's preferred method of torture was the ice water tank where prisoners would be put in with freezing water up to their necks until they died. The camp was closed in November 1945. The survivor Dorota Boriczek described Morel as "a barbaric and cruel man" who often personally tortured and killed prisoners. Gerhard Gruschka, a local Upper Silesian of Polish descent, was imprisoned in Zgoda when he was 14 years old and wrote a book about his experiences, detailing the endemic torture and abuse in the camp. Morel was also accused of an extensive pattern of sadistic torture in

John Sack John Sack (March 24, 1930 – March 27, 2004) was an American literary journalist and war correspondent. He was the only journalist to cover each American war over half a century. Biography Sack was born in New York City. His work appeared i ...

's book '' An Eye for an Eye: The Untold Story of Jewish Revenge Against Germans in 1945'', which contributed to publicizing his case in the Anglophone world in the 1990s. Historians Nicholas A. Robins and Adam Jones note that Morel "presided over a murderous regime founded on ubiquitous assaults and atrocities against German captives." Keith Lowe notes that "when millions of bruised and destitute refugees began flooding into Germany in the autumn of 1945, they brought with them some disturbing stories of places they called 'hell camps', 'death camps' and 'extermination camps'". Zgoda camp was among the most notorious of these camps, and is discussed in detail by Lowe. Lowe notes that survivors' stories of Zgoda and other camps had a profound impact on West German society and that their stories were taken extremely seriously by the German government and the general population as examples of Stalinist brutality.

Commander of Jaworzno concentration camp

Jaw Pomnik ofiar terroru komunistycznego

From February 1949 to November 1951 Morel was commander of

, a

Stalinist Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...

-era concentration camp for

s (designated "enemies of the nation") in Poland. By that time he already had a reputation in Poland as an "exceptional sadist." During Morel's time as the commandant the prisoners were primarily Poles who were arrested for their opposition to

Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the the ...

, and included soldiers of the Polish

Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) es ...

and members of other Polish underground resistance organisations such as Freedom and Independence that was active from 1945 to 1952. Prisoners were often tortured and subjected to

forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

. Morel left the camp when it was turned into a camp for adolescent political prisoners.

Later career

Morel continued working as commandant of Stalinist-era concentration camps until 1956. When the

weakened the hard-line Stalinist faction in Poland, the Stalinist concentration camps were closed down. After 1956, Morel worked in various prisons in Silesia and was promoted to the rank of

in the political police, the MBP. In the 1960s he was head of a prison in

. In 1964 he defended his master's degree with a thesis on the economic value of

Wrocław University Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, r ...

's Law School. During the 1950s, the Polish communist government awarded him the Cavalry Cross of the

Polonia Restituta The Order of Polonia Restituta ( pl, Order Odrodzenia Polski, en, Order of Restored Poland) is a Polish state order established 4 February 1921. It is conferred on both military and civilians as well as on foreigners for outstanding achievemen ...

and the Golden Cross of Merit.

Dismissal

Morel was dismissed from his position in May 1968 in the wake of the

, which saw the purging of both Jewish officials and ex-Stalinists. As Morel was both Jewish and had a background as head of Stalinist-era concentration camps, he became an obvious target for the 1968 campaign. Unlike most other Polish Jews, and although the Polish communist government pressured Jews to emigrate, Morel nevertheless chose to remain in Poland, and lived there as a retiree from the age of 49.

Criminal prosecution

In 1990, after the

fall of communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nat ...

, the General Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation, precursor to the Institute of National Remembrance, started investigating the abuses carried out at the Zgoda camp. Fearing prosecution, Morel emigrated to

in 1992.

Indictment

In 1996 Salomon Morel was formally indicted of genocide by the Polish public prosecutor's office. The indictment was later amended to include war crimes,

and

. The latter charge was added in 2004 and constitutes a specific crime under Polish criminal law.

Extradition controversy

In 1998, Poland requested that Morel be extradited for trial, but Israel refused. A reply sent to the Polish Justice Ministry from the Israeli government said that Israel would not extradite Mr. Morel as the

statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...

had expired on war crimes. In April 2004, Poland filed another extradition request against Morel, this time with fresh evidence, upgrading the case to " communist crimes against the population." The main charge against Salomon Morel was that, as commandant of the Zgoda camp at Świętochłowice, he created for the prisoners in this camp, out of ethnic and political considerations, conditions that jeopardised their lives, including starvation and torture. The charges against Morel were based primarily on the evidence of over 100 witnesses, including 58 former inmates of the Zgoda camp. In July 2005 this request was again formally refused by the Israeli government. The response rejected the more serious charges as being false, potentially part of an

antisemitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Ant ...

conspiracy, and again rejected extradition on the grounds that the statute of limitations against Morel had run out, and that Morel was in poor health. Ewa Koj, a prosecutor with the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, criticized the decision. “There should be one measure for judging war criminals, whether they are German, Israeli or of any other nationality,” Koj said. Morel died in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

on February 14, 2007, seventeen years after the investigation and prosecution of him started.

Legacy

Anne Applebaum Anne Elizabeth Applebaum (born July 25, 1964) is an American journalist and historian. She has written extensively about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She has worked at ''The Econ ...

describes Morel as

a Holocaust victim, a communist criminal, a man who lost his entire family to the Nazis, a man consumed by a sadistic fury against Germans and Poles – a fury which may or may not have originated from his victimhood, and may or may not have been connected to his communism. He was deeply vengeful, and profoundly violent. He was awarded medals by the communist Polish state, was prosecuted by the post-communist Polish state, and was defended by the Israeli state, though he had expressed no interest in moving to Israel until half a century after the war, and even then only after he started to fear prosecution.

Notes and references

External links

Response by the State of Israel to the application for the extradition of Salomon Morel and a report by Dr. Adam Dziurok and Prosecutor Andrzej Majcher on the subject of Salomon Morel and the history and operation of the camp at Świętochłowice-Zgoda.

* ttp://www.ipn.gov.pl/eng/eng_news_high_morel.html 2003 Statement by Prosecutor Ewa Koj, Head of Divisional Commission, for Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation
Poles Review Postwar Treatment of Germans
The New York Times, 1994

Independent, 1998
War crime suspect stays in Israel
BBC, 2005 {{DEFAULTSORT:Morel, Salomon 1919 births 2007 deaths Anti-German sentiment in Europe Ethnic cleansing of Germans Genocide perpetrators Israeli Jews Ministry of Public Security (Poland) officials People indicted for war crimes People indicted for crimes against humanity Polish communists Polish emigrants to Israel Polish war crimes Recipients of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1944–1989)