Volunteering in a detention camp

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In the days that followed the liberation of Plzeň, Oldřich Babka and friends helped to maintain order as volunteers in a detention camp for Germans set up by the US Army in Plzeň’s Karlov. The US military gathered disarmed Nazi soldiers and many civilians in a fenced area with empty wooden houses left after workers. The US military also registered them and assigned them for further transport. The situation in the camp was chaotic especially in the early days. Oldřich and his friends took turns on duty and tried to maintain order and protect women in daytime and night time. “Sadly, there were rape attempts and it was difficult to police. However, there never was any shooting of Germans as retribution,” Oldřich Babka describes one of the reasons behind his volunteering as an unpaid guard in the camp, which took several days during the chaotic period when the numbers of Germans arriving were peaking.

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Oldřich Babka

Plzeň, Karlov

Available in: English | Česky

Karlov, a quarter of Plzeň that no longer exists, was built by Škoda management for the company’s employees between 1910 and 1913. Built by Müller & Kapsa, a well-known construction firm in Plzeň, the quarter initially consisted of 217 houses with 3,400 people. The workers’ colony had its own school, two pubs, shops, a community centre with a cinema, a gym and even a bath. The quarter was heavily damaged during the Allies’ last air raid at the end of World War II. A labour and correction camp for women aged 15 to 55 who fled from forced deployment was set up in Karlov near the gym in November 1943. The camp was closed after an air raid in April 1945. After the liberation, the US military administration used it as a repatriation centre. In addition to a women’s camp, a men’s camp was also set up in Karlov southwards across Borská Street, and convicts from the closed camp in Mirošov were relocated there in March 1945. After the liberation, it was used as a detention camp and then as a camp for prisoners of war on deployment for forced labour.

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Volunteering in a detention camp

Oldřich Babka