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Fort VII, officially ''Konzentrationslager Posen'' (later renamed), was a German death camp set up in Poznań in German-occupied Poland during World War II, located in one of the 19th-century forts which ringed the city. According to different estimates, between 4,500 and 20,000 people, mostly Poles from Poznań and the surrounding region, died while imprisoned at the camp. ==Site and establishment== Fort VII (also known as ''Fort Colomb'' from 1902–1918) was one of the ring of defensive forts built around the perimeter of Poznań by the Prussian authorities in the late 19th century, in the second stage of the ''Festung Posen'' scheme. It was built in 1876–1880 (with improvements in 1887–1888). It stands in the western part of the city, on today's ''ul. Polska'' in the Ogrody neighbourhood, part of Jeżyce district. In the interwar period it was used for storage purposes. Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Fort VII was chosen as the site of the first concentration camp in occupied Poland, called ''Konzentrationslager Posen''. It was probably created by decision of the ''Reichsstatthalter'' of the Poznań region, Arthur Greiser. It began functioning at some time around October 1939. The prisoners were mostly Poles from the Wielkopolska region. Many were representatives of the region's intelligentsia, often people who had been engaged in social and political life, as well as known Polish patriots and veterans of the Wielkopolska Uprising (1918–1919) and Silesian Uprisings. In the early stages of the camp's existence prisoners were generally executed within a week of arrival. In October 1939 an early experiment in execution by gas chamber was carried out, where around 400 patients and staff from psychiatric hospitals in Poznań and Owińska were killed. In mid November 1939 the camp was renamed as a Gestapo prison and a transit camp ''(Geheime Staatspolizei Staatspolizeileitstelle Posen. Übergangslager – Fort VII)''. In this period prisoners usually remained in the camp for about six months, before being sentenced to death, a long prison term or transfer to a larger concentration camp, such as Dachau and Auschwitz, or in rare cases being released. Prisoners in this period included political and military activists in the Polish Underground State. Following Himmler's decree of 28 May 1941 the camp was renamed as a police prison and corrective labour camp ''(Polizeigefängnis der Sicherheitspolizei und Arbeitserziehungslager)''. In this period some prisoners (called ''niedzielnicy'' in Polish, from the word ''niedziela'', "Sunday") would be held in the camp temporarily between ending work on Saturday and beginning work on Monday. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fort VII」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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