Rzeźnia Miejska w Bydgoszczy 1939-1945

Abstrakt

The Municipal Slaughterhouse in Bydgoszcz was opened on June 3, 1890. It was a complex of production and administration buildings within the present-day streets: Jagiellońska, Piotrowskiego, Berwińskiego and Ogińskiego. When the Nazis captured Bydgoszcz in September 1939, the slaughterhouse remained a municipal company. The German authorities tried to replace the Polish personnel with Germans as soon as possible. Paul Wollschlager, a German residing in Bydgoszcz and doctor of veterinary medicine, became the company’s new general manager. Due to different forms of economic and psychological pressure of the German authorities, a part of Polish people working at the slaughterhouse signed the German People’s List (Deutsche Volksliste). In this situation, the number of employed Polish people was decreasing. In 1939, 95 employees were Polish, and in 1943 only 31. In January 1945, the slaughterhouse employed 125 people: 57 Germans, 21 Poles, 8 Italians and 5 Lithuanians. During the war, 33 workers were called up by the Wehrmacht. In the record year 1941 as regards slaughter of animals, 70,225 animals were slaughtered, i.e.: 6,752 cows, 42,655 pigs, 15,998 calves, 3,805 sheep, 1,026 horses and 149 goats. Sausages or canned food were not produced. Nowadays, the old buildings of the slaughterhouse are occupied by the Shopping Centre “FOCUS PARK”.