"With shovels or hoes in hand, they scour their surroundings, trying to find the best unguarded place where we will not be forced to work ourselves into a state of profuse sweating. It’s difficult integrating with the rest: issues of language, nationality, age – it all plays a part. Alone in the middle of Russians and Poles and communicating with them for the first time, open conflict is already a given."
In total, approximately 3,000 people were imprisoned and forced to work in the camps at Porta Westfalica. The majority of the male prisoners originated from the Soviet Union. Although their origins came from across Soviet territory, they were all referred to as ‘Russians’ by the SS, fellow prisoners and civilian workers without exception. However, the first transport to the Kaiserhof camp mainly consisted of men from Ukraine. Other large groups of male prisoners came from France, Poland and Denmark.
Almost all of them wore the red triangle marking them as ‘political prisoners’. The reasons as to why they were imprisoned in a concentration camp would vary. Many of them had been brought to Germany as forced labourers and were sent to concentration camps subsequently. However, there were also many people who had tried to resist Nazi rule and were subsequently arrested by the Gestapo and transferred to concentration camps in Germany.
At the top of the prison hierarchy in both Barkhausen and Lerbeck were the German prisoners. As well as the ‘political prisoners’ there were primarily so-called ‘Berufsverbrecher’ (green triangle) and so-called ‘Asoziale (black triangle). However, this marking was not actually a reliable indication to why they were being imprisoned. The triangles were often given out randomly.
Most of the women in the Hausberge satellite camp had been deported and sent to a German concentration camp due to their Jewish origin. They originally came from countries such as Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia.
![[Translate to English:] Übersicht über das Winkelsystem in den deutschen Konzentrationslagern.](/fileadmin/_processed_/6/5/csm_kennzeichnungen_haeftlinge_be7229f1d0.jpg)
Overview of the triangle system in the German concentration camps. Despite the specifications, the positioning and format of the angle and number could vary from camp to camp. What the angle system has in common is that it was often applied arbitrarily. The colour of an angle therefore does not always allow conclusions to be drawn about the reason for the imprisonment of the person marked with it.
Source: Image database of the Bundesarchiv, reference 146-1993-051-07