Paul Otto Radomski - Command of Haidari Concentration Camp

Command of Haidari Concentration Camp

On November 28, 1943, Radomski was appointed commandant of Haidari concentration camp, near Athens, Greece. The previous German commandant, sergeant Rudi Trepte, and his two Greek interpreters had been arrested by the Gestapo, for reasons as yet unknown.

Under Radomski, the camp inmates were put to labour in two four-hour shifts each day except Sundays. The inmates were divided into groups of 100 men, with a hecatontarch in charge of each. However, the labour was not intended for any productive purposes, but merely to break the prisoners' morale: they were made to dig holes and then refill them, build walls and then break them down.

The first execution in the camp was carried out on 7 December, when Radomski personally executed a Greek Jewish man named Levi in front of the prisoners because he "attempted to escape during his arrest". This execution was to serve not only as a warning to the others, but, according to post-war psychological research, to "put the inmates in constant fear of their lives". In total, in the camp's one year of operations, about 1,800 people were executed, while another 300 died as a result of torture either at Haidari or in the Gestapo headquarters at Merlin street in central Athens. These numbers included 30 women, 104 invalids, and 230 students.

Radomski was relieved of his post in February 1944, after he threatened to shoot his own adjutant while drunk, and was replaced by Lieutenant Karl Fischer.

After the war track of Radomski was lost.