Although the state of hygiene in the building, which had been closed in 1930 was appalling, officials of the Prussian justice ministry recommended it as a suitable site. They estimated the capacity of the building at 941 so-called
protective custody prisoners (
Schutzhäftlinge), who could be accommodated either in
single cells or in communal cells holding up to 20, 30 and 60 people each. The first 200 prisoners along with 60
SA auxiliary police came on 3 April 1933 from the
Berlin Police Presidium. Later, on the order of the head of the Prussian
Gestapo, prisoners were deported from the penal institution of Gollnow (
Goleniów) in Pomerania to Sonnenburg, bringing the number of inmates to 1,000. Sonnenburg concentration camp was officially closed on 23 April 1934, although in practice it remained open. Since the beginning of the
Second World War in 1939 the concentration camp or punishment camp (
Straflager) continued as a concentration and
labour camp for alleged anti-German people from the occupied territories until 1945. Prisoners included
Poles,
Frenchmen,
Luxembourgers,
Dutchmen,
Danes,
Norwegians,
Belgians,
Czechs,
Yugoslavs,
Slovaks,
Bulgarians,
Austrians, the
Swiss,
Estonians,
Russians and
Spaniards. Amongst its inmates were the resistance fighters,
Jean-Baptiste Lebas and
Bjørn Egge. The French spy, René Lefebvre, father of
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, succumbed in 1944 to the consequences of imprisonment there. On the night of 30–31 January 1945 with the Red Army approaching, the Gestapo killed over 800 prisoners by lining them up against a wall and shooting them. Soviet soldiers entered the camp on 2 February to find 819 bodies still lying in the courtyard (see picture above right). A few prisoners survived the massacre. == German staff ==