The conditions created by the Wehrmacht in Konin were bad and differed significantly from the recommendations of international war law (Convention Relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, signed in Geneva on July 27, 1929). The first visit to the new camp was recalled by prisoner Janusz Ostrowski: Double barbed wire fences, guard towers armed with machine guns and powerful searchlights, and large tents arranged in a row, able to accommodate about 160 people. Immediately after arriving at the camp, we received our first meal. It was a bowl of carrot soup, that is, carrots overcooked in salted water, and 1/5 of a loaf of army bread. It satisfied our hunger, which was terribly tiring, but we were too exhausted to feel full for long.
POW Ostrowski was a non-commissioned officer, but in the camp he found himself in a tent for privates. When he realized that there was a special tent for cadets in the camp, he was directed there after identifying himself. The tents were crowded and the prisoners slept in four rows on the bare ground with a little hay. There were two blankets for three people. Ostrowski: We had our heads cut short, we had a bath and our clothes were deloused. The bath looked like this: in the open air, under a shelter, there were jars half-filled with warm water, into which, after undressing, you had to go in and try to wash yourself, of course if you had soap. At the same time, during this bath, the "hairdresser" was cutting heads with a razor. The removed clothing was put into a device similar to a locomotive, which produced superheated steam at a temperature of approximately 110°C and roasted the poor clothing under pressure for an hour. Theoretically, this action should be enough to destroy any life that might be there. However, the result was that whoever did not have lice yet acquired them after the bath and delousing. After the bath, with chattering teeth, one had to wait naked in the open air until the clothes were taken out of the cauldron and, having found one's belongings in the pile, put on one's clothes. Everything was terribly wrinkled, so for some time, until it ironed itself out, we looked gruesome.
Mark Lazarus