In the years 1939–1945, at least 256 clergymen passed through the camp in Działdowo (Soldau), mainly from the Płock diocese, fewer from Łomża, Warsaw, Włocławek and Chełmno. The mortality rate for this group of Soldau prisoners was very high, second only to Dachau and Auschwitz camps. Over a third of them was murdered or tortured to death on site. For the rest, Durchgangslager Soldau was a transit point on route to concentration camps in Stutthof, Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen. Majority of those that passed through the Działdowo camp and lived until the end of the war survived only thanks to the transport to another lager where, despite harsh conditions, the chances of survival were higher than in the Soldau extermination centre. None of the priests that remained in Soldau – apart from seldom cases of release – walked out of the camp alive.