The officer in charge, Hauptmann, was reasonably well-disposed, but seemingly incapable of improving the situation, according to the testimony of the prisoners. The camp was built on boggy ground, prone to flooding, and was always ankle-deep in thick mud. The wooden huts had been used only temporarily in 1938/39, and then abandoned, so were dilapidated and damp, and infested with bedbugs, mice and rats.