On November 15, Albert Speer – General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital and other cities – came to Poznań. Then some preparatory measures were taken to include Poznań to the Reich network of motorways. The decision to start the enterprise was taken very quickly, which proves the investment had been arranged before Poland was invaded, whereas its construction was related to the military plans. The motorway route was to be expanded to the city of Łódź as the final plan was to connect Berlin with Warsaw. They also intended to connect Poznań with Gdańsk and Wrocław and to make those significant transport routes cross with each other in the eastern part of Poznań.

Since 1940 they planned to employ Jews. On December 10, 1940 the first transports with 638 Jewish prisoners were sent to build the motorway. Initially, these were Jews who came from the Łódź ghetto. Since mid-1941 they started to bring Jews from Zduńska Wola, Sieradz, Wieluń, Gąbin, Gostynin and other ghettos of the Reichsgau Wartheland.

Until the end of February, 1941, 2400 people were sent only from the Łódź ghetto to support the motorway construction works. It is assumed that at least 10 000 people, previously deported from ghettos in the Reichsgau Wartheland, were transported to 24 labour camps called Reichsautobahnlager (Reich motorway camps) set up along the motorway. Jewish labour force was exploited by private German construction companies who were subcontractors of the project. They derived large financial profits from their work, owing to which they could further develop.

Two labour camps were established on the area of today’s city of Luboń. The first one was set up on the border between Luboń and Poznań and the second one in Żabikowo at Kościuszki Street. Each of the camps contained about 300 prisoners who came particularly from ghettos in Wieluń, Zduńska Wola and Sieradz. They were placed in wooden barracks built especially for this purpose.

Construction equipment, including breakstone, gravel and steel, was stored at Kościelna Street. A hall in a nearby parish house was used as a storage. Camp prisoners built tracks of a narrow-gauge railway on the route to Komorniki which helped in the motorway construction works. The rest of the labourers would build a motorway embankment or do the earthwork.

The living conditions created by Hitler’s administration, like terror, starvation and ravaging work, made the slave labour camps for Jewish people become places of actual extermination. Every day, camp prisoners were flogged, beaten and subjected to public executions. They received the worst quality food. Scanty clothes did not protect them against the changing weather. All this resulted in a very high mortality rate among RAB camp prisoners. The situation on the eastern front, and the numerous defeats of German soldiers in mid-1942 in particular, impaired the construction works. The camps along the motorway were gradually liquidated. The surviving prisoners were transported to other labour and concentration camps. Those who were ill or unable to work were taken to the extermination camp in Chełmno upon Ner.

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