Ohrbeck labor education camp
The Ohrbeck Labor Education Camp (AZ) in Hasbergen -Ohrbeck was located in the old pumping station of the Augustaschacht Ohrbeck , a mine for ore extraction. It was set up by the Osnabrück Gestapo in early 1944 as a labor education camp. Today it is a memorial to commemorate the labor education camp during the Nazi era . The memorial , inaugurated on January 27, 1998, houses a permanent exhibition about forced labor in the Osnabrück region and shows changing special exhibitions, for example about prisoners of war on the Piesberg or about the end of the war in 1945 in the region.
history
The Hüggel ridge stretches southwest of Osnabrück , a historic mining area that is still reminiscent of tunnels and quarries today. In the 19th century, the Klöckner factory began mining ore there, took over the Georgs-Marien-Bergwerks- und Hüttenverein for this purpose and built a railway connection, the Hüggelbahn , in addition to industrial facilities .
At the northern entrance to the Hüggelschlucht, directly on the city limits of Georgsmarienhütte - Holzhausen , the Augustaschacht with the old pumping station, which was built in 1860 , is located in a wood next to the tracks of the Hüttenbahn . At the beginning of 1944 the Gestapo Osnabrück set up a labor education camp here, which primarily served to punish foreign forced laborers who had become “conspicuous” . It was one of around 100 AEL or AZL category camps operated by the Gestapo between 1940 and 1945. There were also German prisoners at times in these camps, but they were far in the minority compared to the foreigners.
The camp, also known as "AZ-Lager Ohrbeck", was at times a branch of the larger Farge labor education camp and existed for around 15 months until the war in the Osnabrück area ended in early April 1945. After the liberation of the AZ camp, the inmates plundered the surrounding courtyards, which also resulted in fatal incidents. It was probably passed through by around 2,000 prisoners, who sat for an average of eight weeks, sometimes considerably longer. A total of 17 nations were represented among the prisoners. The largest group was formed by the Dutch , of whom around 500 are known by name. The prisoners were used for forced labor in the nearby iron and steel works or to clear bomb rubble in Osnabrück .
Around 250 inmates lived in Ohrbeck. The stay as a prisoner lasted mostly only a few weeks in the place used as an education camp. Then the forced laborers were taken back to their original location.
Augustaschacht through the ages
- 1876: Establishment of the Augustaschacht building as a pump station for the Georgsmarienhütte steelworks
- around 1923: workshops are built into the building
- 1939–1942: The Augustaschacht becomes a prison camp for French prisoners of war
- 1943: Establishment of a camp for forced laborers from what was then the Soviet Union
- 1944–1945: Used as a work education camp in Ohrbeck by the Osnabrück Gestapo
- 1945–1970: The building serves as a residential building for bombed out people, refugees and displaced persons
- 1993: Volker Issmer began researching the Ohrbeck labor education camp
- 1998: Establishment of the Augustaschacht memorial
- 1999: renovation of the building roof
- 2000: Publication of the documentation by Volker Issmer about the labor education camp; Foundation of the association in Osnabrück town hall
- 2001: First excavations of the Georgsmarienhütte workshop and the city's music and art school
- 2002: Purchase of the Augusta shaft by the association founded in 2000; Establishment of an office at Georgsmarienhütter Kasinopark; Beginning of encounters with former forced laborers
- 2003: First opening of the building to the public as part of an art exhibition
- 2004: Exhibition by Truus Menger (NL) and Volker-Johannes Trieb with installations and poem panels in the outdoor area; Surveying and conversion planning of the Augusta shaft by the architect Helmut von der Heyde with Euregio funds
- 2005: Opening of the first exhibition "... I often thought I couldn't do it" - external work from Papenburg to Melle ; Establishment of an international volunteer position with the European Voluntary Service and the Action Reconciliation Peace Services
- 2006: start of the conversion to a memorial; Implementation of an international summer camp
- 2007: Search for inscriptions in the former cells in Osnabrück Castle with the Gestapokeller memorial
- 2008: Opening of the memorial at the end of the renovation work
- 2009: Establishment of the specialist library
Augustaschacht initiative
In January 2000 an association was founded in the Osnabrück town hall under the name “Initiative Augustaschacht”, which wants to turn the former pump house and the surrounding area of the former labor education camp into a place of remembrance, research, teaching and encounter. The previous owner, Stahlwerk Georgsmarienhütte GmbH , sold the building in January 2002 for the symbolic amount of one euro to the Association for Memorial Work.
The foundation of the association was based on the considerations of the historian Volker Issmer and Michael Gander, managing director of the Augustaschacht initiative, on the future use of the Augustaschacht, with five priorities: remembering, researching, learning, encountering, working together.
The initiative of private individuals opened the walled-up industrial monument and pumping station. Well-worn stairs, the forced laborers' dormitory, a row of cells, crumbling washing places, rusty nails in the walls that recall the history of the place came to light.
The memorial is financed by the state, the district and the city of Osnabrück and the communities Georgsmarienhütte, Hagen and Hasbergen.
In 2016, students conducted an excavation on the site . On September 11, 2016, the then Lower Saxony Minister for Science and Culture Gabriele Heinen-Kljajic opened the day of the open monument nationwide for Lower Saxony at the Augustaschacht memorial , the motto of which was "Preserving monuments together". The focus of the event was the voluntary commitment of those who save buildings and monuments from decay, for example in the memorial work on Augustaschacht.
memorial
The “Augustaschacht” memorial today commemorates the Nazi regime and its victims. It should contribute to the understanding of the importance of democracy and human rights. In order to underline the gloom of the place, the artist Volker-Johannes Trieb has attached meter-long, charred tree stumps to the outer walls. In addition, a memorial made of rusty metal steles with the names of former prisoners was erected on the embankment above the Augustaschachts .
See also
literature
- Volker Issmer: Gestapo imprisonment and forced labor for Klöckner. The "labor education camp" in Ohrbeck between Osnabrück and Georgsmarienhütte. A research report, In: Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 100, 1995, pp. 251-266
- Volker Issmer: Dutch people in the damned country , Steinbacher Druck, Osnabrück 1998, ISBN 3-9805661-0-2
- Volker Issmer: The Ohrbeck Labor Education Camp near Osnabrück (Landschaftsverband Osnabrück, ed.), Steinbacher Druck, Osnabrück 2000, ISBN 3-9805661-9-6
- Hans de la Rive Box: The Hell of Bramsche, 1945 , Kroonder Bussum Verlag, The Netherlands
- Augustaschacht-Verein goes to work , Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung of January 22, 2000
- Ulrike Hofsähs: Ohrbeck Labor Education Camp , Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung of March 23, 2004
- Michael Gander, Julia Storm, Ute Vergin: “I often thought I couldn't do it”: External work from Papenburg to Melle (Memorial Augustaschacht eV, publisher), secolo Verlag, Osnabrück 2007, ISBN 978-3929979855
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Volker Issmer: The Ohrbeck Labor Education Camp near Osnabrück , pp. 21-22
- ↑ Nationwide start at the Augustaschacht Memorial in: Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung of September 11, 2016
- ↑ Invitation to the festive event in Hasbergen on September 11, 2016 ( memento from September 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) at the Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation
Coordinates: 52 ° 13 ′ 22 ″ N , 7 ° 59 ′ 19 ″ E