Transit camp 39

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The transit camp 39 was one of several dozen transit camps in the German Reich , which was used by the state labor offices under National Socialism for interning and "clearing" foreign civilian workers .

Establishment and original purpose

The transit camp 39, which was also known as the Bindermichl transit camp due to its location in the Linz district of Bindermichl, was purchased in 1942 by the Linz Labor Office from the Reichswerke Hermann Göring . The camp originally consisted of twelve barracks with an occupancy of around 1300 people, but after it was sold to the employment office, the number was increased to around 1800 people. As in numerous other transit camps, foreign civil workers who were brought to work in the German Reich from their home countries by force or "voluntarily" were medically examined, disinfected and deloused in the Bindermichl camp . Then the forced laborers were picked up by their future employers (e.g. farmers or companies).

Pregnant forced laborers

Pregnant Polish and Soviet forced laborers were also housed in the transit camp during their “ maternity leave ” period of (formally) two weeks before and six weeks after the birth of their child. Should an abortion be carried out in a clinic, these women were also brought to the camp beforehand. Possibly there was even a separate barrack for abortions and childbirths in the camp.

"Foreign-ethnic children's homes" existed in Spital am Pyhrn and Pichl near Wels , among others . In the latter home, 13 children died of inadequate care and nutrition.

Sick camps or death camps and transfers of sick people

Transit camp 39 is also likely to have been used as a sick camp from autumn 1942. After the supply of food and medical care as well as the hygienic conditions were completely inadequate as in similar camps, hundreds of people died. This can be seen as the deliberate letting go of the forced laborers and their children who have been declared "racially inferior". From September 1942 until the end of the war, more than 300 people died in the camp - mainly from Poland and the Soviet Union - around half of them were infants and small children.

In the period from November 1944 to the end of January 1945, 31 forced laborers were brought to the Mauer-Öhling sanatorium , which from September 1944 served as a "collection point" for mentally ill forced laborers. 18 of the 31 people were previously admitted to the Niedernhart sanatorium in Linz. Nine of the people relocated to Mauer-Öhling perished in the institution, the majority of them were murdered in April 1945 as part of the "decentralized euthanasia".

In the spring of 1945 there were around 250 people in transit camp 39 who were considered "unable to work" (for example due to " mental illness " or tuberculosis ) - including infants and children.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gabriella Hauch: Forced laborers and their children: To the sex of forced labor . In: Rathkolb Oliver (ed.): The Linz location of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring AG Berlin, 1938-1945 I - Forced labor - slave labor: Political, social and economic history studies. Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2001, pp. 370–371
  2. ↑ Gabriella Hauch: Forced laborers and their children: To the sex of forced labor . In: Rathkolb Oliver (ed.): The Linz location of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring AG Berlin, 1938-1945 I - Forced labor - slave labor: Political, social and economic history studies. Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2001, p. 418
  3. ↑ Gabriella Hauch: Ostarbeiterinnen - Forgotten women and their children . In: Mayrhofer Fritz / Schuster Walter (ed.): National Socialism in Linz II. Linz 2001, p. 1285
  4. ↑ Hermann Rafetseder: The 'Ausländereinsatz' at the time of the Nazi regime using the example of the city of Linz . In: Mayrhofer Fritz / Schuster Walter (ed.): National Socialism in Linz II. Linz 2001, p. 1175
  5. ↑ Ernst Gansinger: The search for the mother - children of forced laborers during the Nazi era know little about their where from . Church newspaper of the Diocese of Linz, edition 2004/48 ( Online ( Memento from January 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ))
  6. ↑ Markus Rachbauer: The murder of mentally and physically ill foreign civilian workers as part of the Nazi "euthanasia" - with a focus on the Upper Danube region . Diploma thesis at the Faculty of Culture and Social Sciences at the University of Salzburg, 2009, p. 167ff
  7. ↑ Markus Rachbauer: The murder of mentally and physically ill foreign civilian workers as part of the Nazi "euthanasia" - with a focus on the Upper Danube region . Diploma thesis at the Faculty of Culture and Social Sciences at the University of Salzburg, 2009, p. 139f
  8. ↑ Markus Rachbauer: The murder of mentally and physically ill foreign civilian workers as part of the Nazi "euthanasia" - with a focus on the Upper Danube region . Diploma thesis at the Faculty of Culture and Social Sciences at the University of Salzburg, 2009, p. 174f