Invalid block of the Dachau concentration camp

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The disability block of the Dachau concentration camp was the living area for sick and marked as unable to work concentration camp detainees, the Dachau concentration camp . The disability block gradually emerged from 1937 on the newly built prisoner compound.

definition

The SS had specifically defined the term invalid (Latin: invalidus , powerless, weak, invalid) for concentration camp inmates: every inmate who was unable to cure his illness within three months and was able to work again fell into the "invalid" category. .

situation

The early Dachau camp was still located in the buildings of a former ammunition factory in 1933. With the completion of the new prisoner compound, 34 so-called barracks were built , which were later given the name blocks under camp commandant Loritz . Similar to how clergymen were amalgamated in the so-called pastor's block , the SS also began to amalgamate “invalid” prisoners. The number of disability blocks varied, e.g. B. Block No. 20, No. 27, also No. 29.

In the disability blocks, especially in the final phase of the Dachau concentration camp, there were many seriously ill prisoners, for example with festering wounds and without medical care. Many had been moved from the infirmary to the invalids' block to relieve the capacity of the hospital. The SS could not use seriously ill prisoners for forced labor , so the prisoners called "useless eaters" were given a smaller food ration than working prisoners. Many prisoners died of malnutrition and exhaustion. (Cf. targeted “hunger food” by Aktion Brandt ). Some of the sick inmates were killed by phenol injections .

Transports from the disability blocks

To Hartheim

After the “ Special Treatment 14f13 ” started in 1941, the SS brought numerous “invalids” to the NS killing center in Hartheim . Experts selected prisoners mainly from the invalid blocks, but also from the infirmary, the priest blocks, from some work details and some of the “ unassigned ” prisoners. The bureaucratic effort of the 14f13 campaign was enormous. So it happened that after the first selection on September 3, 1941, the first “invalid transports” did not leave the Dachau camp until January 1942. From now on, about once or twice a week, two trucks transported prisoners to the extermination site in Hartheim near Linz. Those who had been singled out had been transferred to the disability block. The evening before the transport, the inmates were each gathered in the bathroom and slept there on the floor or on the stretchers that were used to carry them in. Inmate Carl, Kapo of the clothing store, provided them with drill suits . He reported that two to three people usually died in the bathroom and suspected that others had frozen to death on the truck bed in winter.

The first “Invalid Transports” took place in four stages, always with a new alphabetical order.

  • January 15, 1942 to March 3, 1942: 15 transports with a total of 1,452 prisoners. It can be assumed that between the time of the selection in September 1941 and the time of their removal, some seriously ill prisoners had already died, i.e. the number of those who had been singled out was originally higher. A letter from Mennecke dated September 3, 1941 speaks of 2,000 inmates to be selected.
  • There was a two-month transport break. Between May 4 and June 6, the second stage of the transport took place with 561 “invalids”.
  • After a break of another two months, the third stage followed, with another alphabetical order. 181 prisoners were deported from the camp in two transports on August 10 and 12.
  • Again there was a break of about two months. A fourth stage took place from October 7th to October 14th, 1942. 330 prisoners were deported in three transports.

In addition to the 2,524 prisoners who were transported to Hartheim in these four stages, another 150 arrived on November 9th.

According to an instruction from Reichsführer SS Himmler , a circular dated April 27, 1943 announced that only “mentally ill” prisoners were to be singled out. Bedridden prisoners, such as TBC -Patients should be performing any work, which was verrichtbar in bed. The compulsory work for bedridden people was not realized in Dachau. The circular referred to Hitler's demand that the largest possible number of prisoners be included in arms production. The actual 14f13 campaign ended with the circular.

Further selections

Even after the end of Operation 14f13, the killing program was continued, but in a simplified way: three to four times a year, Dachau camp doctors singled out prisoners who were in the infirmary, who needed care and who were not capable of forced labor for the foreseeable future. These inmates were transferred to the invalid's block, where many died of illnesses or starved to death.

On January 3, 1944, 1,000 "invalids" were deported from Dachau to Lublin-Majdanek . The transport arrived on January 6th with 29 dead in the Majdanek concentration camp . The first night the prisoners slept on the concrete floor of the unheated camp shower room, that night another 27 died. Within the first three months, at least 469 prisoners from the transport from Dachau died. During this period, so-called “invalids” were also transported to Majdanek from other camps, a total of around 18,000.

Transport list of a so-called "invalid transport"

"Invalids" were also evacuated from the Dachau satellite camps . After being physically ruined by forced labor, inmates who were “ill or unable to work” were sent to gas chambers , for example:

  • In July 1944, 131 “disabled” Jewish children were transported. They were transferred from Kaufering to the main camp in Dachau, from where they were deported to Auschwitz . About 70 of them were killed with gas after a selection.
  • On September 25, 1944, Erika Flocken , Organization Todt , selected 280 Jewish, “invalid” prisoners from the Mühldorf subcamp .
  • October 9, 1944 from Kaufering 277 Jewish men and 5 women were deported. Their arrival was not registered at Auschwitz, which means that they were immediately sent to the gas chamber there.
  • on October 25, 1944: Transport of 555 prisoners from Mühldorf to Auschwitz
  • on October 31, 1944: 1,020 prisoners were transported from Kaufering to Auschwitz

Due to the approaching front, the gas chambers were shut down at Auschwitz in November 1944. The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp now took over the extermination of the “invalids” and was called a “recreation camp” by the SS.

  • On December 21, 1944, an "invalid transport" brought 1,400 prisoners from Dachau to Bergen-Belsen.

Nazi propaganda

In order to prevent riot and mutiny in the camp, the SS pretended that the sick prisoners would be transported to a better camp. Initially, prisoners believed the SS's statement that there was a recreation camp or a camp with better conditions, and many volunteered. However, inmates who worked in the camp's clothing department noticed how the inmate clothing of the “invalid” was being sent back to the camp. It became an open secret among many inmates that the "invalid" would be killed. Others only found out what was likely to happen after they had been transferred to the camp's disability block.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stanislav Zámečník: That was Dachau . Luxembourg 2002. p. 223.
  2. ^ Statement by inmate nurse Heinrich Stöhr in the Dachau trials
  3. ↑ Dachau Archive, DA-6171.
  4. ↑ Zámečník, p. 218.
  5. ↑ Zámečník, p. 223.
  6. ↑ Zofia Leszczyńska made a study on Majdanek: Zofia Leszczyńska: Transport wiezniow chorych i kalek przeniesionych z obozu koncentracyjnego Dachau na Majdanek 7 stycznia 1944 roku. Zeszyty Majdanka X, pp. 135-183.
  7. ^ Process Dachau, statement by Sloma Levine, pp. 736–740.
  8. ^ Copy of the Dachau Archive, DA-20176.
  9. ^ Dachau Archive, DA-1044.
  10. ^ Copy of the Dachau Archive, DA-20177.
  11. ↑ Eberhard Kolb: Bergen-Belsen. History of the "Residence Camp " , pp. 121–125.
  12. ^ Dachau Archive, DA-1044.