Subcamp "RAW Jena"

1 - Jena
subcamp 2 - Wagon camp for Jews
3 - RAW Jena

The subcamp “RAW Jena” (abbreviation for Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk ) was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in which over a thousand people were interned from September 1944 to April 1945. More than half of the prisoners came from the Soviet Union and Poland . Several dozen concentration camp prisoners died in the concentration camp satellite camp.

Barrack camp

From 1940, Polish forced laborers who were housed in the “Schützenhof labor camp ” worked at the “RAW Jena” . From 1940 to 1942, more barracks for forced laborers were built on Löbstedter Strasse, which are referred to in the files as "Camp 2" or "Russian Camp". As early as 1934, there was a residential camp for Jena Jews near the later concentration camp. She was put in wagons there after they were evicted from their homes. Between 1940 and 1945, other similar barracks were built across the city. A total of 23 such barracks are documented. They were in the immediate vicinity of the places of residence and work of the Jena city population and were present in everyday life for them.

Buchenwald subcamp

From September 1944, the forced laborers were moved to another camp and a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp was set up on the site . By order of the Reich Ministry of Transport , a thousand concentration camp prisoners were to be employed in the RAW. In January 1945, 942 prisoners were housed in the subcamp. In April 1945 the camp was closed and the remaining prisoners were transferred to the Colditz concentration camp by train. An air raid on the train enabled between 30 and 80 prisoners to attempt to escape.

After the dissolution

Memorial stele at the former location of the "RAW Jena" subcamp

Little is known about the prosecution of the perpetrators . There is no evidence that an investigation was carried out against the operations manager of the RAW Jena. The Reichsbahn inspector, Martin Spreitz, who is responsible for the work flow in the repair workshops, was sentenced to one and a half years in prison after several prisoners accused him of mistreatment.

At the former location of the barracks of the subcamp there are now car dealerships, at the location of the Reichsbahn repair shop there is now a hardware store. At the initiative of the Jena City Council, a stele was set up at the former subcamp in 2014.

Web links

Commons : Jena Concentration Camp - collection of images, videos and audio files

Website of the city on the memorial stele at the former satellite camp

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b ^c Marc Bartuschka: The labor deployment of concentration camp inmates in the Reichsbahn repair shop and in facilities of the city of Jena . In: Marc Bartuschka (Hrsg.): National Socialist Camps and their Post- History in the Jena City Region: Anti-Semitic Municipal Policy - Forced Labor - Death Marches (= building blocks for the Jena city history . Volume 19 ). Jena City Museum, Jena 2015, ISBN 978-3-942176-34-7 , p. 199 ff .

^ Jan Jeskow, Rüdiger Stutz: The anti-Jewish local politics of the Jena city administration in the Nazi era . In: Marc Bartuschka (Hrsg.): National Socialist Camps and their Post- History in the Jena City Region: Anti-Semitic Municipal Policy - Forced Labor - Death Marches (= building blocks for the Jena city history . Volume 19 ). Jena City Museum, Jena 2015, ISBN 978-3-942176-34-7 , p. 37 ff .

^ Katrin Fügener: Barrack camp in Jena . In: Marc Bartuschka (Hrsg.): National Socialist Camps and their Post- History in the Jena City Region: Anti-Semitic Municipal Policy - Forced Labor - Death Marches (= building blocks for the Jena city history . Volume 19 ). Jena City Museum, Jena 2015, ISBN 978-3-942176-34-7 , p. 65 ff .

↑ Christine Schmidt van der Zanden: Jena . In: Geoffrey P. Megargee (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 . Volume 1 Part A. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2009, p. 367 f . (English).

↑ Marc Bartuschka: The attempt to come to terms with: Trials for crimes against prisoners and forced laborers in the second half of the 1940s . In: Marc Bartuschka (Hrsg.): National Socialist Camps and their Post- History in the Jena City Region: Anti-Semitic Municipal Policy - Forced Labor - Death Marches (= building blocks for the Jena city history . Volume 19 ). Jena City Museum, Jena 2015, ISBN 978-3-942176-34-7 , p. 293 ff .

[Bartuschka_2015-1] A ^b ^c Marc Bartuschka: The labor deployment of concentration camp inmates in the Reichsbahn repair shop and in facilities of the city of Jena . In: Marc Bartuschka (Hrsg.): National Socialist Camps and their Post- History in the Jena City Region: Anti-Semitic Municipal Policy - Forced Labor - Death Marches (= building blocks for the Jena city history . Volume 19 ). Jena City Museum, Jena 2015, ISBN 978-3-942176-34-7 , p. 199 ff .

[Jeskow_2015-2] Jan Jeskow, Rüdiger Stutz: The anti-Jewish local politics of the Jena city administration in the Nazi era . In: Marc Bartuschka (Hrsg.): National Socialist Camps and their Post- History in the Jena City Region: Anti-Semitic Municipal Policy - Forced Labor - Death Marches (= building blocks for the Jena city history . Volume 19 ). Jena City Museum, Jena 2015, ISBN 978-3-942176-34-7 , p. 37 ff .

[Fügener_2015-3] Katrin Fügener: Barrack camp in Jena . In: Marc Bartuschka (Hrsg.): National Socialist Camps and their Post- History in the Jena City Region: Anti-Semitic Municipal Policy - Forced Labor - Death Marches (= building blocks for the Jena city history . Volume 19 ). Jena City Museum, Jena 2015, ISBN 978-3-942176-34-7 , p. 65 ff .

[Van_der_Zanden_2009-4] Christine Schmidt van der Zanden: Jena . In: Geoffrey P. Megargee (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 . Volume 1 Part A. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2009, p. 367 f . (English).

[Bartuschka_2015_II-5] Marc Bartuschka: The attempt to come to terms with: Trials for crimes against prisoners and forced laborers in the second half of the 1940s . In: Marc Bartuschka (Hrsg.): National Socialist Camps and their Post- History in the Jena City Region: Anti-Semitic Municipal Policy - Forced Labor - Death Marches (= building blocks for the Jena city history . Volume 19 ). Jena City Museum, Jena 2015, ISBN 978-3-942176-34-7 , p. 293 ff .