Taucha subcamp
The Taucha subcamp was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Taucha . It was built at the end of August / beginning of September 1944 by Hugo-Schneider Aktiengesellschaft (HASAG) in Freiherr-vom-Stein-Strasse 3a (today Matthias-Erzberger-Strasse 7). This fourth HASAG subcamp was fenced in with barbed wire and provided with watch towers. Over 1,350 women had to do forced labor there .
The first transport with 500 prisoners arrived in Taucha on September 7, 1944. Further transports followed on September 16 and October 6 with 300 women each and on October 10 with 400 women.
Camp commanders were SS-Scharführer Schmidt and from the beginning of 1945 SS-Unterscharführer Martin Wagner. They were responsible for guarding the camp by 50 SS men and 14 female guards.
Extermination through work particularly hit the Sinti prisoners and the Jewish women who were specifically deployed for physically difficult and health-endangering work. 168 of them were deported to Auschwitz after a short time because of their poor health.
The heavy, twelve-hour work, the inadequate supply and the inadequate hygienic conditions in the camp quickly and often led to illnesses and death. By February 1945 over 70 seriously ill women had been sent back to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Before the camp was closed, another 150 seriously ill - 67 of them "gypsies" - were deported to Bergen-Belsen.
On April 14th, the Taucha subcamp was dissolved and the 1200 or so women were forced on a death march towards Teplitz. Exhausted women were shot by the SS. Before reaching their destination, the few survivors were freed by the Soviet army. The 80 sick and abandoned women were freed by the American army.
Web links
- Concentration camp satellite camp in Saxony (Saxon State Center for Political Education) (pdf) (accessed on March 26, 2018)
- The Leipzig Forced Labor Memorial (accessed on March 26, 2018)
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 51 ° 22 ′ 44.9 ″ N , 12 ° 28 ′ 45.9 ″ E