Walldorf subcamp
The Walldorf concentration camp was a satellite concentration camp in Walldorf (Hesse) , now part of Mörfelden-Walldorf . It was a satellite camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in Alsace and existed from August 23 to November 24, 1944. This concentration camp was part of the so-called final solution for Hungarian Jews after the occupation of the country on March 19, 1944 and the subsequent deportations. The concentration camp prisoners performed forced labor at the Rhein-Main air and airship port, now Frankfurt am Main Airport. This work at the airfield (construction project Rhein-Main ME 163 B ) had been classified as "decisive for the war".
Establishment and prisoners
Russian prisoners of war had to clear some trees as forced laborers even before the facility was set up.
In Walldorf there was initially a camp of the Reich Labor Service (RAD). Its relatives took part in the construction of the motorway between Frankfurt and Darmstadt . This section of road was opened on May 19, 1935. On November 2, 1943, a work detail from the Rodgau I prison camp came to the camp. In the prison camp Rodgau-Dieburg political opponents of the Nazi regime were detained. The 95 prisoners had to do work for Hochtief AG . It is unclear whether these 95 workers were of German or foreign origin. The mission ended on March 26, 1945.
After a new government was formed in Hungary on March 23, 1944 under Prime Minister Döme Sztójay , the Jewish Hungarians were completely constitutionally disenfranchised within a very short time. On April 16, the ghettoization began, eleven days later, under the direction of Adolf Eichmann , the mass deportations to Auschwitz on April 27 . From May 15, more than 10,000 people came daily, mainly to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp , where the majority were immediately gassed .
Hungarian Jewish women imprisoned there came straight from the concentration camp to Walldorf and only narrowly escaped selection . The interned there in 1700 young girls and women aged 14 to 46 years of were from the Organization Todt (OT) at the Reich Security Main Office requested and had to forced labor on the construction site of the company Züblin at Frankfurt airport do. The deported Jewish women were intended exclusively for the OT. On April 29, 1944, Ministerialdirektor Franz Xaver Dorsch became head and organizer of the OT on the instructions of Albert Speer and was thus largely responsible for the deployment of forced laborers throughout the entire Reich; ultimately also for the work of the Jewish women in Walldorf.
The camp consisted of six accommodation and one laundry barracks. These were made of wood and were one-story. They were between 45 and 50 meters long. The women had to sleep in three-story wooden plank beds, 30-40 each sharing a bedroom. The camp area was fenced with barbed wire, and there were watchtowers. In addition to the barracks there was also a stone building, the kitchen barrack, in which the “torture cellar” was housed. In this the women were severely mistreated for alleged misconduct. Some were beaten to death there or died from injuries suffered there. There was a sick bay (sick bay) in the camp. The guards' quarters faced the camp. The camp complex was on the outskirts.
Forced Labor and Detention Conditions
The headquarters of the main camp in Natzweiler was directly responsible for the entire administration and accounting with the Züblin company .
The Züblin company was responsible for the catering. A statement from an Air Force member who was in the camp at the time from 1978: “As far as I know, the food was completely inadequate in relation to the strenuous physical work. They mostly only got thin ' water soup ' ... I have not seen any killings, but I know that prisoners died of malnutrition . "
The work and the surveillance were directed by the OT (Einsatzgruppe V, Heidelberg) with assigned SS personnel. During this time, the two organizations - SS and OT - had to constantly release men capable of military service for warfare. The lack of guards was one of the camp manager's "greatest worries". Wehrmacht personnel stationed at the airport were also deployed later.
The inhumane conditions of detention were not only the excesses of a personal sadism on the part of the guards, but also an integral part and intended means for the entire system.
The survivor Susanne Farkas reported in a letter in 1978 about the work and behavior of the overseers in the Walldorf camp: “After our arrival we first had to lay out the area at a military airfield with grass panels, then we worked on unloading wagons, falling trees and piling them up . We had to carry the long tree trunks great distances on our own shoulders - the latter happened when the weather was bad and the horses were spared. ... During work, the so-called "piano playing" was in "fashion". This consisted of the prisoner stooping after a heavy load being hit on the back with a stick. A 20 year old SS (security guard) made it particularly cruel with pleasure. "
The survivor Hanna S. also wrote a letter about her detention: “We worked in the forest, it was winter and a lot of snow. I didn't have good shoes. None of us had any. We went back to the camp. I was wearing wooden shoes and the snow clung to them, making it difficult for me to walk. … My feet began to bleed and became infected. It was routine that when we returned to the camp, we always had to line up first to be counted. The Germans expected us to stand up straight. With the inflammation on my feet, however, it was difficult to stand at all. The guards pulled me out of line and threw me to the ground. They beat me and kicked me. I was seriously injured by it - physically and mentally. I hoped that I would die. This is just an episode from life in the Walldorf camp near Frankfurt am Main. "
Documents from the camp management show that working hours were set at ten hours a day. Work was also carried out on Saturdays and Sundays and additional breaks were omitted.
The work extends to the construction of taxiways, tracks, tank systems and water pipes. Cable laying, camouflaging, leveling, freight train unloading and warehouse work. Few prisoners were also used outside. Even in the event of a power or water failure, work had to be done, just like before, when this did not yet exist. Some of the prisoners did not even have shoes or materials to repair them. The airfield was a frequent Allied bomb target.
About 50 women did not survive the four-month storage period. Of the remaining women, only about 300 survived the further deportation . After the camp was closed on November 24, 1944, they were deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp .
The camp can be found in the Catalog of Camps and Prisons (CCP). The prison camp Rodgau-Dieburg had a work detail with 95 prisoners for the company in the camp Walldorf from 2 November 1943 they Hochtief AG used.
After the end of the war
After the war the camp was blown up and the area reforested. It was not until the 1970s that the camp was rediscovered and a memorial stone was placed. Since 1996, the history of the concentration camp branch has been continuously and actively processed. In 2000, a memorial path through the forest was opened in the presence of 19 survivors. The history of the camp and the imprisoned women are presented on several memorial plaques using the example of individual fates. In addition, a cellar has been uncovered under the former kitchen barracks, in which prisoners were beaten to death.
In addition, forward-looking, educational work was carried out in Walldorf - supported by the Margit Horváth Foundation . Margit Horváth was one of the survivors from Walldorf. In 1974, Horvath actually landed on the airport runway that she once had to help build. As a girl - the forced laborers were often children or adolescents - Frankfurt was a hope of escaping death in Auschwitz. Her son donated his mother 's so-called compensation money to the foundation, which from then on forms the symbolic basis of the foundation.
The history and reappraisal of the Walldorf concentration camp branch are also the subject of the film “Die Rollbahn” by Malte Rauch, Eva Voosen and Bernhard Türcke (2003).
After rediscovering the camp's history, becoming known and approaching the Züblin company at the end of the 1990s, on whose construction site the female forced laborers were employed at the time and which was at least responsible for the inhumane food, the company always refused to make amends . Compensation payments, an official statement of apology or regret were always refused. Since 1991, however, Züblin has been indirectly involved in the compensation fund for Nazi forced laborers .
Reports from contemporary witnesses
“We were in the wagons to Auschwitz for three days: 80 people in one wagon. We had no water; it was warm. A bucket for all of us the "toilet". When we arrived we were chased out. ... We had to go to a large room to undress; all hair was shaved off. We were sheared like animals. Bad. We weren't human anymore, just numbers. "
“We were locked in freight wagons and there, on a side square (siding), we were unloaded. Frankfurt am Main was written in large letters on the ramp. From there we went far, far, how far I don't remember exactly, only that it was very difficult to go. We were so weak after three days without water, without food, without anything. "
“The picture we saw was a terrible theater. At first we only saw huge barbed wire fences, further back a large fire - which we didn't know what it meant. Men in convict clothes came and opened the cars. Inside the electric fence stood bald, ragged, skinny, horrible-looking girls…. We couldn't imagine that these were our relatives who had been picked up a few days earlier. They were bare of any human appearance ... "
“In the unfriendly season, women wore thin summer dresses, their hair very short, sacks of cement slung around their necks and their legs wrapped in corrugated cardboard, tied with a cord - a picture of misery. I saw that they were doing earthworks on the runway. I was horrified."
literature
- Ursula Krause-Schmitt, Jutta von Freyberg: Local History Guide to Places of Resistance and Persecution 1933 - 1945 (published by the Study Group for Research and Communication of the History of the German Resistance 1933 - 1945 ), Frankfurt 1995, ISBN 3-88864-075- X . P. 167 f.
Web links
- Remembrance project at the Walldorf subcamp
- Margit Horváth Foundation (on the history of the concentration camp branch, its processing and the current projects of the foundation)
- List of concentration camps and their external commandos in accordance with Section 42 (2) BEG
- Historical educational trail
Individual evidence
- ↑ hr-online: "75 years Frankfurt Airport (1936–1945)"
- ^ A b c "Walldorf, Walldorf concentration camp external command, former RAD camp". Topography of National Socialism in Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
- ↑ Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Dimension des Genölkermordes, DTV, 1996, ISBN 3-423-04690-2
- ↑ a b “The former Walldorf subcamp. The victims from Hungary. ” Retrieved January 23, 2017 .
- ^ Website of the Margit Horváth Foundation
- ↑ On the biography of Margit Horváth
- ↑ Film Rollbahn , at gg-online
- ^ Film Rollbahn , at Basis-Film Verleih GmbH, Berlin
- ↑ a b "The Züblin Company and the Compensation of the Victims". Retrieved January 23, 2017 .
- ↑ "Forced laborers at Züblin? Sure! Responsibility? No thanks!" Retrieved January 23, 2017 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 1 ′ 7.6 ″ N , 8 ° 35 ′ 0.5 ″ E