Concentration camp tin hammer
The Blechhammer concentration camp , also known as the station camp , near Ehrenforst (Sławięcice) and Blechhammer (Blachownia Śląska), was a German concentration camp belonging to the Blechhammer camp system . It existed from April 1944 to probably January 17, 1945 and was used to build chemical plants for O / S Hydrierwerke AG near Heydebreck OS The Blechhammer camps were built two kilometers south of the village of Ehrenforst from April 1942. The SS-Wirtschaftsbetrieb loaned the prisoners to the construction company or to the chemical company for the construction of roads and bunker shelters.
It is a satellite camp of the Auschwitz concentration camp . From April 1944 to November 1944, camp leaders were SS-Hauptsturmführer Otto Brossmann and then, until the camp was closed in January 1945, SS-Untersturmführer Kurt Klipp .
Forced labor, prisoner of war and concentration camps
From April 1942 on, the Blechhammer concentration camp was preceded by a forced labor camp for Jews. The entire camp system during the Second World War consisted of several POW camps (British: Canal camp E3 (Blechhammer North) and internment camp (Ilag) VII - BAB 20, 21, 40 and 48; Russians: Teichen camp (Blechhammer South); Poland: Heydebreck IV; German: Heydebreck), various workers' camps, penal camps and other "camp barracks".
The concentration camp for Jews , or the station camp for short , also belonged to this camp complex . A total of 75,294 forced laborers including 2,000 British prisoners of war were held in Blechhammer North. The Jews from the branch of the Auschwitz III Monowitz concentration camp formed a small part of this forced labor area.
In preparation for the visit of the Red Cross (ICRC) to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in June 1944, prisoners from Theresienstadt were transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp and the Blechhammer forced labor camp for Jews was partially cleared. The corpses of 1,500 inmates were burned in the camp's own crematorium (photo).
history
During the Third Reich, IG Farbenindustrie AG began building several large chemical plants in 1939, the first of which began operations in 1944, employing 14,000 workers and numerous prisoners of war. The chemical works in Heydebreck OS (Kędzierzyn) were no longer completed, because in the year that production started, severe damage was caused by air raids. The first 3,056 abducted prisoners (No. 76,330 to No. 76,461) took part in the construction of the Oberschlesische Hydrierwerke AG factory , IG Farben AG . The inmates were divided into groups of 100 to 200 people.
In May 1942, a broke typhoid fever - epidemic of. The 120 sick prisoners were transferred to the main camp Auschwitz and murdered there. The camp was initially a satellite camp of the Monowitz concentration camp (Auschwitz III) and was run by the local camp commandant Heinrich Schwarz . The remaining prisoners were taken to a strictly isolated part of the train station camp.
Other prisoners were brought here, most of whom were Jewish Poles from Upper Silesia. But there were also Jews from 16 other countries. The highest number of prisoners was reached in January 1945 with 5,500. They lived in wooden barracks with devastating sanitary conditions. In each wooden barrack there were six dormitories, each with 30 to 40 inmates. The barracks themselves had no sanitary facilities, at best there were a few toilets and showers in a separate barrack. Many suffered from diarrhea and tuberculosis , and all were poorly nourished.
Karl Demerer, a Jew from Vienna , had to serve the Germans as camp elder . He went to the camp administration on many occasions and stood up for other prisoners.
First, Jews from the city of Cosel (Koźle) and the rest of Silesia were deported to the Blechhammer concentration camp. Before the war there was a Jewish community in Cosel. The synagogue there was destroyed on November 9, 1938. The Jewish cemetery later disappeared under the southern branch of the Debowa community in the south of Kędzierzyn-Kozle.
On September 9, 1944, there was an American air raid on the factory.
80 French non-Jewish resistance fighters from the Vosges were imprisoned in the Jewish camp from November 30, 1944 to January 1945; ten of them died the following day in Block 28, allegedly of a contagious disease.
Death march
In January 1945, as the Red Army was approaching, the concentration camp was evacuated by prisoners by the SS and partly set on fire.
From January 21st, the SS began a joint march of prisoners and forced laborers from various camps in the region with the aim of either bringing these work slaves to Gross-Rosen or killing them. On the day of the evacuation, around 4,000 prisoners left the camp. The death march led from Blachownia Slaska via Kosel - Neustadt OS - Bad Ziegenhals - Neisse - Ottmachau - Frankenstein - Schweidnitz and Striegau to the Groß-Rosen concentration camp there , which the survivors reached on February 2, 1945. During the march, the SS murdered around 800 prisoners. They often shot a whole group of such prisoners who could not follow.
Web links
- Forgotten Camps: Tin hammer. In: JewishGen (English).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Directory of the concentration camps and their external commands in accordance with Section 42 (2) BEG , No. 139, Blechhammer, District of Cosel / Upper Silesia
- ↑ John Borrie: Despite Captivity: a Doctor's Life as a Prisoner of War. 1975, ISBN 0-7183-0134-X .
- ↑ Lech Kowalewski: W hilerowskim obozie pracy * wspomnienia for Kędzierzyna 1941-1945. Instytut Śląski w Opolu, 1973.
- ↑ Stanisław Łukowski: Zbrodnie hitlerowskie w Łambinowicach i Sławięcicach na Opolszczyźnie w latach 1939-1945. Katowice
- ↑ Stanisław Łukowski: Zbrodnie hitlerowskie w Łambinowicach i Sławięcicach na Opolszczyźnie w latach 1939-1945. Opole 1965.
- ^ A b Franciszek Piper : Podobóz Blechhammer. In: Zeszyty Oświęcimskie. 10/1967 (Polish).
Coordinates: 50 ° 21 ′ 32 ″ N , 18 ° 19 ′ 7 ″ E