Hessental concentration camp
The Hessental concentration camp in Schwäbisch Hall- Hessental ( Württemberg ) was a satellite camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in Alsace that existed from summer 1944 to April 1945 . The Hessental camp was set up in the summer of 1944 in a former barrack camp of the Reich Labor Service at the Hessental train station. The first occupation with 600 prisoners took place on October 14, 1944. After two further transports, 800 prisoners were housed there by December. It mostly These were Polish Jews from the space Radom , which in the selection of the ramp Auschwitz extermination camp declared “fit for work” and initially taken to the Vaihingen / Enz concentration camp . The camp was led by SS - Hauptscharführer August Walling, to whom six SS men and some members of the Todt Organization were subordinate. Air force soldiers served as guards for work details outside the camp .
The prisoners were mainly deployed at the Hessental Air Force Air Base , where they repaired bomb damage and had to carry out repairs. In addition, there were work details for track work, in the forest, in quarries, at businesses, farmers and in the town of Schwäbisch Hall.
Due to the systematic malnutrition and the lack of hygiene, diseases and epidemics were commonplace. Many prisoners suffered from diseases such as dysentery , and in February 1945 a typhus epidemic broke out, killing over 100 people. There were also brutal attacks by the guards, mistreatment and murders. Inhuman tortures and killings sometimes took place in public in front of the residents of Hessental. At least 182 prisoners died in the Hessental concentration camp from starvation, illness and murder. The bodies were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Steinbach , where a memorial today commemorates them.
In view of the advance of the American armed forces across the Rhine into the northern Wuerttemberg area, the SS evacuated the camp on April 5, 1945 and drove the inmates on the Hessental death march towards the Allach branch of the Dachau concentration camp . This again resulted in numerous murders and deaths from exhaustion. In total, around 150 to 200 prisoners were killed in the death march.
Camp commandant August Walling was sentenced by a French court in 1947 to 20 years' imprisonment for crimes against humanity , of which he served ten.
After the end of the war there was a junkyard on the site of the former concentration camp for a long time. Since 2001 there has been a memorial with an exhibition in a railroad car, which was organized by the Hessental e. V. is worn. The memorial is a founding member of the Association of Memorials in the former Natzweiler concentration camp complex .
literature
- Michael Sylvester Koziol: Armaments, War and Slavery. The Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental air base and the concentration camp (= research from Württembergisch-Franconia. Vol. 27). Thorbecke et al., Sigmaringen et al. 1986, ISBN 3-7995-7626-6 .
- Folker Förtsch (Red.): Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental Concentration Camp Memorial. Initiative KZ-Gedenkstätte Hessental, Schwäbisch Hall 2001 (available from Initiative KZ-Gedenkstätte Hessental e.V., see below).
- Tuviah Friedman (Ed.): Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental Concentration Camp Memorial. Institute of Documentation in Israel, Haifa 2005.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Concentration camp memorials establish network of remembrance. December 22, 2018, accessed December 23, 2018 .
Coordinates: 49 ° 5 ′ 53.1 ″ N , 9 ° 46 ′ 12.9 ″ E