Julius concentration camp
The Julius concentration camp was established in the spring of 1943 as a male subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Schönebeck (Elbe) . On March 30, 1943, it can be proven for the first time in the strength reports of the main camp.
history
The shortage of labor in the Schönebeck branch of Junkers-Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG was supposed to be compensated with the prisoners . During the war, this plant produced electrical cast iron, pressed sheet metal and machined parts as well as assemblies for airframes of the Ju 88 , Ju 188 and He 162 models.
The camp was located on Barbyer Strasse right next to the Elbe dike. It consisted of seven barracks , partly made of stone and partly of wood. The prisoner's area was fenced in with electrically charged barbed wire and guarded by four watch towers at the corners.
The number of prisoners was initially 100 and temporarily increased to 1,800 (600 Soviet citizens, 500 French, 300 Poles, 150 Dutch, 100 Czechs and Slovaks as well as some Germans, Spaniards, Belgians and Jews). The inmates had to work twelve-hour day and night shifts. According to statements made by surviving prisoners, the camp was viewed as a less harsh command, but there was hunger, cold and long roll calls here too . From the beginning of 1944 there was a separate hospital ward in the camp, until then sick prisoners were brought back to the main camp. In the event of death, the corpses were taken to the Nazi killing center in Bernburg and there, e.g. Sometimes even without a death certificate , burned.
The last strength report from the camp on April 10, 1945 was 1563 prisoners. When the fighting in Magdeburg began , the camp was cleared on April 11, 1945. The prisoners were sent on a death march along with 163 prisoners from the Leopoldshall camp , which led via Barby, Loburg, Wiesenburg, Lehnin, Wittstock, Grabow and Redlin. The trail of the death march is lost between May 2 and 4, 1945 in the area of Parchim , Neustadt-Glewe and Sülstorf . About 300 to 400 survivors were rescued by US troops. The number of prisoners who escaped or who were shot during the death march is unknown.
One of the command leaders of the Schönebeck concentration camp, SS-Hauptscharführer Adolf KW Wuttke , was sentenced in 1947 by a US military court to four and a half years in prison. Nothing is known about other commanders known by name (SS-Oberscharführer Blinnenroth, SS-Obersturmführer Borell).
Time after the war
After 1945, the former camp site was used to accommodate refugees from Silesia and the Sudetenland. In 1958, the VEB tractor and diesel engine plant Schönebeck was built on the site of the former Junkers factory. Until 1997, the barracks were used as a material store for the VEB Tractor and Diesel Engine Works Schönebeck and its successor Landtechnik AG Schönebeck. In the meantime, the barracks have been torn down except for one still used as a private residence.
memorial
A memorial stone was erected at the entrance to the VEB tractor and diesel engine plant in Schönebeck. The text on the plaque reads "Never forget! The fascists set up a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp here in 1943. We have been creating the tractor factory here since 1958 for peaceful rebuilding".
Known inmates
The Polish actor and theater director Józef Szajna came from Auschwitz to Buchenwald in 1944 and from there to the Schönebeck subcamp. There he was able to make drawings and paintings, some of which have survived. Some murals in the barracks of the Schönebeck concentration camp were discovered and secured in 1992. There are also some charcoal drawings that he made using burned matches.
literature
- Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 3: Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-52963-1 , pp. 568-571.
- Hans-Joachim Geffert: The salt town of Schönebeck (Elbe) and the saltwater spa Bad Salzelmen . Calbe, Grafisches Centrum Cuno GmbH & Co. KG, 2004.
- Hans-Joachim Geffert, District Museum Schönebeck (Hrsg.): Architectural monuments in the district of Schönebeck . Schönebeck 1988
- Marcel Lorin, Schönebeck un Kommando de Buchenwald. You sabotage the avions nazis à l'épouvante d'une marche de la mort . Amicale des anciens déportés de Schönebeck 1989.
Individual evidence
- ^ Art museum in the former Buchenwald concentration camp, picture of the month September 2007
- ↑ Press release of the City of Schönebeck on Józef Szajna ( Memento of the original from June 9th, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 52 ° 1 ′ N , 11 ° 46 ′ E