Sereď labor and concentration camp

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Wall of the former concentration camp (2017)

The Sereď labor and concentration camp existed from October 1941 to April 1945 in the western Slovak city of Sereď . The Slovak state was a satellite state of the German Empire , split off from the Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1939 .

It was the task of this camp from the beginning to concentrate the Jews to be deported from Slovakia on the basis of drawn up lists from the country and to keep them ready for “deportation” to the death camps.

From November 1942, there were no longer any transports. After the suppression of the Slovak National Uprising, SS units carried out further deportations from the now occupied Slovakia to death in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp from the end of September 1944 to the end of March 1945 . Alois Brunner became the German concentration camp commandant .

Historical background

By government decree No. 198/1941 on the legal status of the Jews of September 9, 1941 (also known as the Jewish Code , Slovak Židovský kódex ) the Jewish population of the Slovak Republic was deprived of their remaining human and civil rights. According to the decree, all Jews between the ages of 16 and 60, insofar as unemployed, were obliged to do work assigned to them by the Ministry of the Interior.

Sereď 1

The grounds of the Sereď concentration camp, October 2017

Within a month of the decree being passed, the ministry established a forced labor camp for Jews in Sereď. Jewish craftsmen were sent there to renovate a military camp near the city and prepare it for Jewish slave labor . However, the Slovak authorities did not wait for the construction work to be completed, but began instructing Jewish women, men and children who were to be deported to Poland.

At the same time, the first mass deportation took place in the spring of 1942 and the labor camp was opened with half-finished production facilities. The camp had a carpenter's shop , a toy factory, a tailor's shop and other workshops. It was originally guarded by the Hlinka Guard . Jews were humiliated by them in different ways. During the first wave of deportations from Slovakia, Sereď served as both a labor and transit camp. 4,463 people were deported in five transports from Sereď - as part of the first wave of deportations - to concentration and extermination camps in German-occupied Poland. Most of them did not survive. The last two trains deported patients from the Jewish hospital in Sereď and physically and mentally handicapped people from various medical institutes.

After that, the conditions in the camp improved significantly. Production was expanded, goods from the warehouse were both ordered by government agencies and sold in civilian markets. After the deportations in 1942 there were around a thousand people in the camp, and in the following year the workforce increased to around 1,300. There were kindergartens and a primary school, a sports field and a cultural program, language courses and lectures. A Jewish camp council was formed, headed by Alexander Pressburger. There was enough to eat and the inmates were given exit permits.

In the last phase of Slovak control over the camp, it was guarded by the police. When the Slovak National Uprising began in August 1944 , the guards opened the gates and let numerous Jews escape. Many prisoners joined the national uprising.

Sereď 2

Slovenské železnice transport wagon in the Holocaust Museum

In September 1944 the labor camp was converted into a concentration camp under SS leadership. Franz Knollmayer, who came from Bratislava, became the warehouse manager. SS members committed serious crimes against the prisoners, including torture , rape and murder . Since the rape of Jewish women was assessed as a violation of the racial laws, Knollmeyer lost his position and was replaced by Alois Brunner . He was given the task of finally resolving the “Jewish question” in Slovakia. Sereď became the linchpin of the second wave of deportations. Soldiers of the Slovak insurrection movement, partisans and people accused of supporting the uprising were detained separately. Brunner organized eleven train transports to Auschwitz , Sachsenhausen , Ravensbrück and Theresienstadt . 13,500 Jews were deported. The last transport left Sereď on March 31, 1945, shortly before the liberation by the Red Army .

Sereď Holocaust Museum

Today the camp is a national memorial of the Slovak Republic. It is the only surviving Nazi camp in Slovakia, as the Nováky and Vyhne camps have not been preserved. The Sereď Holocaust Museum was set up in the former camp . It was opened in January 2016 in the presence of Holocaust survivors and the Slovak President. The Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico, and the Vice President of the Knesset , Jitzchak Waknin , spoke , and Shmuel Barzilai , Chief Cantor of the Israelite Community in Vienna sang . The kaddish was recited by Baruch Myers , Rabbi of Bratislava.

The museum holds exhibitions about Jewish culture, life in the camp, the Holocaust and the persecution of the Roma and Sinti .

See also

literature

  • Encyclopedia of the Holocaust , Volume III, Q – Z, 2nd edition, Munich, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-492-22700-7 , pp. 1304f
  • M. Felstiner: Alois Brunner. In: Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 3 (1986), pp. 1-46.
  • Matej Beránek: Pracovný a koncentračný tábor v Seredi . In: Historická revue . tape 3 , 2016 (Slovak).
  • Gila Fatran: The Deportation of the Jews from Slovakia 1944–1945 . In: Bohemia - magazine of history and culture of the Bohemian lands . tape 37 , no. 1 , July 31, 1996, ISSN  0523-8587 , p. 98-119 , doi : 10.18447 / boz-1996-3203 .
  • Martin Konečný: Alois Brunner a jeho úloha v procese likvidácie európskych Židov . In: Historická revue . tape 3 , 2016 (Slovak).
  • Nešťáková, Denisa: The Jewish Center and Labor Camps in Slovakia. In: Karoline Georg, Verena Meier, Paula A. Oppermann (eds.): Between Collaboration and Resistance: Papers from the 21st Workshop on the History and Memory of National Socialist Camps and Extermination Sites. Metropol, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-86331-503-0 , pp. 117–145.

Web links

Commons : Sereď labor and concentration camp  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 198/1941 Sl.z. Nariadenie zo dňa 9. septembra 1941 o právnom postavení Židov , documents of the Government of the Slovak Republic, online at: upn.gov.sk / ... , Part I, Section VII, Part I, § 22
  2. ↑ Matej Beránek: pracovný a koncentračný tábor v Seredi. In: Historická revue , 3/2016, p. 50.
  3. ↑ a b c Encyclopedia of the Holocaust , Volume III, QZ, 2nd edition, Munich, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-492-22700-7 , p. 1304f, keyword: SEREĎ
  4. ↑ Denisa Nešťáková: "The Jewish Center and Labor Camps in Slovakia" in Between Collaboration and Resistance. Papers from the 21st Workshop on the History and Memory of National Socialist Camps and Extermination Sites, eds. Karoline Georg. Verena Meier, and Paula A. Oppermann. Ed .: Metropol. Metropol, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-86331-503-0 , pp. 117-145 .
  5. ^ A b Matej Beránek: Pracovný a koncentračný tábor v Seredi. In: Historická revue , 3/2016, p. 51.
  6. ↑ a b Martin Konečný: Alois Brunner a jeho úloha v procese likvidácie európskych Židov. In: Historická revue , 3/2016, p. 48.
  7. ^ Israel Gutman et al. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Holocaust . Munich and Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-492-22700-7 , vol. 3, p. 1305.
  8. ↑ Matej Beránek: pracovný a koncentračný tábor v Seredi. In: Historická revue , 3/2016, p. 52.
  9. ↑ Monika Vrzgulová: Cultures of History Forum: Only a Beginning: The Sered 'Holocaust Museum in Slovakia. Retrieved March 19, 2020 .
  10. ^ New Holocaust Museum in Slovakia: Sered | CEU podcasts. Retrieved March 19, 2020 .
  11. ^ Trude Silman : Opening of the Slovak National Holocaust Museum at Sered 26th January 2016 , in Holocaust Learning , accessed on October 16, 2017.

Coordinates: 48 ° 17 '23.8 "  N , 17 ° 43' 21.4"  E