Memorial to the concentration camp transport in 1945
The 1945 concentration camp transport memorial is located in Nammering -Föhrenweg, a district of the Lower Bavarian community of Fürstenstein in the district of Passau .
Events in April 1945
The memorial in Nammering commemorates the later so-called “ Death Train from Buchenwald ”, a final phase crime of the National Socialists. From April 7 to April 28, 1945, this rail transport took place with concentration camp prisoners from Buchenwald concentration camp to Dachau concentration camp . Due to advanced acts of war, the train had to be diverted.
On April 19, 1945, the prisoner transport consisting of 54 freight wagons, under the orders of SS-Obersturmführer Hans Merbach, reached Nammering station after a twelve-day journey. Since a Wehrmacht transport had derailed on the route shortly before (an armored locomotive had fallen down the embankment and damaged the track), the transport could not continue for several days.
During the five-day stay of the prisoner transport in Nammering station, 794 prisoners were killed. They starved to death, died of cold or exhaustion, or were killed or shot by the SS. Without the help of the responsible pastor Johann Bergmann from Aicha vorm Wald , who organized food donations despite threats, there would have been even more deaths. 270 prisoners who had already died during the transport were cremated in the Renholdingen quarry near Nammering on the instructions of the SS, and another 524 dead were buried in a swamp meadow ( dead meadow ).
The train finally continued on April 24th via Passau , Pocking and Munich to Dachau . Only 816 people from the prisoner transport arrived there alive; 2,310 fatalities were counted on the train in the Dachau concentration camp .
Burials after the end of the war
After the liberation of Germany by the Americans, the mass grave on the Totenwiese near Nammering was only discovered three weeks later . The Americans ordered the half-decayed bodies to be excavated and laid out in rows. Then the entire population had to walk past the dead.
At the instruction of the American troops, a coffin and a grave cross had to be provided for each corpse. The victims were buried in five cemeteries in the area: 171 dead in a meadow in the village of Eging , 92 dead in the local cemetery in Fürstenstein, 43 dead in a meadow in the village of Nammering, 104 dead in a meadow in the village of Renholding, and 113 dead in a meadow in the "lower Hofmark" of Aicha vorm Wald .
In 1958 there was a comprehensive reorganization of the cemeteries, in which all victims previously buried in Nammering, Renholding and Aicha vorm Wald were exhumed and reburied in the honorary cemetery of the Flossenbürg concentration camp memorial . Of the 92 victims buried in Fürstenstein, 33 were reburied in Flossenbürg, 20 bodies were transferred to France and Italy and 39 remained in the Fürstenstein local cemetery. The 171 victims buried in Eging stayed there. The cleared cemeteries in Nammering, Renholding and Aicha vorm Wald were closed.
The Nammering station on the former Deggendorf – Kalteneck railway line has since been closed. There is now a memorial cross on the former railway site.
Commemoration
Memorial from 1984
In 1984 a memorial was erected to commemorate the victims of various nationalities of the evacuation train from Buchenwald . The memorial, inaugurated on April 21, 1985, is located outside of the village about 300 meters from the main road to Fürstenstein. The memorial stone bears the inscription "KZ-Transport April 1945 - 794 prisoners murdered".
Memorial from 2005
In 2005, a new memorial was built about 300 meters east of State Road 2127 at the point where the transport stopped for five days in 1945. The design of the memorial as a “track of remembrance” is intended to remind us that where there is now a cycle path, there was once a train station.
On 24 April 2005, to mark the 60th anniversary of the murder of 794 prisoners at the described railway land in Nammering a memorial ceremony in the presence of a survivor of the evacuation train and Member of the German Bundestag , the Bavarian Parliament , the Bavarian state government , representatives of churches and local politics and the population for the "greatest [...] most terrible war crime in Lower Bavaria" .
IG Metall memorial stone
As part of a commemoration on April 19, 2015 for the 70th anniversary of the transport, IG Metall erected another memorial stone for the murdered union members on the train. Since then, the 1945 concentration camp transport group has presented a permanent exhibition with the events of 1945 along the Danube-Ilz cycle path.
Web links
- Memorial "KZ-Transport 1945" on www.alemannia-judaica.de (accessed on May 11, 2019)
- Working group "KZ-Transport 1945" (accessed on May 11, 2019)
Individual evidence
- ↑ sueddeutsche.de: The five terrible days of Nammering
- ↑ Copy of invitation, speeches and guest list on the occasion of the commemoration of the community of Fürstenzell, community sheet No. 14 of April 21, 2005 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed January 24, 2009
Coordinates: 48 ° 41 ′ 44.5 ″ N , 13 ° 18 ′ 44.5 ″ E