SS collective camp Mechelen

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The Mechelen SS assembly camp in the Dossin barracks was located in Mechelen, Belgium, from July 1942 to September 1944 ( German Mechelen ; French Malines ; also Kamp Mechelen ). It served as a transit camp for the deportation of Jews and " Gypsies " from Belgium to German extermination camps .

history

Inner courtyard of the Dossin barracks at the time of the assembly camp

The camp was built by the SS in a former infantry barracks in the Austrian Netherlands , which was suitable as a collection camp for several reasons. First, it was a closed building, second, there was a rail link to Mechelen train station , and third, the city of Mechelen is about halfway between the metropolitan areas of Brussels and Antwerp , where about 90% of the Jewish population lived. The first commandant of the camp (July 1942 to November 1943) was SS-Sturmbannführer Philipp Schmitt , followed by Karl Schönwetter.

During the Holocaust , 25,257 Jews and 351 Roma from Mechelen were deported mainly to the Auschwitz extermination camp . Approx. 16,000 of the deported people were not given any prisoner number there . that is, they were probably murdered in gas chambers immediately upon arrival . Only 1207 of the deportees survived the war .

The deportations took place by rail, with the order to deport 1000 people in one transport. The majority of the transports (17 of 31) took place between August and October 1942. Around 17,000 Jewish people were deported from Belgium over a period of one hundred days. After that, most of the Jews tried to go into hiding and thus evade extermination. The International Institute for Holocaust Research in Yad Vashem recorded a total of 31 transports from Mechelen:

  • Transports I (August 4, 1942) to XXVI (July 31, 1944) all had Auschwitz-Birkenau as their destination. On September 20, 1943, two transports left Mechelen with the designations XXII A and XXII B.
  • Transport E1 of February 23, 1944 bears the addition "PROTECTED JEWS" and led to the Vittel camp in France. Presumably this was just a stopover on the way to Auschwitz.
  • Transport E2 also led to the Vittel camp on June 20, 1944.
  • Transport Z1 of December 13, 1943 went to the Ravensbrück concentration camp .
  • Transport Z3 of April 19, 1944 had the addition "HUNGARIAN NATIONALITY" and led to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp .

On April 19, 1943, three young Belgians, school friends Youra Livchitz , Jean Franklemon and Robert Maistriau , stopped the 20th transport train that was to transport 1618 Jews from the Mechelen assembly camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

By the time Belgium was liberated in September 1944, the Germans managed to herd another 8,000 Jews. 56% of the approx. 60,000 Jewish Belgians living before the war were able to escape deportation by fleeing and hiding until liberation and thus survived.

In contrast to other German-occupied countries, the extermination of Jews in Belgium is fairly well documented. Both the transport lists, on which the names of the prisoners destined for a transport were noted, and the archives of the SS security service responsible for the deportations have been preserved in full. This makes it possible to largely reconstruct the entire process of the deportation from Mechelen to Auschwitz.

Prisoners in Mechelen

The prisoners from the painting workshop
Victim of the VI. Deportation train on August 29, 1942
  • Josef Schiffer (June 8, 1889– December 31, 1942, murdered in Auschwitz) was a dentist and lived and worked in Igstadt . On July 15, 1939, he fled to Antwerp . He was deported from the Mechelen assembly camp to Auschwitz on August 29, 1942.
  • Martha Schiffer (née Fried, born June 2, 1894 in Nordenstadt ). Josef Schiffer's wife fled to Antwerp with her husband and was deported from Mechelen on the same day as he was. The date of her death is unknown.
  • Herbert Schiffer (July 19, 1928 in Igstad – December 31, 1942, murdered in the Blechhammer labor camp near Cosel ) was the son of Josef and Martha Schiffer. Herbert attended school in Igstadt from April 10, 1934 to March 26, 1936; afterwards he had to go to the newly founded Jewish school in Igstadt until they escaped together with his parents.
  • Max Reinemann (born August 12, 1883 in Treuchtlingen ) emigrated to Belgium and was deported from Mechelen (Malines) to the Blechhammer labor camp near Cosel on August 29, 1942 . He was pronounced dead.
  • Sara Kramarz (née Blitzer, born July 5, 1913 in Chzarnow, Poland). The married nurse was declared stateless after her divorce and interned in Mechelen. From there she was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on August 29, 1942 .
Former Cologne residents in the Mechelen camp
  • In May 2015 the Kazerne Dossin Memorial made a file available to the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne (NSDOK) with 259 records of Cologne-born people who had been deported from the Mechelen assembly camp to Auschwitz between 1942 and 1944. The NSDOK's own research enabled further deportees to be identified “so that a total of 378 data records can now be assigned to this group of persecuted persons. This is a good intermediate result, although the number of Cologne residents deported from Mechelen is likely to have been significantly higher with some certainty. "
More prisoners
  • Emma (Emmi) Tarnowski (née Glück, born June 20, 1907 in Hamburg-Altona - murdered in Auschwitz) had emigrated to Belgium with her husband Bernhard Tarnowski (born July 31, 1910 in Hanover - † 1987 in Brussels) and two children . After the German invasion, Bernhard went on an odyssey through several camps in France before he could return to Belgium. Here the two of them lived underground for a time until Emma Tarnowski was arrested on August 10, 1943, and deported to Auschwitz on September 20, 1943. Bernhard and the two children were able to survive underground.
  • Mala cinnamon tree
  • Simon Fisch (born June 14, 1875 in Tarnobrzeg (Austria-Hungary, today Poland) - murdered in Auschwitz in 1943) lived as a trader in Karlsruhe before emigrating. In 1939 he emigrated to Antwerp. He was interned in Mechelen on November 24, 1942 and deported to Auschwitz on January 15, 1943.
    In addition to Simon Fisch, twelve other Karlsruhe Jews were brought via Mechelen to Auschwitz (in one case to Mauthausen).
  • Régine Kroglich (July 28, 1920– May 11, 2012) escaped during the attack on the 20th deportation train .
  • Elisabeth Klein (born Thalheim, born May 29, 1901 in Vienna - murdered on August 11 or 13, 1943 in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp ) was the wife of Kálmán Klein, who had fled to Belgium with his family. After the occupation of Belgium by the German Wehrmacht, Kálmán Klein was arrested in Brussels and expelled to France, his family remained in Belgium. After a camp odyssey, he finally came to the Drancy assembly camp . From there he was deported to Auschwitz on August 17, 1942, where he was murdered.
    Elisabeth Klein was interned in Mechelen on February 13, 1943; she was deported from Mechelen to Auschwitz on April 19, 1943 "and there by a Ahnenerbe SS command for the collection of skeletons of the Strasbourg anatomy professor August Hirt selected . She was transferred to the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp on July 30, 1943, and murdered there in the gas chamber on August 11 or 13, 1943. Her body was used for 'race-determining' examinations. "
  • Jeanette Passmann (born Vogelsang, born February 28, 1878 in Gelsenkirchen - murdered on August 11 or 13, 1943 in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp) was with the businessman Hermann Passmann (born June 11, 1869 in Issum - † January 26, 1935 in Roermond ). The couple had two children, both of whom were able to emigrate to Canada and the USA.
    The Passmann couple emigrated to the Netherlands in July 1934, where Hermann Passmann died six months later. After the occupation of the Netherlands by the German Wehrmacht, Jeanette Passmann confided in a smuggler who had promised to bring her to Switzerland. The plan failed; Jeanette Passmann was arrested by the police en route and interned in Mechelen on February 15, 1943. On April 19, 1943, she was deported to Auschwitz from here. After arriving on April 22, 1943, she survived the selection. “With other women from her transport, Jeanette Passmann was sent to Block 10 of the Auschwitz main camp, a place for medical experiments . After a selection by the SS anthropologists Bruno Beger and Hans Fleischhacker in June 1943, the 65-year-old was taken to the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp on July 30, 1943 with another 85 Jews and there on August 11 or 13, 1943 Gas chamber murdered. "
  • Alfred Löw (December 15, 1900 in Markdorf - April 21, 1968 in Port Chester ) lived as a hairdresser in Rüsselsheim from 1933 . He married the non-Jewish Katharina Reitz here in 1934 and left Germany with his wife in 1939. The two originally wanted to emigrate to South America, but initially stayed in the Netherlands and then in Belgium. Alfred Löw had to do forced labor in road construction and in the quarry and was “arrested on December 9, 1942 [..] for refusal to work and sabotage [..]. Without a court martial, Löw was handed over to the concentration camp in Mechelen on January 11, 1943, the city from which Beethoven's ancestors once came and from which Löw was now to be deported to Auschwitz for extermination. Chased through Europe by the Nazis for years, his marriage to the Catholic Katharina now saves him from deportation and extermination [..]. On July 25, 1943, Löw was released and sent to Brussels without being allowed to work. 'After the liberation, I worked for the Allies from January to July 1945. I went back to Germany on July 27, 1945, my wife followed on October 5. '“
    The Löws returned to Rüsselheim. When Alfred Löw tried to get an apartment and a job from the city, there were disputes, initially with the alderman Schmitt. In a letter to the military government, Löw reports: “On September 27th, Mr. Schmitt clearly stated that the city administration had no obligations towards us. And on October 22nd that we were responsible for the Nazi seizure of power. That we had given up Germany. "Mayor Dörfler confirms this to the military government:" On the occasion of such an unpleasant argument, the alderman made it clear to him that the city had no moral obligations towards him, since he had voluntarily left Germany. "
    From February 1946 to June 1947 Alfred Löwer works as a commercial clerk at Opel. In March 1948 he and his wife emigrated again, this time to the USA for good.
  • Hugo Lindheim , his wife Mathilde and their daughter Lore moved from Frankfurt am Main to Mechelen at the end of 1937, after their furniture factory had previously been "aryanized" by the Worms entrepreneur Karl Kübel . Due to their Jewish descent, the family was interned in the SS assembly camp at the beginning of August 1942. With the XVIII. Transport they were deported from there to Auschwitz on January 15, 1943.

Dossin barracks - memorial, museum and documentation center

The Jewish Deportation and Resistance Museum has been located in the building of the former assembly camp since 1995. It documented the history of the assembly camp and the persecution of Jews in Belgium. Furthermore, the exhibition showed the organization of “going into hiding” by Jewish and Belgian resistance groups, as well as u. a. the story of the only attack on a deportation train .

The Belgian resistance also included the support of the Jewish families in hiding (cf. the Righteous Among the Nations ).

Since 2012, the “Kazerne Dossin - Memorial, Museum and Documentation Center for the Holocaust and Human Rights” has replaced the Jewish Deportation and Resistance Museum. The history of the collection camp and the persecution of Jews in Belgium is presented in a new building next to the historic barracks. The exhibition aims to integrate the history of the extermination of the Jews in Belgium into a concept that also brings up other human rights violations and genocides .

literature

  • Herman Van Goethem (Ed.): Kazerne Dossin Mechelen Memoriaal, Museum en Documentatiecentrum over Holocaust en Mensenrechte . Mechelen 2012 (exhibition catalog).
  • Irene Awret : But first you have to get me. Memories of a Painter 1921–1944 . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-351-02594-7 (autobiography).
  • Markus Meckl: Waiting room in front of Auschwitz: The Mechelen (Malines) camp . In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (Ed.): Terror in the West . National Socialist concentration camps in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg 1940–1945. Metropol, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-936411-53-9 , pp. 39-49 .
  • Insa Meinen: The Shoah in Belgium . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2009, ISBN 978-3-534-22158-5 .
  • Andreas Pflock: On forgotten tracks . A guide to memorials in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Ed .: Federal Agency for Civic Education. Bonn 2006.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Transports from the Caserne Dossin (Malines-Mechelen)
  2. ^ Hans Joachim Schädlich: Felix and Felka , Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2018, ISBN 978-3-644-05091-4 (e-book), excerpt: Felix and Felka at Google Books
  3. ^ Transport August 29, 1942 Mechelen . 1,000 people were deported on this train, which reached its destination on September 3, 1942.
  4. ↑ NSDOK documentation Cologne .
  5. ↑ A well-researched story of the two can be found on the Stolperstein für EMMA TARNOWSKI page .
  6. ↑ Memorial book for the Karlsruhe Jews: Simon Fisch
  7. ↑ Karlsruhe Jews with the deportation location Mechelen
  8. ↑ Resistance in Belgium: The Incredible Story of Régine Krohaben & Daniel Krohabennik: One day in April. Downfall, Resistance, Rescue - Passover in Dark Times , Jüdische Allgemeine, article updated on April 9, 2017
  9. ↑ Quoted from: Memorial stones in the Ottakring district of Vienna: Elisabeth Klein and Kálmán Klein . A very personal document from her is displayed on the Venture page  ( 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. cited in the Natzweiler-Struthof section . Elisabeth Klein's fate is also the subject of the website The Names of Numbers. Remembering 86 Jewish victims of a crime committed by Nazi scientists . The detailed biography that can be found there states that Elisabeth Klein's daughter, Nelly Sturm, belonged to the group of young Jewish resistance activists to which Régine Krohaben also belonged.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / grieftour.wordpress.com  
  10. ↑ Jeanette Passmann b. Vogelsang ( Memento of the original from February 27, 2018 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. , in: The names of the numbers. Remembering 86 Jewish victims of a crime committed by Nazi scientists @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.die-namen-der-zahlen.de
  11. ^ The Rüsselsheim hairdresser Alfred Löw and his 'voluntary' departures from Germany , in: RÜSSELSHEIM SETS STOLPERSTEINE. CVs, documents and materials on persecution and resistance 1933–1945, pp. 61–62.
  12. ^ Commemorative book victims of the persecution of Jews under the Nazi tyranny in Germany 1933-1945: Hugo, Mathilde and Lore Lindheim . A digitized version of the transport list of the 18th transport can be viewed on the website of the Kazerne Dossin image database . This database can also be used to call up photos of the members of the Lindheim family, but for Mathilde Lindheim only using the search term 'Bachenheimer'.
  13. ^ Exhibition catalog: Herman Van Goethem: "Kazerne Dossin Mechelen Memoriaal, Museum en Documentatiecentrum over Holocaust en Mensenrechte". Mechelen 2012. p. 12.

Coordinates: 51 ° 2 ′ 2 "  N , 4 ° 28 ′ 42"  E