Main camp VI D
The main camp VI D was a camp for prisoners of war during the Second World War in Dortmund .
The prisoner-of-war team main camp VI D was located on the grounds of the Westfalenhallen in Dortmund and was a central facility for supplying the heavy industry of the Ruhr area with prisoners of war. The Wehrkreis VI corresponded in its extension in the present example North Rhine-Westphalia. The main camp VI D was the fourth prisoner of war camp set up in the military district. It was used for the registration of prisoners of war, their hygienic control and the division into work details.
The main camp VI D was set up in the Westfalenhalle from September 1939 to August 1941. When the capacities there were no longer sufficient, wooden barracks were built in the surrounding Volkspark Dortmund to accommodate the prisoners. The barrack camp had an area of 17 hectares and existed until March 1945.
A total of over 70,000 prisoners were housed in the camp, around 10,000 of them at the same time. Organizationally and administratively, about 300 work details were subordinate to the prisoner-of-war camp, main camp VI D, in Dortmund alone. The prisoners of war, who came mainly from Poland, France and the USSR , were used in Dortmund's heavy industry.
Many of the prisoners of war did not survive their stay in the main camp VI D and are now buried in the main cemetery in Dortmund . A memorial here today commemorates the 5,095 deceased Soviet forced laborers.
In 2005, a film documentary about the camp was released with “Landmarks without memory - prisoner of war in the Westfalenhalle”. The 40-minute film was shot by two journalism students from Dortmund with the assistance of a historian who was involved in the subject. Two Italian survivors of the camp also have their say. After the film was broadcast on the Dortmund city television "Florian TV", the city, the Westfalenhallen and some historians raised the issue of a worthy commemoration of the victims.
In 2007 a memorial stone was erected in front of Westfalenhalle III to commemorate the main camp VI D.
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Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 46.5 ″ N , 7 ° 27 ′ 24.3 ″ E