Wolfenbüttel Westbahnhof civil labor camp

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The civil labor camp Wolfenbüttel Westbahnhof belonged to the group of "mixed race camps" within the National Socialist camp system. Since the files of the Todt Organization have been lost, little is generally known about this type of camp.

The Wolfenbüttel camp was set up in November 1944 by the Todt Organization in a Reichsbahn barrack on the grounds of the Westbahnhof, east of the station building, and existed until the end of the war. The camp inmates were around 70 men of different ages, " mixed race 1st degree ", all from the Stuttgart district. They had received a position order from the Secret State Police , according to which they had to report to Bietigheim on November 21, 1944 with work equipment and food ; from there they were transported by the Reichsbahn to Wolfenbüttel. It was the penultimate deportation from Stuttgart, the last (which often affected members of the Wolfenbüttel camp inmates) went to Theresienstadt in February 1945. The forced recruitment of the "half-breeds" carried out across the Reich took place at the same time as the recruitment campaigns for the Volkssturm and was therefore hardly noticed by the majority population.

The Reichsbahn barracks were only equipped with makeshift beds in the course of the next few days. The work involved the construction of a water line from Oker to Goslar along the railway line; the camp inmates had been transferred as workers to a civil engineering company in Vienenburg . On weekdays they used normal Reichsbahn trains to take them to their place of work, where they had to dig a trench for the water pipe under the supervision of a Kapo. The working time was about 10 hours a day. There was a camp elder who, it was supposed, reported to the Secret State Police on a daily basis. Those who were denounced were temporarily sent to “ Camp 21 ” in Salzgitter for “special treatment” ; those who behaved inconspicuously remained relatively unmolested. When there was an air raid, there was as little space for the "half-breeds" as there was for the Eastern workers in the air raid shelter. The food situation was somewhat better than in concentration camps or camps for Eastern workers, and occasional shopping was possible. The camp inmates did not wear prisoner clothing, but their own clothing that they had brought with them, although they only had what they wore on their bodies. In winter weather there was usually no way to wash and dry clothes.

The Nazi authorities were heavily burdened by logistical tasks such as the accommodation of refugees, so that a diffuse situation arose for the residents of the "mixed race camp" in which it was often not clear what was allowed to them and what was not. There was no actual guarding, one could move freely in the city, but with their dirty clothes the camp inmates attracted the attention of the population and were suspected of being foreign workers. Individuals were released to Stuttgart due to illness; As the war approached, many of the campers went into hiding and the last group was liberated by British soldiers.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ralf Busch: Wolfenbüttel Westbahnhof , Braunschweig 2002, p. 182.
  2. ^ Ralf Busch: Wolfenbüttel Westbahnhof , Braunschweig 2002, p. 185.
  3. ^ Ralf Busch: Wolfenbüttel Westbahnhof , Braunschweig 2002, p. 188.
  4. ↑ Ralf Busch: Wolfenbüttel Westbahnhof , Braunschweig 2002, p. 190 f.
  5. ↑ James F. Tent: In the shadow of the Holocaust: Fates of German-Jewish "half-breeds" in the Third Reich . Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2007, p. 221.
  6. ↑ Ralf Busch: Wolfenbüttel Westbahnhof , Braunschweig 2002, p. 188 f.
  7. ↑ a b Ralf Busch: Wolfenbüttel Westbahnhof , Braunschweig 2002, p. 189.
  8. ↑ Ralf Busch: Wolfenbüttel Westbahnhof , Braunschweig 2002, p. 193 f.
  9. ↑ Ralf Busch: Wolfenbüttel Westbahnhof , Braunschweig 2002, p. 188 f.