Forced labor camp Graz-Liebenau

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The forced labor camp Graz-Liebenau (abbreviated camp Liebenau, Camp V (= Roman 5)) was a camp for foreign forced laborers in the district of Liebenau in Graz during the period of Nazi rule .

description

On the area south of the Merkur Arena line , former Kirchner barracks and soap factory , between Kasernstrasse and the left bank of the Mur, the camp was built in 1940 and originally served as camp V to accommodate resettled ethnic Germans from the Bukovina , but soon there were foreign workers and later also housed prisoners of war, most of whom worked in the armaments industry. With up to 5000 people housed, the camp was the largest forced labor camp in Graz.

Hungarian Jews on their death march

In April 1945, Hungarian Jews who had previously been called in to build the south-east wall and were on a death march to the Mauthausen concentration camp were housed here for a short time . Their number is estimated at around 400, many of whom were infected with typhus but were denied medical help. 35 to 40 Hungarian Jews were shot by Gestapo officers on behalf of camp manager Nikolaus Pichler (“We have no medicines for these pigs”) . To do this, the Jews had to lie face down in a pit dug along the Mur, whereupon the Gestapo officers climbed into the pit and shot every Jew in the neck. The bodies were only lightly covered with earth, but not yet filled in so that further executions could be carried out the next day. Around 120 shootings were carried out by Hungarian Arrow Cross members and the camp leader Alois Frühwirt. 53 bodies, 34 of which had gunshot wounds, were exhumed after the war and 46 of them were buried at the Jewish cemetery in Graz . It was already clear then that this was only a part of the 150 suspected bodies. In the Liebenau trials in September 1947 before a British military tribunal, four camp guards were sentenced to death, one sentence and one acquittal. The two death sentences against Frühwirt and Pichler were carried out on October 15, 1947.

Further massacres were perpetrated on the survivors on their march to Mauthausen, for example on the Präbichl , where over 200 Jews were shot by members of the Eisenerzer Volkssturm .

Reuse

Immediately after the war, the Am Grünanger refugee camp was located on the site , and the desolate barracks were replaced by wooden structures. Over time, the area was largely built up, only small parts remained unused or became a wetland next to the Mur. In the course of the construction work on the Graz-Puntigam power plant , the remains of the camp were repeatedly found that are being archaeologically researched.

Exhibition GrazMuseum 2018/2019

From November 15, 2018 to April 8, 2019, the GrazMuseum is showing an exhibition on the Liebenau camp in Sackstrasse.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christian Dürr: The former forced labor camp in Graz Liebenau - On dealing with a long-suppressed topic of contemporary history. In: www.mauthausen-memorial.org. Mauthausen Memorial, September 14, 2017, accessed on October 11, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Ursula Heukenkamp: Guilt and Atonement? The experience of war and the interpretation of war in German media in the post-war period 1945–1961 , Amsterdam 2001, p. 583.
  3. ^ A forgotten place of crime on science.orf.at, accessed on August 8, 2017.
  4. ↑ Memorial for the death march on the Präbichl , on no-racism.net
  5. ↑ The last days of the Nazi terror. In: derStandard.at. November 7, 2015, accessed October 5, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Liebenau Nazi camp: City of Graz plans memorial orf.at, August 11, 2017, accessed on October 11, 2017.
  7. ↑ GrazMuseum makes "Lager V" visible again orf.at, November 13, 2018, accessed November 14, 2018.

Coordinates: 47 ° 2 ′ 37.9 ″  N , 15 ° 26 ′ 39.2 ″  E