Gross-Rosen concentration camp

Coordinates: 50°59′57″N 16°16′40″E / 50.999281°N 16.277704°E / 50.999281; 16.277704
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Gross-Rosen
Arbeit Macht Frei
Other namesGerman: Konzentrationslager Groß-Rosen
Commandant
OperationalSummer of 1940 – 14 February 1945
Inmatesmostly Jews, Poles and Soviet citizens[1]
Number of inmates125,000 (in estimated 100 subcamps)
Killed40,000
Notable inmatesBoris Braun, Adam Dulęba, Franciszek Duszeńko, Heda Margolius Kovály, Władysław Ślebodziński, Simon Wiesenthal, Rabbi Shlomo Zev Zweigenhaft[2]

Gross-Rosen was a network of Nazi concentration camps built and operated by Nazi Germany during World War II. The main camp was located in the German village of Gross-Rosen, now the modern-day Rogoźnica in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland,[1] directly on the rail-line between the towns of Jawor (Jauer) and Strzegom (Striegau).[3][4] Its prisoners were mostly Jews, Poles and Soviet citizens.[1]

At its peak activity in 1944, the Gross-Rosen complex had up to 100 subcamps located in eastern Germany and in German-occupied Czechoslovakia and Poland. The population of all Gross-Rosen camps at that time accounted for 11% of the total number of inmates incarcerated in the Nazi concentration camp system.[1]

The camp

Model of the Gross-Rosen main camp from the Rogoźnica Museum[3]

KZ Gross-Rosen was set up in the summer of 1940 as a satellite camp of the

SS-Oberführer Albrecht Schmelt. The company was put in charge of employment from the camps with Jews intended to work for food only.[citation needed
]

The Gross-Rosen location close to occupied Poland was of considerable advantage.[5] Prisoners were put to work in the construction of a system of subcamps for expellees from the annexed territories. Gross Rosen became an independent camp on 1 May 1941. As the complex grew, the majority of inmates were put to work in the new Nazi enterprises attached to these subcamps.[4]

In October 1941 the

Soviet POWs to Gross-Rosen for execution by shooting. Gross-Rosen was known for its brutal treatment of the so-called Nacht und Nebel prisoners vanishing without a trace from targeted communities. Most died in the granite quarry. The brutal treatment of the political and Jewish prisoners was not only in the hands of guards and German criminal prisoners brought in by the SS, but to a lesser extent also fuelled by the German administration of the stone quarry responsible for starvation rations and denial of medical help. In 1942, for political prisoners, the average survival time-span was less than two months.[4]

Map of Nazi concentration camps in occupied Poland. Concentration camps are marked by black squares; Gross-Rosen is located on the far left of this map, in the province of Niederschlesien.

Due to a change of policy in August 1942, prisoners were likely to survive longer because they were needed as slave workers in German war industries. Among the companies that benefited from the slave labour of the concentration camp inmates were German electronics manufacturers such as

Daimler-Benz, among others.[6] Some prisoners who were not able to work but not yet dying were sent to the Dachau concentration camp
in so-called invalid transports.

The largest population of inmates, however, were

Buchenwald. During the camp's existence, the Jewish inmate population came mainly from Poland and Hungary; others were from Belgium, France, Netherlands, Greece, Yugoslavia, Slovakia, and Italy
.

Following the unsuccessful Polish Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the Germans deported 3,000 Poles from the Dulag 121 camp in Pruszków, where they were initially imprisoned, to Gross-Rosen.[7] Those Poles were mainly people of 20 to 40 years of age.[7]

Gross-Rosen memorial
Remains of the crematorium
Mass grave of cremated victims

Subcamps

At its peak activity in 1944, the Gross-Rosen complex had up to 100

Kratzau II, Oberaltstadt, Reichenbach
, and Schlesiersee Schanzenbau.

The

Aryanized" in 1939 by a Vienna-based company called Vereinigte Textilwerke K. H. Barthel & Co. The prisoners also worked in factories operated by the companies Aloys Haase and J. A. Kluge und Etrich. By 18 March 1944 Gabersdorf had become a subcamp of Gross-Rosen.[8]

One subcamp of Gross-Rosen was the Brünnlitz labor camp, situated in the Czechoslovakian town of Brněnec, where Jews rescued by Oskar Schindler were interned.[citation needed]

The Brieg subcamp, located near the village of

Pawiak prison in Warsaw; others had been arrested within the territory controlled by the Reich or had been transported from Kraków and Radom.[8]

Brieg's camp kitchen was run by Czech prisoners. The three daily meals included 1 pint of mehlzupa (a soup made from water and

jam and margarine. Prisoners also received 1 cup of Knorr soup per week.[8]

Camp commandants

During the Gross-Rosen initial period of operation as a formal subcamp of Sachsenhausen, the following two SS Lagerführer officers served as the camp commandants, the SS-Untersturmführer Anton Thumann, and SS-Untersturmführer Georg Güßregen. From May 1941 until liberation, the following officials served as commandants of a fully independent concentration camp at Gross-Rosen:

  1. SS-Obersturmbannführer Arthur Rödl, May 1941 – September 1942
  2. SS-Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Gideon, September 1942 – October 1943
  3. SS-Sturmbannführer Johannes Hassebroek, October 1943 until evacuation

List of Gross-Rosen subcamps with locations

Main article: List of subcamps of Gross-Rosen

The most far-reaching expansion of the Gross-Rosen system of labour camps took place in 1944 due to accelerated demand for support behind the advancing front. The character and purpose of new camps shifted toward defense infrastructure. In some cities, as in Wrocław (Breslau) camps were established in every other district. It is estimated that their total number reached 100 at that point according to list of their official destinations. The biggest sub-camps included AL Fünfteichen in Jelcz-Laskowice, four camps in Wrocław, Dyhernfurth in Brzeg Dolny, Landeshut in Kamienna Góra, and the entire Project Riese along the Owl Mountains.[10]

Post-war history

After the war, the former camp was under control of the occupying Soviet forces until April 1947, when it was taken over by Polish administration.[11] In 1953, a memorial to the victims designed by Adam Procki was unveiled.[11]

War crimes trial

On 12 August 1948, the trial of three Gross Rosen camp officials, Johannes Hassebroek, Helmut Eschner and Eduard Drazdauskas, began before a Soviet Military Court. On 7 October 1948, all were found guilty of war crimes. Eschner and Drazdauskas were sentenced to life imprisonment and Hassebroek was sentenced to death, but this was later commuted also to life imprisonment.[12]

Museum

From the 1950s to 1970s, the former camp was under the care of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and the Historic Museum of Wrocław.[13] In 1958, the first museum exhibition was created.[14] In 1963, the site of the former camp was added to the Registry of Cultural Property of Poland.[14] In 1976, it became a branch of the District Museum in Wałbrzych.[14] The Gross-Rosen State Museum was opened in 1983, after efforts by survivors from Warsaw and Wrocław.[14]

On 10 May 2002, a ceremony to commemorate 19 officers of the Special Operations Executive murdered by Nazi Germany at Gross-Rosen in 1944, was held at the museum, with the participation of the families of the victims, various Polish officials and war veterans, and ambassadors of the United Kingdom, Canada and France.[15]

Since its creation, the museum has been most visited by Poles, followed by Germans, according to data up to 2013.[16]

Notable inmates

"... healthy looking prisoners were selected to break in new shoes for soldiers on daily twenty mile marches. Few prisoners survived this ordeal for more than two weeks."

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e "Historia KL Gross-Rosen". Gross-Rosen Museum. 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  2. ^
    ISBN 83-919919-8-9
    .
  3. ^ a b The Gross-Rosen Museum in Rogoźnica. Homepage.
  4. ^
    Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust
    . NY: Macmillan 1990, vol. 2, pp. 623–626.
  5. ^ Dr Tomasz Andrzejewski, Dyrektor Muzeum Miejskiego w Nowej Soli (8 January 2010), "Organizacja Schmelt" Archived 2014-10-21 at the Wayback Machine Marsz śmierci z Neusalz. Skradziona pamięć! Tygodnik Krąg. (in Polish)
  6. ^ Holocaust Encyclopedia (2014), Gross-Rosen. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  7. ^ a b "Transporty z obozu Dulag 121". Muzeum Dulag 121 (in Polish). Retrieved 8 May 2021.
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-0-253-35429-7
    .
  9. ISBN 978-83-223-2138-6
    .
  10. ^ "Filie obozu Gross-Rosen" [Subcamps of Gross-Rosen, interactive]. Gross-Rosen Museum (Muzeum Gross Rosen w Rogoźnicy). Retrieved 16 October 2014.
  11. ^ a b Sula 2013, p. 165.
  12. ^ "Nazi War Crimes Trials: Gross Rosen Trial (August 12 - October 7, 1948)". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 2019-01-15.
  13. ^ Sula 2013, pp. 165–166.
  14. ^ a b c d Sula 2013, p. 166.
  15. ^ Sula 2013, p. 172.
  16. ^ Sula 2013, p. 177.
  17. ^ "Aktuelles Detail – Gedenkstätte Buchenwald". www.buchenwald.de. Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 15 June 2022.
  18. ISBN 978-613-8-67272-2
    . Retrieved 16 June 2022.

References

Media related to Gross-Rosen concentration camp at Wikimedia Commons

50°59′57″N 16°16′40″E / 50.999281°N 16.277704°E / 50.999281; 16.277704

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