Slave Labor in Concentration Camps, B-C

Braunschweig - Brunswick

submitted by: Alan Newark

Detention and work camps in Brunswick from: http://www.hanskottke.de/e/ns_in_bs.bsrund.htm (computer translation)

IN GAUSSBERG 1 - 'JEW'S HOUSES'

Between 1939 and 1941 the Jewish population of all human rights was robbed. After the restriction of the rent (spring, 1939) they became so-called 'Jew's houses', listed here:

· in the Gaussberg 1,
· Neuer Weg 9,
· Meinhardtshof 3,
· Höhe 3,
· Hamburg Str.298,
· Hagenbrücke 6-7,
· Ferdinandstr. 9,
· Hennebergstr. 7 and
· Wendenstr. 2

packed together, from September, 1941 by collective transports to the destruction camps eastwards.
About the stupefying destiny of a group of Brunswick Jews reports an eyewitness who was official-obliged till the end of 1944 in a coal hydrier factory close to sweating out as a department manager:
' On the food maps there were sometimes the special allocations, soap or such a thing which were delivered on call. Because I could not perceive them because of my service, I announced myself in 1943 to Brunswick, so that my relatives could come to enjoy special allocations. To the notification of change of address I proceeded in the police station in the Celler street/corner ring. When the official saw that I announceed departure from Heydebreck (near Auschwitz), he looked at me suddenly quite anxiously and said: ' There I have also been. ' I said: ' Nevertheless, you have not hopefully brought the last Brunswick Jews after sweating out?! ' There he caught in to howl. If they introduce themselves, a police officer! But he was an auxiliary policeman and apparently very devoutly. ' The man's God may forgive me ', he said, ' I do not get over it '. I asked: ' What has happened then? Was this the train from which the Jews have waved out and where the SS to those has the bones destroyed ? ' - This had happened because the Jews thirst and had asked for water.

This policeman had accompanied the Jew's transports from Brunswick as a marking person; to Berlin everything has been quiet, but the Berlin Jews who have got on would have known where it went. Then this would have become a dreadful journey to sweating out.

I asked: ' What has become then from them? ' and he said: ' They have been gasified everything, everything are away '. (Interview with H.Sommer , in 1981)
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But also during the following years the Nazi rule and the war begun by her demanded thousands of human lives. Under in the prison in Wolfenbüttel of executed are many victims of the National Socialist arbitrariness justice and war justice. Numerous foreign members of the resistance also belonged to the executed. On the area of the Army of the Reich in Salzgitter 3400 foreign prisoners of war, prisoners and foreign workers died. 138 of them were executed. On the Brunswick foreign cemetery in the Brodweg there lie anonymously foreign forced laborers and prisoner of war. Also on the old Catholic cemetery in Hochstrasse Polish forced laborers are buried anonymously. Forty air raids on Brunswick took 2900 bomb victims. The city had to deplore to 5244 favour.
On the main cemetery graves and memorials remind us of these events.
' Are watchful - with it our death in vain was not ' is the inscription of a stone tablet of the Rieseberger victims, urns in 1953 on the Brunswick cemetery would cross have become. An honourary grove reminds of the dead people.
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CONCENTRATION CAMP: ' Example: SCHILL monument, Schillstreet '

By the rearrangement of the industry to complete armament production and for construction work or clearing work outside camps of the concentration camps were moved in the factories themselves. The NS terror was exercised here, often under the eyes of the population and under their co-operation, after the principle of the exploitation of the human worker and the destruction.
In the city borders of Brunswick there were as can be proved four outside commands of concentration storage:

· concentration camp-outside command Lager Schilldenkmal (Schillstrasse, today's working area of the post, more than 800 prisoners),
· concentration camp-outside command SS riding academy (with the forced laborer's camp in the Salzdahlumer street, approx. 750 female prisoners),
· concentration camp-outside command troops economy camp of the Waffen-SS (about 10 prisoners)
· concentration camp-outside command SS-young nobleman's school (in the Schloss castle).
The first three camps being subordinate to the concentration camp Neuengamme, the last of the concentration camp Buchenwald.
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FORCED LABORER'S CAMP: ' Example: Griegstreet '

To the backup of the agricultural products and as a substitute with missing industrial workers about eight millions foreign manpower ('civil worker', 'forced laborer' and prisoner of war) were used in the ' Large-scale German empire '. From the numerous camps also in Braunscheig some tracks have still been preserved till this day and serve, among the rest, the accommodation of late emigrants, how in Griegstreet. In particular the Brunswick Büssing works (later MAN) used the possibilities of the application of forced laborers fully. Of it the following camps are known:

· camp Mascherode, Salzdahlumer street/corner Griegstreet (approx. 1200 persons);
· several camps in Kralenriede (Rühmer Berg, Steinriedendamm, Schuntersiedlung, approx. 2000 persons).
All together nearly 50 'civil worker camps' existed at Brunswick companies for foreign forced laborers. Biggest from them were:

· the communal camps of several companies in the Frankfurt street and on the Schützenplace,
· the camps Kälberwiese and Baumschule Lehndorf of the MIAG and
· the camp of the optical works Voigtländer and son in the Berlin street.

In the following big 'civil worker storage' were accommodated with end of the war between 400 and 1800 foreign forced laborers:

· national railway office of Brunswick, Campestr.41;
· camp of the public utilities Brunswick;
· Volkswagen-Vorwerk, engine factory, Gifhorner street;
· Wilke-Werke AG, Bahnhofstr.15;
· ' camp red meadow ';
· Lutherwerke, in the west railway station.

In the remaining 'civil worker storage' were accommodated with end of the war between 60 and 260 foreign forced laborers:

· airplane repair work Brunswick, Zimmerstr.24;
· machine factory Viga works, Hamburg Str.260;
· machine factory of Karges and Hammer, Frankfurter Str.36;
· Chem. Factory Eisenbüttel, Frankfurter street;
· calculating machine factory Grimme&Natalis, Kastanienallee;
· iron construction Krüger&Co, Rosenstreet; metal pots factories: Unger&Sohn, Ernst's Amme street;
- Schmalbach, Hamburg Str.38;
- Bremer&Brückmann, Juliusstr.1;
· Deutsche Asphalt AG, Friedrich's Wilhelm place 1;
· construction industry Carla Weiss, Broitzemer Str.37;
· saw work Siegburg, Kurze Kampstr.16;
· wooden goods and leather goods Schubert, Geysostr.19;
· jute spinning mill, Spinnerstreet;
· soap factory of Joh.Fr.Weber, Hildesheimer Str.10;
· sugar factory ' camp Eichtal ', Celler Str.65;
· big butcher's shop Struck&Witte, Berliner Str.2; · Schaare, Saarbrückner Street;
· canneries: Maseberg, Goslarsche Str.61;
· Querner, Wilhelmstr.31;
· Meinecke, Celler Str.54;
· Grahe, Bültenweg 77;
· Heine&Lindner, Gliesmaroder Turm;
· Jentsch&Sohn, Kreuzstr.17;
· Naujoks, Helmstedter Str.92;
· Daubert, Helmstedter Str.97 and Wiesenstr.1;

Also this list is not entire yet!!!

About the inhuman conditions of foreign workers and prisoners of war gives the report of inhabitant's of Brunswick information whose parents helped these people in their misery, although this was prohibited by law:

' With us on the street were done to construction work by prisoners of war. They were hard guarded. If somebody went past with them, they whispered ' bread! Bread! '. They suffered hunger. Although we also had enough hunger, then my mother tried to help them. Of course nobody might see this, because one might not help prisoner, talk not even to them. My mother made it completely ingenious: She cut breads, it wrapped and took them with on the way to the shopping. In the meantime, with a prisoner she had taken up eye contact. Blinked them to, took the muffled bread and threw it in one in that standing garbage metric ton sews. There the prisoner knew give and could get later the breads. Against the fact that the prisoners examined the garbage metric tons after comestibles the guards had nothing.
My father co-operated in a company important to war in the city with Ukrainian foreign workers, partly were the 14-year-old children whom one supplied not properly.
There was all food on stamps during the war. Thus the possibility was to be helped, very much restricted. Only with the meat trader there was sometimes quite awful mussel meat, undefinable stuff. My father ate it, and he took it in the cooking dishes with in the company for the Ukrainian youngsters. Also this had to happen secretly. '
(Citation from Reinhard Bein: Free state Brunswick in 1930-1945, Döring printing, Brunswick)

Alan Newark braveheart562002@yahoo.com

Slave Labor in Nazi, Germany, Camps

B-C