Brünnlitz Labor Camp
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The Brünnlitz labor camp () was a
forced labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (espe ...
of
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
which was established in 1944 just outside the town of
Brněnec Brněnec (german: Brünnlitz) is a municipality and village in Svitavy District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 1,300 inhabitants. Administrative parts Villages of Chrastová Lhota, Moravská Chrastová and Podlesí ar ...
( in German),
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; cs, Protektorát Čechy a Morava; its territory was called by the Nazis ("the rest of Czechia"). was a partially annexed territory of Nazi Germany established on 16 March 1939 following the German oc ...
. It operated solely as a site for an armaments factory run by the German industrialist
Oskar Schindler Oskar Schindler (; 28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was a German industrialist, humanitarian and a member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ...
, which was in actuality a front for a safe haven for '. Administratively, it was a sub-camp of the
Gross-Rosen concentration camp , known for = , location = , built by = , operated by = , commandant = , original use = , construction = , in operation = Summer of 1940 – 14 February 1945 , gas cham ...
system. , the factory site sits abandoned; however, there are plans to turn it into a museum.


Command and control

The Brünnlitz labor camp was administratively a sub-camp of the
Gross-Rosen concentration camp , known for = , location = , built by = , operated by = , commandant = , original use = , construction = , in operation = Summer of 1940 – 14 February 1945 , gas cham ...
system. The camp was assigned an SS garrison consisting of about one hundred SS guards and female staff. The commander of the camp was '' SS-Obersturmführer'' Josef Leipold. From the very beginning, Schindler told the SS his factory would not operate as a typical camp, forbade guards to punish or harass the camp inmates, and barred any SS member from entering the operational part of the factory.


History

Prior to the fall of 1944, Oskar Schindler had owned an enamelware factory in
Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
and employed over 1,000 Jewish prisoners. When he learned that the nearby
Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp , known for = , location = , coordinates = , built by = , operated by = Nazi Germany , commandant = Amon Göth (until September 1944)Arnold Büscher (September 1944 – January 1945) ...
was to be shut down and all its inmates (including his workers) sent to
Auschwitz-Birkenau Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
for extermination, he decided to set up the Brünnlitz labor camp. A large segment of Schindler's labor force consisted of unskilled workers or people who were too sick or weak to work, whom he had been protecting under the guise of essential labor, and he knew they would be killed soon after reaching Auschwitz. Using much of the money he had earned from his enamelware business, Schindler bribed SS and Nazi officials in order to gain permission to move his labor force to the
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; cs, Protektorát Čechy a Morava; its territory was called by the Nazis ("the rest of Czechia"). was a partially annexed territory of Nazi Germany established on 16 March 1939 following the German oc ...
and set up a munitions factory there. In addition, he had to pay the costs of converting a disused textile mill to munitions production, equipping it as a camp, and shipping his supplies and machinery there. The "concentration camp" at Brünnlitz was simply a factory complex, with an attached barracks for the workers and no real external security to speak of. A token front gate and a perimeter fence were the only measures put in place to prevent escapes; however, every Jew at the complex was grateful to be there and hoped to survive the war under Schindler's protection. The SS guards at the camp were left with little to do, and Schindler supplied them with good food and alcohol as an incentive to leave his workers alone. Between November 1944 and January 1945, the Brünnlitz labor camp was visited several times by former
Płaszów Płaszów is a suburb of Kraków, Poland, now part of Podgórze district. Formerly a separate village, it became a part of the Greater Kraków in 1911 under the Austrian Partition of Poland as the 21st cadastral district of the city. During World ...
commandant
Amon Göth Amon Leopold Göth (; alternative spelling ''Goeth''; 11 December 1908 – 13 September 1946) was an Austrian SS functionary and war criminal. He served as the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in German ...
, who considered himself a friend to Schindler. The inmates at Brünnlitz, many of whom had suffered harshly under Göth, remarked that he was a physically changed man and looked feeble and pathetic compared to his early tenure when he was a figure who commanded absolute fear and terror.Crowe, David, ''Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story Behind the List'', Westview Press (2004) Schindler went bankrupt keeping his factory running, having spent his remaining money on food and supplies, bribes to the SS, and purchases of artillery shells from other factories that he passed off as having been made at Brünnlitz. The factory produced no usable armaments of its own, a strategy deliberately chosen by Schindler in the hope of hastening the war's end by contributing nothing to German military efforts. The
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
liberated Brünnlitz on May 9, 1945. A few days prior, the SS guards had deserted and Schindler had escaped to American lines with the help of his Jewish workers, carrying a letter written by them that attested to his rescue activities. As of October 2016, and the Endowment Fund for the Memorial of the Shoah and Oskar Schindler has purchased the site where the camp was located and plans to convert it into a museum.


Timeline

*1840s: The Löw-Beer Jewish family moved into the area. They set up the factory, making high-quality textiles. *1938: The Germans occupied Czechoslovakia. The Löw-Beer family fled to Britain. Germans took over the factory. *1944:
Oskar Schindler Oskar Schindler (; 28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was a German industrialist, humanitarian and a member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ...
brought his Jews to Brněnec and started to work the factory. *May 1945: Russians liberated Brněnec. Afterwards, the Communist government of Czechoslovakia nationalized the factory. *1989:
Fall of Communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...
. The factory went into private hands. In its last years the factory made car seat covers and airline blankets. Its last general manager was František Olbert. *2010: The factory closed and was left abandoned. Afterwards, thieves stripped out much of its wood and metal. *2017: The local government of
Brno Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...
invited the Low-Beers to come back to the area. František Olbert approached Daniel Löw-Beer. *Daniel Löw-Beer works for the
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
in
Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
and runs the Ark Foundation, which owns the factory. There is a plan to turn the derelict factory into a museum called Schindler's Ark.


References

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External links


Oskar Schindler's Factory in Brünnlitz, Czechia, as it stands today
Gross-Rosen concentration camp Internment camps Oskar Schindler