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Dark history in Halle: Commemoration of the Nazi-era concentration camp subcamps
In Halle (Saale) on Sunday, the Goldberg subcamp was remembered in the “Happy Future”. Words of remembrance and flowers were laid to honor the history of the forced laborers.
Dark history in Halle: Commemoration of the Nazi-era concentration camp subcamps
In Halle (Saale) a dark chapter in history is remembered - the Nazi concentration camps. While many people think of Auschwitz or Buchenwald, there were also 114 subcamps here, the largest on Birkhahnweg, where forced laborers had to toil in the Siebel aircraft factories. On Sunday, a moving memorial service took place in the “Frohe Zukunft” where flowers were laid and moving words were spoken. A monument that has been commemorating history since 2019 was recently cleared of graffiti and moss to keep the memory alive.
“A place like this is a brutal reminder of something that cannot be understood,” explained Pastor Martin Schmelzer. He stressed the importance of the memorial as barracks no longer exist to commemorate the atrocities. René Rebenstorf, councilor for urban development and the environment, who grew up nearby, spoke about the gloomy weather conditions during the ceremony and drew parallels to the suffering suffered by the forced laborers at the time. “People back then couldn’t choose,” he said, urging people not to take today’s achievements for granted.
The cruel reality of forced labor
Between 1933 and 1940, paid foreign workers from Eastern Europe initially worked in the Siebelwerke until the war began and they were turned into forced laborers. Many of them, including prisoners of war from Norway, Sweden, France and Spain, were brought from the Buchenwald concentration camp to Halle in 23 transports. Tragic stories, such as those of Viktor Zebulski and Edmund Czerwinski, who escaped during a bombing raid but were brought back to the camp and later executed, illustrate the horror of this time.
The fates of the camp leaders, such as SS-Unterscharführer Johann Duty, remain obscure to this day. Despite years of searching for him after the war, he remained untraceable and Halle's dark history remains incomplete. In order to keep the memory of this time alive, students from the Burg Giebichenstein Art College have created an audio walk to the concentration camp subcamp, which impressively presents the cruel past.