The Memorial – The site, the victims and the history of commemoration

Published by the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial Edited by Karin Schawe Written by Iris Groschek and Kristina Vagt Translated by Georg Felix Harsch Contents

4 INTRODUCTION

8 The Neuengamme concentration camp and its satellite camps 10 The Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp 13 The persecution of the Jewish population 14 Medical experiments 16 The evacuation of the camps

18 The crime on 20 April 1945 19 The children 36 The children's carers 41 The Soviet prisoners

42 The prosecution of the perpetrators after 1945 43 The Curio-Haus Trials 49 Later proceedings

52 Commemorating the victims 54 Post-war commemoration 54 Reconstructing the crimes 55 The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial 57 Forms of commemoration 59 Chronicle

62 The memorial today 64 Map of the Bullenhuser Damm Memorial 66 Literature and archival sources 67 Abbreviations (photo credits) 68 Opening hours and guided tours

4 5

Introduction

The murder of 20 Jewish children at concentration camp, where they the former school building on were wrested from their parents to be Bullenhuser Damm on 20 April 1945 subjected to medical experiments at is one of the many despicable crimes the Neuengamme concentration committed during the Nazi reign of camp for five long months. Finally, terror. shortly before the end of World Today, people all over the world War II, they were murdered in the know about the “Bullenhuser Damm basement of a school in by murders”. They feature in exhibitions SS men trying to erase the traces of at the Auschwitz Museum, the their crimes. For decades, their story United States Holocaust Memorial was all but forgotten until the end Museum and Yad Vashem, and they of the 1970s, when a journalist have been the subject of plays and began to search for traces of these films. Schools and streets have been children and look for their relatives named after the murdered children in who survived . , , the , Günther Schwarberg found the and other countries. victims' siblings, nephews and nieces, Twenty children aged between five cousins and even their mothers and and twelve, ten girls and ten boys fathers. Together with the children's from all over Europe, were dragged relatives and a few dedicated locals from their homes with their families from Hamburg, Schwarberg founded and deported to the Auschwitz the Children of Bullenhuser Damm View of the exhibition in 2011. Photograph by Michael Kottmeier. (ANg)

Ruchla Zylberberg on a tricycle, undated. (ANg) Eduard (left) and Alexander Hornemann, circa 1942. (ANg) The Bullenhuser Damm school after the war among the ruins of Rothenburgs- ort, probably taken in 1945. (DA HH) 6 Introduction 7

association. In 1980, the association The exhibition also documents the set up a small memorial at the school prosecution of the perpetrators and that was run by a private initiative for how the murders were remembered almost 20 years before passing under after 1945, the establishment of the the aegis of the Hamburg city council Bullenhuser Damm Memorial and the and becoming a branch of the development of an international Neuengamme Concentration Camp culture of remembrance. A large Memorial in 1999. A new permanent number of newly-discovered exhibition opened at Bullenhuser documents and photographs have Damm in 2011 following an extensive been included in the exhibition, and redesign and the addition of new materials for further reading as well Symbolic suitcases for the children in the exhibition, 2011. Photo by M. Kottmeier. (ANg) rooms to the memorial. This new as audio and video interviews allow bilingual exhibition is particularly visitors to explore the history of the memorial's rose garden, and a bronze learning. Many school groups come aimed at young people. It contains site in great depth. monument commemorates the to the memorial to learn about the information on the building's use as a In addition to the material shown in murdered Soviet prisoners. In the fate of the 20 children and the adults satellite camp of Neuengamme, the the new permanent exhibition, future, students will be given the who were murdered the same day. persecution and deportation routes artistic treatments of the Bullenhuser opportunity to exhibit their own art The memorial's aim is to ensure that of the 20 children who had come Damm murders play an important projects which they developed in the the stories of the victims are not from , France, the Nether- role at the memorial. The large wall context of project seminars at the forgotten. lands, Italy and Yugoslavia, the painting by Jürgen Waller entitled memorial. medical experiments they were “21 April 1945, 5:00 a.m.”, for The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial is a subjected to at Neuengamme, and instance, is an important point of branch of the Neuengamme the murders of the children, their four reference for the memorial's edu- Concentration Camp Memorial and Dr. Detlef Garbe, carers and up to 30 Soviet concentra- cational work. Visitors can plant roses an important site of commemoration Director of the Neuengamme tion camp prisoners on 20 April 1945. in memory of the victims in the in Hamburg, but it is also a place of Concentration Camp Memorial

Exhibition section on the children's carers, 2011. Photograph by M. Kottmeier. (ANg) Section on the Curio-Haus Trials and collection of additional documents, 2011. Photograph by M. Kottmeier. (ANg) The entrance to the Bullenhuser Damm Memorial. (ANg) 8 Neuengamme and its satellite camps 9

The Neuengamme concentration camp and its satellite camps

In late 1938, the SS established a comply with forced labour orders or satellite camp of the Sachsenhausen on racist grounds. concentration camp in a disused Current research into prisoner num- brickworks in the Hamburg district bers states that more than 80,000 of Neuengamme. In the early men and 13,500 women were regis- summer of 1940, the camp was tered at the Neuengamme concen- expanded and put under the tration camp, while another 5,900 authority of the Inspectorate of the prisoners were either never entered Concentration camps as an indepen- into the camp's files or registered dent concentration camp. The Nazis separately. In total, at least 42,900 were planning a redevelopment of people died in Neuengamme itself, Hamburg on a grand scale and in one of its satellite camps or in therefore needed bricks. This was the course of the camp's evacuation. Prisoners on clearance detail in Hamburg in 1943. (StAHH) the main reason for setting up the From 1942, the German Ministry camp. Over the course of the war, of Armaments and the country's over north-western Germany. In roughly 40,000 prisoners, around tens of thousands of people from armaments industry increasingly these camps, prisoners had to 28,000 men and more than 12,000 all over German-occupied Europe demanded concentration camp perform extremely strenuous physical women, had to work for private were deported to Neuengamme prisoners as cheap labour. labour, were subject to maltreatment businesses, the Wehrmacht, the by the and the SS security This prompted the establishment of at the hands of the SS, did not receive Nazi state and the SS in the satellite service (SD). Most of them were a large number of satellite camps. adequate medical care or sufficient camps. At the same time, the arrested for resistance against the More than 85 satellite camps of food and often had to sleep in Neuengamme main camp held German occupation, for refusing to Neuengamme were established all provisional huts. In March 1945, 13,000 male prisoners.

In 1944, some of the wooden prisoner huts were replaced by solid buildings. Photo from SS files. (ANg) The new brickworks. Photo courtesy of Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Prisoners working at the Dove Elbe canal. Photo from SS files. (NIOD) 10 The Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp Neuengamme and its satellite camps 11

The Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp

Several satellite camps of Neuen- divided into two wings for boys and Stone Works], an SS-owned Red Cross in 1945 following nego- gamme were established in Hamburg and girls had space for 30 classes. company. In the autumn of 1944, the tiations with the SS. In April 1945, the itself, outside the Neuengamme main After the Nazis came to power in Hamburg council handed the school SS evacuated the satellite camp and camp, to provide companies with 1933, the new political system influ- over to the authority of the SS, and transported its prisoners to so-called cheap labour. Work details of enced the day-to-day running of by late November, the building was “reception camps”, like the former concentration camp prisoners were the school: Flag-raising ceremonies transformed into a satellite camp. Its POW camp at Sandbostel. also used to clear rubble, recover were held in the school yard, windows were fitted with bars and bodies and clear unexploded students had to greet teachers with the grounds were surrounded with ordnance after air raids on the city. the Hitler salute and new subjects a barbed wire fence. The first One of these satellite camps was set such as genetics and racial studies prisoners, most of them from Poland up in a former school on Bullenhuser were introduced which indoctrinated and the Soviet Union, arrived in Damm. The building was erected students with racist ideology. December 1944. They were initially in 1910 as a school for the many Most of was de- deployed on clearance detail and had children living in the new Billwerder stroyed in an air-raid by the British to reprocess bricks from destroyed Ausschlag neighbourhood. This and American air forces on 27/28 July buildings. The SS was also planning area, which today forms the district 1943. The school remained un- to produce new building materials of Rothenburgsort, was built up harmed, but it was no longer used for from rubble. A report from the SS between 1871 and 1894. At the time, lessons after that. From August 1944, garrison physician at the Neuen- many working-class families from various municipal authorities began gamme camp, Dr , Hamburg's developing warehouse negotiating with the SS about estab- dated 29 March 1945, lists 592 pris- district were resettled here. At the lishing a satellite camp at the vacant oners for the Bullenhuser Damm turn of the century, 40,000 people school on Bullenhuser Damm. The satellite camp. In addition, more than lived in Rothenburgsort. The new SS was looking for 1,000 prisoners 200 Danish prisoners were housed in elementary school at 92–94 to work for Deutsche Erd- und the building. They were evacuated to Bullenhuser Damm which was Steinwerke (DESt) [German Earth Denmark by the Swedish and Danish

The school on Bullenhuser Damm during a break in 1911. (StA HH) The school on Bullenhuser Damm amid bombed-out buildings, after July 1943. (DA HH) In April 1945, Danish prisoners were taken from the Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp to the Scandinavians' camp at Neuengamme on the Danish and Swedish Red Cross's White Buses. Photograph taken in April 1945. (MDF) 12 Neuengamme and its satellite camps 13

The persecution of the Jewish population 14 of the prisoners who died in the Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp are known by name: After coming to power in 1933, the were not selected and immediately Victors Bikernicks, Nazis began to exclude Jewish murdered upon their arrival at born 27 October 1906, last known residence: Jatelos, Latvia; died 11 February 1945 Germans from society step by step by Auschwitz-Birkenau, but were taken Władysław Brodzinski, using the anti-Semitism that existed to the Women's Camp instead. In born 24 September 1905 in Kwasiowo, Poland, died 6 March 1945 Geurt Brunekreeft, in German society and radicalising it. Block 11, the so-called “children's born 19 September 1886 in Barneveld, Netherlands, died 5 March 1945 Following the German Wehrmacht's block”, the SS housed girls and boys Grigorys Cheryonoks, invasions of neighbouring countries, who were subjected to medical born July 1907, last known residence: Rudki, Ukraine; died 19 February 1945 the situation there became more and experiments or who were intended Holger Feldborg Gantriis, more threatening for the local Jewish as subjects for such experiments. born 6 January 1924, last known residence: Slagelse, Denmark; died 4 April 1945 population. were increasingly SS doctor Joseph Mengele person- Ernst Gerhard Hinrich Hibbeler, born 31 August 1912 in Königsberg,Germany, died 23 February 1945 excluded from everyday life, ally chose ten girls and ten boys Gavrilo Ivanov, imprisoned in ghettoes and camps aged between five and twelve for born March 1905 in Lum, Latvia, died 25 February 1945 and finally systematically murdered. tuberculosis experiments in the Ivan Ivanov, The 20 Jewish children who were Neuengamme concentration camp. born 6 January 1916, last known residence: Luni, USSR; died 7 February 1945 murdered on Bullenhuser Damm The children were between five and Pavel Kanosonek, shortly before the end of the war twelve years old. born 22 March 1921, last known residence: Budeishki, USSR; died 14 March 1945 Josef Klyzulis, came from Poland, France, the On 26 November 1944, these child- born 11 August 1913 in Zuchnikov, Latvia, died 9 March 1945 Netherlands, Italy and Yugoslavia. By ren, accompanied by four female Gashr Kurwics, the time they arrived at the Ausch- prisoners and guarded by an SS man, born 7 November 1912 in Kastrevemu, Estonia, died 8 March 1945 witz-Birkenau were locked in a separate carriage Hans Frederik Larsen, between April and August 1944, they which was then added to a regular born 7 August 1912 in Frederiksberg, Denmark, died 1 April 1945 and their families had long suffered train to Hamburg. Niels Hieronimus Haae Laub, born 23 January 1924, died 28 March 1945 persecution and had barely survived Josef Obzienko, other camps. Unlike most other pris- born 2 November 1913 in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, died 19 February 1945 oners, the children and their mothers

The Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp with the camp's perimeter fence shortly after the evacuation in 1945. (Stadtteil- archiv Hamm) Jewish women and children on their way to the gas chambers at the Auschwitz- Birkenau extermination camp, May/June 1944. (USHMM) 14 Neuengamme and its satellite camps 15

Medical experiments

The SS subjected some concentra- “racially inferior” people were more fence. Heißmeyer injected the Dr Kurt Heißmeyer (1905 –1967) tion camp prisoners to medical susceptible to TB than “racially children with TB bacteria, either From 1938 to 1945, Kurt Heißmeyer experiments. Doctors used the superior” people. subcutaneously or directly into the worked as a consultant at the Hohen- opportunities afforded them by the In the course of his experiments, lungs. The children soon began to lychen sanatorium 75 kilometres Nazi tyranny to experiment on Heißmeyer infected up to 100 adult suffer from fever and coughing fits north of . In the spring of 1944, people who had been stripped of all prisoners, many of whom were from and became apathetic and weak. he presented his ideas for tubercu- basic human rights. SS Reich Leader the Soviet Union, with highly Although the children‘s presence at losis experiments on human subjects Heinrich Himmler actively supported virulent, i.e. infectious TB bacteria. the camp was to be kept secret, many to influential SS men who were being this kind of experimentation. Because the rations the prisoners prisoners knew about them. They treated at the sanatorium. Some of In June 1944, a special department were given were so small, some were forbidden to speak to the them then spoke to Heinrich Himmler was set up at the Neuengamme reportedly also volunteered for these children under penalty of death. on Heißmeyer's behalf. Heißmeyer concentration camp to enable doctor experiments in the hope of receiving was hoping that he would be able to Kurt Heißmeyer to experiment on extra food. Even though the health make his name in science by publish- prisoners. Heißmeyer was looking of his subjects had deteriorated ing his findings. He regularly travel- for new treatment methods for considerably by the autumn of 1944 led to Neuengamme to carry out his tuberculosis (TB), an infectious and many of them had even died experiments but never stayed for disease caused by bacteria that was from the experiments, Heißmeyer more than a day. While Heißmeyer common at the time. He assumed wrote to the Auschwitz concentration was away, prisoner doctors and that TB, which mostly affects the camp and asked for 20 children for nurses had to look after the subjects lungs, could be cured by artificially more experiments. The children and sometimes also had to perform creating a second centre for the arrived in Neuengamme on 28 No- operations like removing lymph infection in the body. At the time of vember 1944, and a section of nodes. his experiments, this theory had sick bay IV was divided off to house already been disproved by science. them. The area around the entrance Heißmeyer also believed that was cordoned off by a high paling

The Neuengamme concentration camp in 1945. The arrow marks sick bay IV where the subjects of the medical experiments were housed. (BStU) X-ray of prisoner Ivan Churkin from Kalinin. On 11 Oktober 1944, Churkin's lung was injected with TB bacteria through the catheter that can be seen in the x-ray. (BStU) Prisoner Anton Hölzel holds up eight-year old Lea Klygerman's arm to show the scar where her lymph node had been removed. (BStU) 16 Neuengamme and its satellite camps 17

The evacuation of the camps

From the summer of 1944, the SS Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp in who had been able to say goodbye to gamme prisoners to Lübeck, where began to evacuate concentration April 1945. Around 14 April 1945, the carers later stated that the SS had they were crammed aboard the camps located near the front lines. the SS transported all remaining claimed the children would be taken Cap Arcona and other ships. Those prisoners and production prisoners to “reception camps”, many to Theresienstadt. On 20 April, the On 3 May 1945, nearly 7,000 of facilities which were important for of them to the former Sandbostel 20 children, their four carers and six them died when the RAF mistakenly the German war effort were POW camp near Bremervörde. The Soviet prisoners were taken from bombed these prison ships in transported to numerous newly only people to stay behind were the Neuengamme to the evacuated Lübeck Bay. established satellite camps within two SS men Ewald Jauch and Johann satellite camp on Bullenhuser Damm. During the same period, a last work Germany. When the concentration Frahm. A little earlier, the Danish Red Cross, detail of 600 to 700 prisoners had to camps inside the Reich were also The evacuation of the Neuengamme following negotiations with the SS, clean up the Neuengamme camp. evacuated in the spring of 1945, the main camp was ordered on 19 April had evacuated the last Scandinavian The SS also took calculated measures SS had very few remaining camps to 1945, and preparations were made prisoners from Neuengamme to to erase the traces of the crimes com- fall back on. The dissolution of the for murdering some of the prisoners Denmark in the course of the White mitted there. The camp's files were Neuengamme camp system began to erase all traces of the crimes that Buses rescue operation. These burned, the straw and refuse were on 24 March 1945 with the evacu- had been committed. The SS knew Scandinavian prisoners had been cleaned out of the huts, the flogging ation of the camps in the Emsland that the discovery of the medical taken to Neuengamme from all over trestle and the gallows were dis- region near the Dutch border. experiments on the children would Germany. mantled. The last prisoners and Thousands of prisoners were taken to cause an outcry and therefore decid- The main camp was used for SS men left Neuengamme on 2 May so-called “reception camps” such as ed to rid themselves of the victims executions until the very end of the 1945, shortly before British troops Wöbbelin or Bergen-Belsen, where and witnesses at the same time by war. On 21 and 23 April 1945, the reached the camp. they were left to their own devices killing the children and their carers. SS executed 58 men and 13 women without any food or medical care and In order to attract as little attention as who had been transferred to Neuen- under appalling hygienic conditions. possible, the SS chose the evacuated gamme from the Fuhlsbüttel police With British troops advancing on Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp for prison. Between 20 and 26 April, the Hamburg, the SS evacuated the their murder operation. Survivors SS took the remaining 9,000 Neuen-

Liberated prisoners at the Wöbbelin “reception camp”, 2 May 1945 (USHMM) The former satellite camp on Bullenhuser Damm in 1945. The fence poles are still standing, but the barbed wire has already been taken down. (MDF) The burning Cap Arcona, 3 May 1945. (IWM) 18 The crime on 20 April 1945 19

The crime on 20 April 1945

The children

Late at night on 20 April 1945 the the Spaldingstraße satellite camp. For a long time it was not known who Hamburg journalist Günther Schwar- 20 children, their four carers and six During an escape attempt, several of the children were, where they came berg began to investigate the case Soviet prisoners arrived in the former these prisoners were shot by the SS, from or what happened to their and the identities of the children. school yard behind the building. but some of them managed to get families. Today, this is still true for During his research for a series of The SS men first took the adult prison- away. All other prisoners were also five of them. articles on the murders he published ers into the building and hung them hung in the boiler room. In some cases, a father, mother, in 1979, he got in touch with sur- in the boiler room in the basement. The next morning, the perpetrators sibling, aunt or cousin survived the viving family members all over the The children were led down the tried to erase the traces of their crime. and concentration camps but world for the first time. stairs into the first basement room, They took the bodies to the crema- were unable to find out what had That same year, relatives of the the former changing room for the torium at Neuengamme. happened to the children despite children, former Neuengamme school's gymnasium, where they Johann Frahm burned the children's decades of painful searching. Many prisoners and dedicated Hamburg had to undress. In another room clothes in the boiler for the showers of the survivors had lost their locals founded the Children of SS doctor Alfred Trzebinski injected next to the changing room. property after they were deported, Bullenhuser Damm association. the children with morphine. Those which included their personal items Its aim was to inform the public children who still showed signs of life and keepsakes. All they had to about the crimes that were commit- after the injections were hung by remind them of the children were a ted on 20 April 1945 and to create SS man Johann Frahm, probably with few photographs which relatives a memorial at the Bullenhuser Damm the help of other SS men, in the room had been able to save when they school. at the very back of the basement. emigrated or went into hiding. It was Following these first murders, an- not until more than 30 years after the other group of Soviet prisoners were children were murdered that relatives brought to Bullenhuser Damm from learned of the children‘s fate when

“There are traces of our presence. And that's very important, because if there are no names, it'll be lost … just like that.” Rose Grumelin, mother of Eleonora and Roman Witoński, 2010 20 The children The crime on 20 April 1945 21

Eduard Reichenbaum family was deported to Auschwitz. Reichenbaum emigrated to Palestine. a gentile in 1941. In 1943, Charles Eduard Reichenbaum was born on Jerzy and his father were taken to the In 1947, his mother followed him. Morgenstern fled to Marseille in the 15 November 1934 in , men's camp, where Ernst Reichen- The two looked for Eduard, but it was non-occupied part of France. His Poland. His family nickname was baum died in November. Eduard was not until 1984 that Jerzy, who had wife Suzanne and their daughter Edulek. Reichenbaum's father Ernst first taken to the women's camp along changed his name to Yitzhak, learned later followed him. The family was worked as an accountant for the with his mother Sabina Reichenbaum of his brother's fate through an article arrested in Marseille and taken to the Polish branch of a German publishing and was later transferred to the in the Israeli paper Maariv. Yitzhak for Jews business. Shortly before the outbreak children's block. In November 1944, Reichenbaum regularly attends near . From there, they were of Word War II, Eduard, his brother Sabina Reichenbaum was transferred the commemorative events held deported to Auschwitz on 20 May Jerzy, who was two years older, and to a satellite camp of the Buchenwald on Bullenhuser Damm and talks to 1944, where Jacqueline‘s mother was their parents moved to Piotrków concentration camp in Lippstadt in young people about his brother's murdered. Her father was taken to Trybunalski near Łódź , where western Germany. Mania Herszberg, fate. In 1993, a street in the Hamburg the Dachau concentration camp near Eduard's grandparents lived. In 1943, the mother of Riwka Herszberg, district of Burgwedel was named Munich on the last transport to leave the family was deported to the Bliżyn was also on that transport to after Eduard Reichenbaum. Auschwitz before the liberation. He labour camp, where Eduard and Jerzy Lippstadt. Eduard Reichenbaum died in May 1945 after his liberation. were forced to produce socks for the was taken to the Neuengamme Jacqueline Morgenstern Jacqueline Morgenstern was taken Wehrmacht. In Bliżyn, nine-year-old concentration camp on 28 November Jacqueline Morgenstern was born on to the Neuengamme concentration Eduard managed to narrowly escape 1944 and murdered on Bullenhuser 26 May 1932 in Paris. Her father, camp on 28 November 1944 and a selection, during which 50 children Damm on 20 April 1945. When Charles Morgenstern, ran a hair salon murdered on Bullenhuser Damm under ten years of age were chosen Auschwitz was evacuated in 1945, with his brother Leopold, and her on 20 April 1945. Jacqueline's aunt for deportation and murder. His Jerzy Reichenbaum was transported mother, Suzanne Morgenstern, Dorothéa and her uncle Léopold father, who worked in the camp's west, first to the Sachsenhausen and worked as a secretary. After the Morgenstern were initially protected office because of his fluency in then to the Mauthausen concentra- German Wehrmacht had occupied from being deported because German, had been able to fake his tion camp, both of which he survived. Paris, the Morgenstern brothers were Léopold's work was considered date of birth. In September 1944, the In the same year, at age 13, Jerzy forced to hand over their business to “essential to the German war effort”,

Eduard Reichenbaum with his older brother Jerzy and his father in Katowice in 1937. (Private photograph) Jacqueline Morgenstern in 1938 (Private photograph) Jacqueline Morgenstern with her parents, undated. (ANg) 22 The children The crime on 20 April 1945 23

but in 1943, he was also arrested. Eduard and Alexander their sons. On 3 June 1944, the until 1979 that she learned of their Dorothéa Morgenstern, who was Hornemann Hornemann family was transported fate. Van Staveren remained in touch expecting a baby at the time, went Eduard, the older of the two from Vught to Auschwitz, where with the Children of Bullenhuser underground and managed to hide Hornemann brothers, was born on Elisabeth Hornemann died of typhoid Damm association until her death her children with gentile families. 1 January 1933. His family nickname fever in September. Alexander and in 2008. Brüder-Hornemann-Straße It was not until 1979 that Dorothéa was Edo. Alexander, his younger Eduard were transferred to the in the Hamburg district of Burg- Morgenstern and her son Henri brother, was born on 31 May 1936. children's hut. Shortly before the wedel was named after Eduard and learned about the murder of His family nickname was Lexje. liberation of Auschwitz, Philip Carel Alexander. Jacqueline in Hamburg from Günther The Hornemanns lived in Hornemann was taken to the Dachau Schwarberg. Jacqueline‘s identity in the Netherlands. The boys' father, concentration camp and was then Marek Steinbaum was unambiguously established Philip Carel Hornemann, worked for put on a transport to Sachsenhausen, Marek Steinbaum (also spelled because her name was noted on one from 1925. After the German during which he died on 21 February Szteinbaum) was born on 26 May of the x-rays from Heißmeyer‘s Wehrmacht occupied the Nether- 1945. Eduard and Alexander Horne- 1937. His family owned a small medical experiments. Henri lands, Hornemann was one of 100 mann were taken to the Neuegamme leather factory in . After being Morgenstern attended the commem- Jewish employees at Philips who had concentration camp on 28 November imprisoned in the Radom , orative event for the victims of the to work in the company's Jewish “spe- 1944 and murdered on 20 April 1945 the Steinbaums were deported to Bullenhuser Damm murders held on cial department”, which was set up in on Bullenhuser Damm. Auschwitz via the Pionki labour camp 20 April 1979. He was a founding late 1941. His wife Elisabeth went Ans van Staveren, Elisabeth Horne- near Radom, probably in early Octo- member of the Children of Bullen- into hiding on a farm together with mann's sister and the boys' aunt, ber 1944. Marek's father, Rachmil huser Damm association. Morgen- Alexander, while her older son was the only member of the family Steinbaum, was transported on to stern particularly campaigned for the Eduard hid on another farm. When to survive. She managed to remain the Buchenwald and Groß-Rosen prosecution of . In the Jewish employees at Philips were in hiding until the liberation of concentration camps and finally to 1993, Jacqueline-Morgenstern-Weg deported to the Vught concentration the Netherlands. For a long time, a satellite camp of Natzweiler-Strut- in the Hamburg district of Burgwedel camp in 1943, Elisabeth Hornemann van Staveren hoped her two hof near Stuttgart. Marek's mother, was named after the murdered girl. followed her husband with both of nephews would return. It was not Mania Steinbaum, was taken to the

Philip Carel Hornemann with his sons Eduard (top) and Alexander on the beach in Scheveningen in 1938. (ANg) Elisabeth Hornemann with her sons Alexander and Eduard, undated. (ANg) 24 The children The crime on 20 April 1945 25

Georgenthal satellite camp of Bluma Mekler Bullenhuser Damm on 20 April 1945. Ruchla Zylberberg Groß-Rosen concentration camp, Bluma Mekler was born in Sando- She was eleven years old. Ruchla Zylberberg was born on where Zela James and Rucza mierz, a town on the River Vistula in Bluma's older brother Alter survived 6 May 1936 in Zawichost, 100 kilo- Witońska were also imprisoned. Poland. She had two sisters and Auschwitz. Her younger sister Shifra metres from Radom. After the Marek Steinbaum was taken to two brothers. Her parents Sara and went into hiding in the occupation of Poland by the German Neuengamme on 28 November 1944 Hershel (Hersh) Mekler ran a busi- ghetto in October 1942 and later Wehrmacht, several members of the and murdered on 20 April 1945 on ness selling agricultural goods. In hid in different towns and villages Zylberberg family fled to the Soviet Bullenhuser Damm. His parents addition, Hershel Mekler also taught in Poland. After the liberation, she Union in the autumn of 1939. The survived the camps. at the local cheder, the Jewish reli- lived in various orphanages in first to leave was Ruchla's uncle Jozef. After the war, they lived in Memmin- gious school for boys. The Sando- Poland before emigrating to Palestine He was followed by Ruchla's father gen in Bavaria for a while. Their mierz ghetto, where the family was in 1947. In 1992, Shifra Mor, née Nison Zylberberg and his sister-in-law daughter Lola was born in 1947. In forced to live following the occupa- Mekler, read about the fate of the Felicja. Nison Zylberberg was plan- 1949, the family emigrated to the tion of the town by the German Bullenhuser Damm children in a ning to get his family to join him United States. In the course of his Wehrmacht, was liquidated in newspaper in and recognised there, but after Germany attacked research, Günther Schwarberg tried January 1943. Most of the ghetto's her sister Bluma in one of the photo- the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, to contact the Steinbaums in 1981, inhabitants were murdered in Bełżec. graphs. In 1998, Shifra Mor first this became impossible. Nison's wife but they did not wish to speak to him. Others were taken to the Treblinka visited the day-care centre in Ham- Fajga, Ruchla and her sister Ester, Their daughter Lola learned of her extermination camp or to a labour burg-Burgwedel that had been who was two years younger, were all brother Marek's fate in 1993. camp in Skarżysko-Kamienna. named after her sister in May 1997. deported to Auschwitz, where Fajga On 20 April 1999, she attended the It is not known how Bluma was and Ester Zylberberg were murdered. commemorative event that was held deported to Auschwitz or what Ruchla Zylberberg was taken to the for the Bullenhuser Damm children happened to her parents. On Neuengamme concentration camp on in Hamburg. In 1993, a street in 28 November 1944, she was taken 28 November 1944 and murdered on Burgwedel was named after to the Neuengamme concentration Bullenhuser Damm on 20 April 1945. Marek Steinbaum. camp, and she was murdered on

The Mekler family, undated. (ANg) Nison and Fajga Zylberberg with their daughters Ruchla (front left) and Ester (front right) on the beach, circa 1939. (ANg) 26 The children The crime on 20 April 1945 27

Ruchla's father Nison Zylberberg Lea Klygerman Ester Klygerman survived the camps Allied bombing raids on made survived and returned to Poland in Lea (also Lola) Klygerman was born and returned to Poland. Her search staying in the city seem unsafe. On 1946. In 1951, he emigrated to the on 28 April 1937 in Ostrowiec, for her daughters Lea and Rifka was 21 March 1944, six-year old Sergio, USA. His brothers Jozef and Henryk 60 kilometres south of Radom. In unsuccessful. In the 1970s, Klyger- his mother and seven other members came to Hamburg with their wives in early August 1944, Lea, her mother man emigrated to Israel, where she of the family including his cousins 1958. They had planned to emigrate Ester and her sister Rifka, who was remarried and had another daughter, Alessandra and Tatiana were arrested to Bolivia, but they eventually stayed two years younger than Lea, were Amalia. Amalia learned of her older in Fiume. They were taken to the in Germany. When Günther Schwar- transferred from the Ostrowiec sister Lea’s fate through the relative concentration berg published his feature in Stern labour camp to Auschwitz. They of another one of the murdered camp near Trieste, from where they magazine in 1979, members of the arrived there on 3 August, and children. In order to protect her were deported to Auschwitz on Zylberberg family recognised Ruchla Lea was tattooed with the number mother, she decided not to tell her 4 April 1944. In Auschwitz, Sergio in one of the photographs. In 1981, A-16959. Her father, Berek Klyger- about it. had to work as an errand boy until her father confirmed her identity. In man, was taken to Auschwitz from he was taken to the Neuengamme 1983, Nison Zylberberg visited the the Bliżyn labour camp south of Sergio de Simone concentration camp as a subject for Bullenhuser Damm Memorial for the Radom. From Auschwitz, he was Sergio de Simone was born on Heißmeyer’s medical experiments. first time. He also participated in the transferred to the Sachsenhausen 29 November 1937 and lived with On 20 April 1945, Sergio de Simone International tribunal against Arnold concentration camp in October his parents in Naples, Italy. His father, was murdered on Bullenhuser Damm Strippel in 1986 and visited Hamburg 1944 and then to the Buchenwald Edoardo de Simone, was a Catholic aged 7. In the spring of 1945, Sergio’s again to attend the commemorative concentration camp, where he died naval officer, and his mother Gizella, mother Gizella de Simone was taken event held on 20 April 1995. Nison in February 1945. Lea Klygerman was née Perlow, was Jewish. Edoardo de to the Ravensbrück concentration Zylberberg died in 2002. Zylberberg- taken to the Neuengamme concen- Simone was deported to Dortmund camp, where she was liberated. She straße and Zylberbergstieg in the tration camp on 28 November 1944 for forced labour. In the summer was in very bad health and did not Hamburg district of Burgwedel were and murdered on Bullenhuser Damm of 1943, Gizella de Simone and her return to Italy until November 1945, named after Ruchla. on 20 April 1945. son Sergio moved in with relatives where she rejoined her husband. in Fiume in northern Italy because The de Simones began looking for

Sergio de Simone, undated. (ANg) Sergio de Simone (left) with two of his aunts, his grandmother, his mother and his cousins, September 1943. (ANg) 28 The children The crime on 20 April 1945 29

their son and learned in the late Riwka’s father was taken to the She learned of her daughter’s Eleonora and Roman Witoński 1940s that he had been taken from Buchenwald concentration camp in possible fate in 1980, but was unable Roman Witoński, whose family Auschwitz to a concentration camp January 1945 and murdered there to recognize Riwka in the photo- nickname was Romek, was born on in the west. Edoardo de Simone died on 7 April the same year. Riwka and graphs from Heißmeyer’s experi- 8 June 1938 in Radom in Poland. in 1964 without ever learning of his her mother Mania were housed in ments. In 1979, Ella Kozlowski, a His sister Eleonora, nicknamed son’s fate. Gizella de Simone heard the women’s camp in Auschwitz- cousin of Riwka Herszberg who Lenka, was born on 16 September of the murders on Bullenhuser Damm Birkenau. Riwka reportedly escaped worked for the Israel Police’s central 1939. A week before Eleonora's birth, in 1983 and attended the commem- a selection because one particular unit for the investigation of Nazi on 9 September 1939, German orative event in Hamburg on 20 April SS man took a liking to her because crimes in , discovered Riwka’s troops had occupied Radom. The SS 1984. However, she did not want she resembled his daughter. name on a search poster distributed and the German police set up their to believe that Sergio was dead and On 23 November 1944, Mania Hersz- by German journalist Günther headquarters in the very street where held on to the hope that he was berg was transferred to a Buchenwald Schwarberg and contacted him. the Witońskis lived. The children's still alive until she died. Sergio-de- satellite camp in Lippstadt. Sabina Ella Kozlowski was born in Berlin. father, Seweryn Witoński, worked as Simone-Stieg, a street in the Ham- Reichenbaum, Eduard Reichenbaum’s In the 1930s, she had to break off her a paediatrician in Radom. From 1941, burg district of Burgwedel, was mother, was on the same transport. secondary school education because the family was forced to live in the named after Sergio de Simone. Riwka Herszberg was taken to the she was Jewish. She went to live . On 21 March 1943, Neuengamme concentration camp with relatives in Czechoslovakia and on the Jewish holiday of Purim, Riwka Herszberg on 28 November 1944 and murdered Poland before being deported to Roman, his younger sister Eleonora Riwka Herszberg was born on 7 June on Bullenhuser Damm on 20 April various concentration camps via the and his parents were taken along with 1938 in Zduńska Wola near Łódź in 1945 aged 6. Zduńska Wola and Łódź ghettoes. more than 150 other people to the Poland. Her father, Mosze Herszberg, Mania Herszberg survived the camps After her liberation, Ella Kozlowski old Jewish cemetery in Szydlłowiec, managed a small textile factory there. and returned to Poland to look for emigrated to Israel. 30 kilometres south of Radom. There, In the summer of 1944, Riwka and Riwka. She later emigrated to the the SS started a mass execution, her parents were deported to USA and settled in Boston, where during which Seweryn Witoński was Auschwitz via Piotrków Trybunalski. she remarried and adopted two boys. murdered. His wife Rucza and the

Riwka Herszberg circa 1939. (ANg) Rucza Witońska with her son Roman in the summer of 1940. (ANg) 30 The children The crime on 20 April 1945 31

children Roman and Eleonora hid the children’s fate earlier from the national Tracing Service, in which Georges-André Kohn behind some grave stones, but were reports on the Curio-Haus trials, but she had enquired about her own Georges-André Kohn was born on discovered by the SS and taken back had not told her about it in order children as well as other children 23 April 1932 in Paris. His father, to the ghetto. After witnessing their to protect her. Rucza Witońska from Radom. Schwarberg knew that Armand Kohn, was Secretary General father's execution, the children lived contacted various offices and a child with the surname “Witonska” of the Rothschild Foundation from in terrible fear of the SS in the Radom organisations which offered support had been among the victims of the 1940. This foundation funded the ghetto. In late July 1944, Rucza in the search for missing relatives. Bullenhuser Damm murders from Jewish hospital in Paris. Georges- Witońska and her children were She also filed search requests for a list published by Danish doctor André’s mother, Suzanne Kohn, deported to the Pionki labour camp other children she had known in the and former Neuengamme prisoner came from the Nêtre family, a highly near Radom and from there on to family camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Henry Meyer in his book Rapport fra respected French-Jewish family. Auschwitz, where they were initially As early as 1946, a Belgian tracing Neuengamme in 1945. However, Georges-André had three older imprisoned in the women’s camp. service put her in touch with doctor there was no boy named “Witonski” siblings: Antoinette, Philippe and In Auschwitz, Rucza Witońska was Paulina Trocki, who told her that she on the list. Schwarberg showed Rose-Marie.Due to Armand Kohn’s separated from her children and had accompanied 20 children from Grumelin-Witońska the photographs prominent position, the Kohns still taken to the Georgenthal satellite Auschwitz to the Neuengamme of the children from Heißmeyer's enjoyed some privileges after the camp. Eleonora and Roman Witoński concentration camp when she was files on his experiments, and she occupation of France by the German were taken to Neuengamme on a prisoner at Auschwitz. Rucza recognized her both children in them. Wehrmacht. In 1942, Suzanne Kohn 28 November 1944 and were Witońska went to France, where she In 1982, Grumelin-Witońska visited and her children converted to murdered on Bullenhuser Damm married and took the name of Rose the Bullenhuser Damm Memorial for Catholicism in the hope that this on 20 April 1945. Roman was six, Grumelin. Her son Marc-Alain was the first time. Geschwister-Witoński- move would protect them from the Eleonora five years old. born in 1951. In 1981, Günther Straße in the Hamburg district of increasing anti-Semitic persecution. After her liberation, Rucza Witońska Schwarberg contacted Rose Burgwedel was named after Eleonora But on 18 July 1944, the whole family looked for her children in Auschwitz, Grumelin-Witońska at the address and Roman Witoński. was arrested and imprisoned in the Radom and other places. she had given when filing a search Drancy internment camp near Paris. Her brother had probably learned of request with the Red Cross's Inter- Georges-André’s siblings Philippe

Georges-André Kohn at his First Communion, 1944. (ANg) 32 The children The crime on 20 April 1945 33

and Rose-Marie were on the last been taken to Auschwitz. Armand near Radom, which belonged to a 1949, the family emigrated to the deportation train to leave Drancy for died in 1962 without ever finding out gunpowder factory. From there, they United States, where their younger Auschwitz on 17 August 1944. Three the exact details of his youngest son’s were transferred to Auschwitz in the son still lives. Rucza Grumelin- days after the train’s departure, they fate. In 1979, Georges-André’s summer of 1944, where Marek was Witońska recognised Marek James as managed to escape with a group of brother Philippe Kohn learned what given the prisoner number B 1159. well as other children from Radom in other prisoners against their father’s had happened to his brother in Marek’s father Adam James was the photographs from Heißmeyer’s express wishes and survived in hiding Hamburg. He then brought relatives taken to a satellite camp of the experiments which journalist Günther until the liberation of France. Armand of the 20 children together to form a Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Schwarberg showed her. In 1993, Kohn was taken to Buchenwald, group with the aim of keeping the In the autumn of 1944, Zela James Günther Schwarberg also tried to while Suzanne Kohn and her daugh- memory of the Bullenhuser Damm and her son were also separated contact Zela James, but she did not ter Antoinette were taken to the murders alive. In 1992, a street in the when Zela was taken to a satellite wish to speak to him. In January Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Hamburg district of Burgwedel was camp of the Groß-Rosen concentra- 2010, Marek James’s brother Mark where they both died. Georges- named after Georges-André Kohn. tion camp. Marek James was taken James got in touch with the Children André’s grandmother was murdered to the Neuengamme concentration of Bullenhuser Damm association for in Auschwitz, and Georges-André Marek James camp on 28 November 1944 and the first time. A street in the Hamburg himself was imprisoned in the Marek James was born on 17 March murdered on Bullenhuser Damm on district of Burgwedel was named children’s camp at Auschwitz. 1939 in Poland. He lived with his 20 April 1945. He was six years old. after Marek James. On 28 November 1944, Georges- parents Adam and Zela James at 52 Marek James’s parents survived the André Kohn was taken to the Traugutta Street in Radom. Following camps. After the war, they lived in Mania Altman Neuengamme concentration camp, the occupation of the city by the southern Germany, where they had Mania Altman was born on 7 April and he was murdered on Bullenhuser German Wehrmacht, the family was another son in 1947. With the help 1938 in Radom, Poland, to shoe- Damm on 20 April 1945. Armand forced to live in one of the two of Rucza Witońska, Eleonora and maker Shir Altman and his wife Pola. Kohn, who survived the camps, Radom ghettoes. In 1943, the three Roman’s mother, they tried to get The Altmans had a large extended learned from another former prisoner members of the James family were information on their son’s fate from family in Radom, which included in 1946 that Georges-André had deported to the Pionki labour camp the International Tracing Service. In Shir Altman’s six siblings with their

Siblings André, Rose-Marie, Philippe and Antoinette Kohn (from left), circa 1939. (ANg) Adam James with his son Marek in 1940. (ANg) 34 The children The crime on 20 April 1945 35

families. In the spring of 1941, the her daughter’s fate. She died in 1971 “Goldinger” and not “Goldfinger”. In H. Wassermann, R. Zeller, German occupiers established two in Chicago. Mania’s uncle Chaim 1949, Rose Grumelin-Witońska, the Lelka Birnbaum, W. Junglieb ghettoes in Radom, where the Jewish Altman, who lived in New York, mother of Eleonora and Roman Very little is known about four more population had to live. The Altman learned of the murders on Bullen- Witoński, filed a search request for children who were murdered on family was later deported from the huser Damm and his niece’s fate several children she knew, including Bullenhuser Damm. Their last names Radom ghetto to the Pionki labour through an article by Marc Grumelin, a girl called “Surcis Goldfinger”, with can be found in the list which Danish camp which belonged to a gun- the brother of Eleonora and Roman the International Tracing Service. The doctor and former Neuengamme powder factory, and from there on Witoński, in the journal Voice of ITS informed Witońska that the girl prisoner Henry Meyer published in to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944. Radom in 1982. A street in the was probably taken on a transport of his book Rapport fra Neuengamme Mania’s father was taken to the Hamburg district of Burgwedel was 306 prisoners from the the Ostrowiec in 1945. Mauthausen concentration camp, named after Mania Altman in 1992. labour camp to Auschwitz on The list also includes the name where he was murdered during the 3. August 1944. In 1999, a children’s Wassermann for an eight-year-old girl last weeks of the war. Pola Altman Surcis Goldinger playhouse in the Hamburg district of from Poland. On the stat sheet for and her daughter Mania were Surcis Goldinger was from Poland, Burgwedel was named after Surcis this child, Dr Kurt Heißmeyer used separated in Auschwitz. Pola was probably from Ostrowiec, and was Goldinger. the initials “H.W.”. H. Wassermann taken to a satellite camp of Groß- ten or eleven years old when she was was murdered with the other children Rosen in October 1944, where she taken to the Neuengamme concen- on 20 April 1945 on Bullenhuser was liberated in May 1945. In 1951 tration camp on 28 November 1944. Damm. In 2003, Wassermannpark, a she emigrated to the USA with her She was murdered on Bullenhuser park in the Hamburg district of Burg- brother-in-law, Chaim Altman. Damm on 20 April 1945. The name wedel, was named in her honour. Mania Altman was taken to the Goldinger can be found on the list of Meyer's list also mentions the name Neuengamme concentration camp the children’s names which Henry Junglieb for a twelve year-old boy on 28 November 1944 and murdered Meyer published in his book Rapport from Yugoslavia. On his stat sheet for on Bullenhuser Damm on 20 April fra Neuengamme in Denmark in this boy, Heißmeyer noted the initials 1945. Pola Altman never learned of 1945. On the list, it is spelled “W. J.”. W. Junglieb was murdered

Mania Altman, undated. (ANg) Kurt Heißmeyer kept a stat sheet for each of the children he experimented on. These sheets list the children by the numbers they had to wear around their necks on a tag and their initials. The sheets also give the dates on which the children were infected with TB bacteria. (BStU) 36 The children The crime on 20 April 1945 37

The children's carers

with the other children on Bullen- Two French doctors, Professor campaigned on behalf of his Jewish “[Florence] packed his few posses- huser Damm on 20 April 1945. Gabriel Florence and Dr René colleagues, and in late 1943 he joined sions. Before he left the sickbay, he In 1995, Jungliebstraße in Burg- Quenouille, and two Dutch nurses, the Comité Médical de la Résist- shook each of us by the hand and wedel was named after this child. Dirk Deutekom and Anton Hölzel, ance, an organisation of doctors in said, ‘Au revoir’. But to me he Lelka Birnbaum was a twelve-year-old were assigned to look after the the resistance. On 4 March 1944, whispered, ‘I don’t believe we’ll see girl from Poland. Her full name is children in sick bay IVa. All four of Florence was arrested by the each other again.’” Gabriel Florence noted on the cover sheet of an x-ray them had been imprisoned in the Gestapo and imprisoned in the was hung by SS men on Bullenhuser taken in the course of one of Heiß- Neuengamme concentration camp Montluc prison near , from Damm on 20 April 1945. meyer’s experiments. Lelka was as resistance fighters. Because they where he was transferred to the Simone Florence, Gabriel’s wife, murdered with the other children on had witnessed the experiments, they Neuengamme concentration camp learned of her husband’s fate Bullenhuser Damm on 20 April 1945. were also murdered on Bullenhuser on 7 June 1944. Because he spoke early on from former prisoners In 1996, a street in Hamburg Burg- Damm on 20 April 1945. In contrast German fluently, he worked as an and campaigned for Heißmeyer’s wedel and a children's day-care to the children, the carers' identities interpreter at the camp. In late July prosecution in 1949. centre in St Pauli were named became known soon after the war 1944, the SS assigned him to the In 1953, Professor Gabriel Florence after her. because former prisoners who had sickbay. After the arrival of the 20 posthumously received the Prix Henry Meyer also lists the name worked with them at the sick bay children, his task was to keep their Henri Labbé for biochemistry from Zeller for a twelve-year-old boy from mentioned them in their accounts. patient records and analyse samples the Académie des Sciences at the Poland. On his stat sheet for this boy, in the lab. Gabriel Florence tried to Institut de France. Dr Heißmeyer noted the initials Professor Gabriel Florence kill off the TB bacteria by boiling the “R. Z.” The child’s first name was Gabriel Florence was born on 21 June suspension before the children were probably Roman. Roman Zeller was 1886 in Alsace. He was a professor injected with it. Former prisoner Paul murdered on Bullenhuser Damm on of biochemistry and medicinal Weißmann, who also worked at the 20 April 1945 along with the other chemistry at the University of Lyon sickbay, later remembered his last children. In 1995, a square in Burg- and a Nobel Prize nominator. meeting with Gabriel Florence on wedel was named after him. Under the German occupation he the night before he was murdered:

Gabriel Florence in 1942. (ANg) Drawing entitled “Professeur Florence de l'Université de Lyon” by Betrand de Vogüe, dated 9 September 1944. After his liberation, former prisoner Paul Faure remembered a remark Florence had once made: “If I told you about all the horrors I've witnessed, you wouldn't want to believe most of it.” 38 The children's carers The crime on 20 April 1945 39

Dr René Quenouille sentenced to death. However, on He trained as a carpenter and later to look after the 20 children on René Quenouille was born on 6 De- 16 October 1943, the SS deported worked as a letterpress printer. whom Heißmeyer was conducting cember 1884 in Sarlat-la-Caneda in him to the Mauthausen concentra- Deutekom lived in Amsterdam with his medical experiments. France. After studying medicine, he tion camp in Upper Austria, where his wife and daughter. On 10 May Dirk Deutekom was hung by opened a radiologist’s practice in he had to work as a prisoner doctor. 1940, the German Wehrmacht SS men on Bullenhuser Damm on Villeneuve-Saint-Georges near Paris Former prisoners later remembered invaded the Netherlands. 20 April 1945. in 1925. Quenouille was a member that he helped French and Soviet Dirk Deutekom joined a small of the Communist Party. In 1935, he prisoners in particular. On 17 July resistance group, whose members Anton Hölzel became deputy mayor of Villeneuve- 1944, he was transferred to the had met at a Catholic youth centre. Antonie “Anton” Hölzel was born Saint-Georges. As a local politician, Neuengamme concentration camp, On 18 July 1941, Deutekom was on 7 May 1909 in to a Quenouille was particularly concern- where he was in charge of the arrested by the police security working-class family of social ed with reforming the municipal radiology department at the sick- service in his flat in Amsterdam. He democrats. As a young man, he health services. After the German bay. When the 20 children arrived was registered as a political prisoner moved to , where he occupation of France, René Quen- at Neuengamme, Quenouille was and taken to the Amersfoort transit married and had children. Hölzel ouille and his wife Yvonne joined the charged with their medical care. camp, from where he was deported worked as a driver and as a waiter Patriam Recuperare resistance group, On 20 April 1945, René Quenouille to the Buchenwald concentration in a café and was a member of the whose members helped Allied was hung by SS men on Bullenhuser camp. At Buchenwald, where he Communist Party. On 10 September paratroopers escape to unoccupied Damm. In 1980, a children's day-care arrived on 2 April 1942, he was given 1941, he was arrested by the German southern France. On 3 March 1943, centre was named after him in his the prisoner number 2912. On 6 June Security Police (SiPo) in The Hague René and Yvonne Quenouille and home town of Sarlat-la-Caneda in 1944, Deutekom and Anton Hölzel for possession of a banned news- two of their daughters were arrested the Dordogne region. were transferred to the Neuegamme paper. Hölzel was taken to the by the Gestapo. The women were concentration camp, where they Amersfoort transit camp and regist- soon released again, but René Dirk Deutekom had to work as prisoner nurses at the ered as a political prisoner. From Quenouille was taken to the Fresnes Dirk Deutekom was born on sickbay. In November 1944, Deute- there, he was deported to the prison near Paris and was initially 1 December 1895 in Amsterdam. kom and Hölzel were both assigned Buchenwald concentration camp,

René Quenouille, undated. (ANg) Anton Hölzel, circa 1936. (ANg) In late 1944, Quenouille showed the so-called "Heißmeyer special department" to another French prisoner, saying, "The one thing I wanted to achieve by bringing you here was to make sure you saw the children, so that one day you’ll be able to confirm that they existed and bear witness to the experiments. If I don’t come back, there has to be someone who knows and who will say it and bear witness when the moment comes.” 40 The children's carers The crime on 20 April 1945 41

The Soviet prisoners

In the early morning of 21 April 1945, these prisoners were still being SS men Wilhelm Dreimann, Heinrich kept at the Spaldingstraße satellite Wiehagen and Johann Frahm hung camp, which had probably also several Soviet prisoners in the been evacuated by 17 April 1945. school's boiler room. The first six With its 2,000 prisoners, the Soviet prisoners to be murdered had Spaldingstraße camp was one of arrived on Bullenhuser Damm on the largest satellite camps of Neuen- the same lorry as the children and gamme and infamous for the their carers from the Neuengamme atrocious conditions under which concentration camp, where they had its prisoners had to live. been imprisoned in the camp prison, Around 800 prisoners died there. the so-called detention bunker. It is not known why they were murdered. Between 18 and 24 more Drawing by French Neuengamme prisoner Lazare Bertrand entitled “Sickbay for Soviet prisoners were brought from the seriously ill, 30 August 1944.” (MOL) the Spaldingstraße satellite camp three kilometres away. Several of where he arrived on 31 March 1942 Neuengamme, and in November these prisoners are said to have and was given the prisoner number 1944 he was assigned to look after escaped, and at least three of them 2195. In Buchenwald, he worked as the 20 children on whom Heißmeyer were shot by SS men Adolf Speck a prisoner nurse at the sickbay. On was conducting his experiments. and Heinrich Wiehagen when they 6 June 1944, he was transported to On 20 April 1945, Anton Hölzel was were trying to get away. The other the Neuengamme concentration hung by SS men on Bullenhuser men were led into the boiler room in camp together with Dirk Deutekom. Damm. groups of four and hung from the He also worked at the sickbay in heating pipes. It is not known why

Index card from the office of the Commander of the Security Police and the Security Service in The Hague, 1942. Following his arrest, the State Police office in The Hague recorded Anton Hölzel’s personal data. The card also states that he was transferred to a concentration camp for possession of the banned newspaper De Waarheid (The Truth). (NIOD) 42 The prosecution of the perpetrators 43

The prosecution of the perpetrators

In 1946, a British military tribunal them were then murdered on reconstructed the events on Bullen- Bullenhuser Damm. Later that night, huser Damm in the early morning of a second group of Soviet prisoners 21 April 1945 based on statements was brought from the Spaldingstraße from the perpetrators. That night, satellite camp. These prisoners were SS men murdered 20 Jewish children, also murdered at the school for Defendants at the first Curio-Haus Trial in 1946. (ANg) their four carers and at least 24 Soviet reasons that remain unknown. Apart prisoners. The order to kill the child- from the SS men from the Neuen- The Curio-Haus Trials ren allegedly came from a high-rank- gamme camp, SS men Ewald Jauch ing SS office in Berlin on 20 April and Johann Frahm were also involved Several SS men from the Neuen- the first Curio-Haus Trial: Wilhelm 1945. After receiving the order, Max in the murders. They had stayed gamme concentration camp were Dreimann, Adolf Speck and Dr Alfred Pauly, the commandant of the Neuen- behind at the school after the satellite tried before a British military tribunal Trzebinski. Ewald Jauch and Johann gamme concentration camp, ordered camp had been evacuated. Accord- in the so-called Curio-Haus Trials Frahm were also sentenced to death the Garrison Physician Dr Alfred ing to statements from Trzebinski, held in 1946. These trials were in the third Curio-Haus trial held Trzebinski to kill the children. The Jauch, Frahm and Dreimann, Arnold named after the building in which in July 1946. All five former SS men same evening, Trzebinski and SS men Strippel was also involved in the they were held, the Curio-Haus on were executed in October 1946 at Wilhelm Dreimann, Heinrich Wie- murders as a commanding officer. Rothenbaumchaussee in Hamburg, Hameln prison. Wiehagen and hagen and Adolf Speck brought the A so-called “base commander” and also dealt with the murders on Strippel were not tried, the former children and their four carers from (Stützpunktleiter), Strippel was in Bullenhuser Damm. Three of the because he had died shortly before sickbay IVa to Bullenhuser Damm. charge of all Neuengamme satellite 14 SS members charged with involve- the end of the war, and the latter Six Soviet prisoners from the camp camps in Hamburg. His office was at ment in the murders were found because the investigators had not prison were also taken along. All of the Spaldingstraße satellite camp. guilty and sentenced to death during been able to find and arrest him.

The first Curio-Haus Trial in 1946. (ANg) The former commandant of Neuengamme, (1), also gave evidence on the Bullenhuser Damm murders. British guards outside the Curio-Haus in 1946. (ANg) Prosecutors at the first Curio-Haus trial in 1946. (ANg) 44 The Curio-Haus Trials The prosecution of the perpetrators 45

Max Pauly (1907–1946) children and Arnold Strippel had tration camp, and in August 1943, Adolf Speck (1911 –1946) Max Pauly was the commandant of pressured him into carrying out the he was made Garrison Physician at SS Oberscharführer Adolf Speck, the Neuengamme concentration order. Trzebinski claimed he had the Neuengamme camp. In this along with Heinrich Wiehagen, camp from August 1942. He received given the children morphine position, he was in charge of medical guarded the Soviet prisoners in the the order to kill the children from a injections to ease their pain before care in both the main camp and the former schoolyard on 20/21 April higher SS office in Berlin and passed Johann Frahm had hung them. He satellite camps and was involved in 1945 before they were led into the it on to Alfred Trzebinski. said that he himself had been at the establishing the “special department” building. In the first Curio-Haus Trial, Pauly, a trained retail salesman, was Spaldingstraße satellite camp to for Heißmeyer’s medical experiments. Speck stated that prisoners trying to from Wesselburen in the Dithmar- study some patient files while the After the end of the war, Trzebinski escape had thrown salt in his eyes, schen region north of Hamburg. murders were being committed. went underground in the North Frisia upon which he had shot one prisoner He joined the Nazi party in 1930 However, the Spaldingstraße camp region near the Danish border. He and Wiehagen two more, while and the SS in 1932. On 3 May 1946, was three kilometres from Bullen- had the blood group tattoo removed seven prisoners managed to escape. he was sentenced to death in the first huser Damm and had been evacu- that marked him as an SS member He and Wiehagen had then looked Curio-Haus Trial and executed on ated on 17 April 1945. The other and pretended to have been an for the escapees until the early 8 October 1946. defendants stated that Trzebinski had army doctor in the Wehrmacht. morning. been directly involved in the murders. From August 1945, Trzebinski Speck was born in Kiel and worked at Dr Alfred Trzebinski Alfred Trzebinski was from Jutrosin in worked as a doctor at the British a factory. He received some training (1902 –1946) what is now Poland. He joined the discharge camp for German POWs at the Itzehoe police division in 1939 Dr Alfred Trzebinski was Garrison SS in 1932 and the NSDAP in 1933. in Hesedorf near Bremervörde. and joined the SS in 1940. His first Physician at Neuengamme and Between 1929 and 1941, he worked He was arrested on 1 February 1946. postings were to the eastern front was involved in the murder of the as a country doctor in Saxony. In Trzebinski was sentenced to death in and the occupied Netherlands. In 20 children. During his trial at the 1941, he was made camp physician at May 1946 in the first Curio-Haus Trial 1943, he joined the guard squads at Curio-Haus, he tried to exonerate the Auschwitz concentration camp. and executed on 8 October 1946. Neuengamme. In the summer of himself by stating that commandant Three months later, he was transfer- 1943, Speck was work detail leader Max Pauly had ordered him to kill the red to the -Majdanek concen- (Kommandoführer) at the brickworks,

Max Pauly, commandant of the Neuengamme concentration camp, awarding medals to members of the guard squads, circa 1944. (ANg) Alfred Trzebinski in Waffen-SS uniform, undated. (ANg) Photographs of Adolf Speck taken by British investigators after his arrest in 1945. (TNA) 46 The Curio-Haus Trials The prosecution of the perpetrators 47

and from December 1943 he held list which gave Theresienstadt as therefore known as the “Executioner Jauch was from Schwenningen in the the same position at the Walther the children’s destination, and his of Neuengamme” among the prison- Black Forest. He was a trained sales- factory. He was infamous for violently order had been to hand over the ers. Dreimann was sentenced to man and joined the Nazi party in driving on the slave labourers and children and their carers to the Ham- death in the first Curio-Haus Trial 1932 and the SS in 1934. Between controlling their work. He was a burg Gestapo. Former prisoners in May 1946 and executed on 1940 and 1944, he was posted to the personal friend of Neuengamme’s also mentioned Theresienstadt as 8 October 1946. Neuengamme concentration camp, commandant Max Pauly. After taking a destination for the children. This first as a guard and later as reporting a group of 250 prisoners to Flensburg false information was probably Ewald Jauch (1902 –1946) officer (Rapportführer). From Decem- in May 1945, Speck reported to the intended to conceal the SS’s real plan SS Oberscharführer Ewald Jauch was ber 1944, he was the commander of local police station and claimed to be of murdering the children and their one of the men involved in murdering the Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp. a policeman. He was sentenced to carers. With the help of Wiehagen the children. According to his After the camp was evacuated in death in May 1946 in the first and Frahm, Dreimann hung the adult statements during his trial, he sent April 1945, Jauch stayed behind at Curio-Haus Trial and executed on prisoners and, according to Frahm’s the children from the changing room the school building along with 8 October 1946. statements, at least the first two to Trzebinski to be “inoculated”. Johann Frahm. Jauch was sentenced children as well. He stated that he did not know that to death in the third Curio-Haus Trial Wilhelm Dreimann (1904 –1946) Dreimann was born in Osdorf near Frahm then hanged them. Later that in 1946. He was executed on 11 Oc- Reporting officer (Rapportführer) Hamburg. Because he did not make night, he said, he guarded the Soviet tober 1946. Wilhelm Dreimann collected the enough money as a wood carver prisoners while they were undressing. children and their carers from sickbay when he was living in Detmold, he Jauch tried to exonerate himself by Johann Frahm (1901 –1946) IVa at the Neuengamme concentra- applied for a job with the state police saying his mobility had been limited SS Oberscharführer Johann Frahm tion camp along with Dr Alfred (Landespolizei) in 1939 but was due to a broken foot, which meant was one of the men involved in the Trzebinski, Heinrich Wiehagen and posted to the Neuengamme camp he could not have taken part in the murder of the children and, together Adolf Speck. During the first as a guard in 1940. He personally murder. Johann Frahm claimed Jauch with Heinrich Wiehagen, helped Curio-Haus Trial, Dreimann stated carried out a large number of had taken the children to the room Wilhelm Dreimann hang the adult that he had been given a transport executions at the camp and was in which they were later hanged. prisoners. According to Frahm’s

Wilhelm Dreimann in Waffen-SS uniform, 1 August 1941. (ANg) Ewald Jauch (right) and Wilhelm Dreimann in April 1941 on Neuengammer Heerweg, the street that ran past the Neuen- gamme concentration camp. Both SS men had started their concentration camp service at Neuengamme in 1940. (ANg) 48 The Curio-Haus Trials 49

Later proceedings

deposition in the third Curio-Haus on Bullenhuser Damm by British Lübeck Bay which were accidentally The trial of Dr Kurt Heißmeyer Trial, Dr Alfred Trzebinski had given investigators in late October 1945. bombed on 3 May 1945. He was Kurt Heißmeyer, the doctor who had the children an injection which had He was taken to an internment camp beaten to death by prisoners after experimented on children and adults sent them to sleep. Frahm and Drei- in Neumünster, where he confessed to he had shot at other prisoners in in the Neuengamme concentration mann had then hung those children his involvement in the murders. Frahm the water who were trying to save camp, was not present at the Bullen- who had still shown signs of life “ was sentenced to death in the third themselves. huser Damm school the night the on hooks in the wall, like pictures.” Curio-Haus Trial in 1946 and executed children and their carers were Dreimann denied he was involved. on 11 October 1946. Hans Friedrich Petersen murdered. Heißmeyer went under- Johann Frahm was a factory worker (1897–1967) ground in 1945 and was therefore from Kleve in the Dithmarschen Heinrich Wiehagen (1901–1945) SS Unterscharführer Hans Friedrich not tried immediately. Between region north of Hamburg. He joined SS Hauptscharführer Heinrich Petersen was born in Stuttgart. He 1946 and 1963, he practised as a the SS in 1933 and the Nazi party in Wiehagen and Johann Frahm helped was a driver for the Neuengamme pulmonary specialist in the Soviet 1937. In 1939, he received training Wilhelm Dreimann hang the adult concentration camp’s mail office and occupation zone, which later became as a concentration camp guard at the prisoners in the boiler room. Wieha- drove the lorry on which the children, GDR, and even ran his own clinic in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. gen later guarded the Soviet prisoners their carers and the first six Soviet . Even though the Stasi, After a brief posting to occupied on the lorry in the schoolyard with prisoners were taken from Neuen- the East German intelligence service, Norway, he was transferred back Adolf Speck. According to Speck, gamme to Bullenhuser Damm. After knew of the medical experiments to Sachsenhausen. He served at Wiehagen shot dead two of these the war, Petersen was held at the he had carried out in the Neuen- Neuengamme from November 1942, prisoners when they tried to escape. British internment camp at Neuen- gamme concentration camp and kept and from 1944 he worked at the Wiehagen was born in Oberroedings- gamme because of his membership him under surveillance from the camp's office, where he reported to hausen in Western Germany. Before in the SS. He died in 1967 in 1950s, Heißmeyer was not arrested Wilhelm Dreimann. In late May 1945, his time as a concentration camp guard, Sønderborg in Denmark. Petersen until 1963. The prosecution obtained Frahm went back to live with his he had worked as a teacher in Duis- was not tried in the Curio-Haus Trials large amounts of evidence both family in Kleve, where he was burg. Wiehagen was among the and was never heard as a witness in from former prisoners and from Heiß- arrested for his role in the murders guards aboard the prison ships in later proceedings. meyer's own notes on the experiments,

Johann Frahm in Waffen SS uniform, 1942. (ANg) Kurt Heißmeyer, undated. (BStU) 50 Later proceedings The prosecution of the perpetrators 51

which were recovered for the trial. The campaign for the prosecution informed SS Obersturmführer In 1980, the Hamburg public During his interrogation, Heißmeyer of Arnold Strippel Arnold Strippel about the order prosecutor’s office reopened the denied that the experiments had From May 1944, Arnold Strippel was to kill the children. Trzebinski further case following an initiative from been life threatening, but former the “base leader” for Hamburg, which stated that Strippel had insisted the Children of Bullenhuser Damm prisoner doctors confirmed that the meant that he was in charge of all the order be carried out. association. In 1983, Hamburg's subjects’ health had dramatically Neuengamme satellite camps in In 1948, Strippel was arrested and Senator for Justice ordered the state declined following the experiments. Hamburg, including the Bullenhuser sentenced to life imprisonment by prosecutor's office to bring charges The investigators also looked into Damm camp. Several of the perpetra- the district court for crimes against Strippel. In order to draw whether it had been Heißmeyer who tors stated that he was involved in he had committed in the Buchenwald attention to the German judiciary’s had ordered the children to be killed. the Bullenhuser Damm murders. concentration camp. However, perceived failure in dealing with He stated that he had been at the Arnold Strippel was from Unshausen Strippel appealed the sentence and, the Strippel case, the Children of Neuengamme concentration camp in Hessen and a trained carpenter. in a second trial, was found guilty Bullenhuser Damm association in the second half of April but had He started his SS career in 1934 as only of accessory to murder for his staged an “International Tribunal” not seen the children nor any of a guard in the Sachsenburg concentra- involvement in the murders at made up of relatives of the victims, the evidence for the experiments. tion camp. Over the following years, Buchenwald. He was granted an Neuengamme survivors and However, Dr Alfred Trzebinski had he was posted to different concentra- early release in 1969 and received renowned lawyers at the Bullen- stated during the Curio-Haus Trial tion camps, including Buchenwald, more than 100,000 deutschmarks in huser Damm school. In 1987, the that Heißmeyer had wanted to “get Lublin-Majdanek in Poland, Ravens- compensation for “wrongful imprison- Hamburg district court abandoned rid of” both the children and the brück and Vught in the Netherlands. ment”. In the mid-1960s, the Ham- the proceedings again because the evidence. Heißmeyer was sentenced Strippel went underground after burg state prosecutor’s office defendant was judged unfit to to life imprisonment for crimes the end of the war and was therefore instituted preliminary proceedings stand trial. Arnold Strippel died against humanity in 1966 and died not among the defendants in the against Strippel in connection with aged 83 in 1994. in the Bautzen prison in 1967. Curio-Haus Trials. According to the murders on Bullenhuser Damm, Alfred Trzebinski’s statement during but the case was dismissed in 1967 the Curio-Haus Trial, Trzebinski had due to “lack of evidence”.

Camp ID for SS Oberscharführer Arnold Strippel issued on 4 April 1935. (BArch) French demonstrators in Hamburg demanding Strippel be put on trial. (Private photograph) The “International Tribunal”, 1986. (ANg) 52 Commemorating the crimes 53

Commemorating the Victims

Many years passed after the end Journalist Günther Schwarberg had of the war until the murders of the managed to find relatives of five of children, their carers and the Soviet the murdered children and gave a prisoners entered the wider public detailed account of the murders consciousness. and the victims. A commemorative Even though the circumstances and event was held on 20 April 1979 details of the murders were suffi- which was also attended by relatives ciently revealed during the Curio- of the victims from outside Ger- Haus Trials in 1946 and the perpe- many. Together with the organisers trators who had been caught by of the event from Hamburg, they then were sentenced to death, there founded the Children of Bullenhuser was no public commemoration of Damm association with the aim of the victims. keeping the victims' memories alive. It was not until 1963 that the Ham- In 1980, the association set up burg Senate installed a plaque com- the Bullenhuser Damm Memorial memorating the children and their with a first exhibition in two base- carers at the school on Bullenhuser ment rooms at the school. Today, Damm. the memorial is one of Hamburg's In 1979, a wider public debate about important commemorative sites. the murders on Bullenhuser Damm was sparked by a series of articles in Commemorative plaque for Sergio de Simone in the memorial's rose garden, the weekly news magazine Stern. 2007. (ANg) 54 Commemorating the crimes 55

Post-war Reconstructing The Bullenhuser Damm commemoration the crimes Memorial

When the Bullenhuser Damm school In 1978, former Neuengamme interrogation by East German The Children of Bullenhuser Damm was reopened in August 1948, prisoner Fritz Bringmann published investigators in 1963, Heißmeyer association, founded in 1979 by the students were not told about a book entitled “The Murders of had revealed where he had hidden family members of the murdered the murders. Children on Bullenhuser Damm”, his files. children, Neuengamme survivors From the late 1950s, survivors of but it was not until 1979, when Schwarberg then issued search and some dedicated Hamburg locals, the Neuengamme concentration journalist Günther Schwarberg posters with photographs of the has been organising annual com- camp regularly visited the school published a series of articles on children taken during the medical memorative events since the year it to commemorate the victims, and the Bullenhuser Damm murders in experiments, which he then sent was founded. Each year on 20 April, the murders were occasionally men- the West German news magazine to relevant offices in France, Israel several hundred people gather at tioned in books or in the press, but Stern, that the wider German public and other countries. This led to the school to commemorate they did not penetrate the public became aware of the case. Based on contact with the relatives of several the victims. consciousness. available information, Schwarberg of the children, who then gave him In 1980, the association opened After years of campaigning from had conducted his own investigation more information and photographs. a memorial with a small exhibition in former prisoners, Hamburg's Senator of the murders. Schwarberg started Schwarberg's series in Stern ran the school's basement rooms, which for Education Wilhelm Drexelius from a list which included last names, shortly after the US miniseries the Hamburg Authority for Education eventually unveiled a plaque at age and sex for 19 of the 20 children, Holocaust had been shown on West had made available to them. the school which commemorated published by Danish doctor and German TV. The series about the fate Through its campaigns and the sup- the children and their carers in 1963. Neuengamme survivor Henry Meyer of a fictional German-Jewish family port of several Hamburg politicians, The plaque described the events in 1945. He also had access to sparked a great deal of interest in the association managed to acquire of 20 April 1945 only in vague terms photographs taken of the children the Holocaust in West German funding from the Hamburg City and did not mention the murdered at Neuengamme during the medical society and caused many to ask Council, although the council wanted Soviet prisoners. experiments and the stat sheets and questions about the crimes against to establish the Document Building, notes in which Heißmeyer had the Jews for the first time. opened in 1981, as a central mem- numbered the children and noted orial to all victims of the Neuen- their initials and age. During his gamme concentration camp. From

Unveiling of the first commemorative plaque at the school, 30 January 1963. (ANg) After his arrest in 1963, Kurt Heißmeyer told investigators of a chest he had hidden at the Hohenlychen former SS sanatorium. The chest contained his files and notes on the experiments. (BStU) Günther Schwarberg speaking at the first commemorative event on 20 April 1979. (ANg) 56 The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial Commemorating the crimes 57

Forms of commemoration

this starting point, the memorial Affairs. Over the years, the commem- to the public, and in 1994, a new Since it was opened in 1980, large was developed further in several oration of the 20 children and their permanent exhibition was opened in numbers of people including many steps. four carers had overshadowed collaboration with the Neuengamme school and youth groups have visited In 1983, the association planted the memory of the 24 Soviet Concentration Camp Memorial. the Bullenhuser Damm Memorial the rose garden at the school with prisoners. Their murders had not In 1999, the Bullenhuser Damm to learn about the murders and their the help of local students. It was been investigated in the Curio-Haus Memorial passed under the aegis of aftermath and to commemorate further designed by artist Lili Fischer Trials in 1946, and no further efforts the Hamburg Council and has been the victims. in 1985. Apart from the roses, were made to establish their exact a branch of the Neuengamme Over recent decades, the history of the association also planted juniper identities or investigate the reasons Concentration Camp Memorial since. the murders and the biographies of bushes and a weeping willow as well why they were murdered. During It was continually expanded and new the murdered children have received as putting up an octagonal pergola the preliminary proceedings against objects and documents were added widespread international attention, with benches in the middle of Arnold Strippel in the 1980s, to its exhibition. and today the children are commem- the garden. the German investigators did finally In 2011, the Bullenhuser Damm orated all over the world. Small granite plaques have been look into these murders and got in Memorial was again expanded and Apart from the annual commem- attached to the garden fence. They touch with the Soviet authorities, fundamentally redesigned. A new orative events on 20 April at the mem- contain short texts on the children but the identities of the victims exhibition was put up which incor- orial, other forms of commemoration and their carers as well as portrait remain unknown to this day. porates the latest research findings have also developed in Hamburg photographs. In 1985, on the 40th In 1987, the wall painting “21 April and allows visitors to examine the site over the years: Since 1992, several anniversary of the liberation of 1945, 5:00 am” by Jürgen Waller and its history in great depth. streets, a park and a children's Neuengamme, a bronze sculpture was put up in the stairwell of playhouse on a newly developed by Anatoly Mossichuk was put up the memorial at the former school. housing estate in the Hamburg dis- at the rose garden to commemorate After the school closed in 1987, trict of Burgwedel have been named the murdered Soviet prisoners. the future of the Bullenhuser Damm after victims of the Bullenhuser The sculpture was funded by Memorial seemed temporarily in Damm murders. A second commem- the Soviet Ministry for Cultural jeopardy. However, it was kept open orative event is held there on

Students during the construction of the rose garden in 1983. (ANg) Monument to the murdered Soviet prisoners at the entrance to the rose garden, 20 April 1985. (ANg) Günther Schwarberg with Riwka Herszberg's cousin Ella Kozlowski (2nd from the right) on Riwka-Herszberg- Stieg in Burgwedel, 1993. (ANg) 58 Forms of commemoration Commemorating the crimes 59

Chronicle

20 April every year. Hamburg's garden in Verona and a school in 1910 The school on Bullenhuser Damm is opened state-owned Thalia Theatre has Naples were named after Sergio 1933 30 January: The Nazis take power produced several plays on de Simone in 1996 and 1997 1935 The are passed the murders with groups of teen- respectively, and since 2007 a park 1938 9 November: against agers and adults, the topic is taught in the city centre of Milan has the Jewish population in Germany in schools, and groups of students been dedicated to the memory of 13 December: The Neuengamme concentration regularly stage plays or readings on the 20 children. Commemorative camp is established the murders or exhibit arts projects events are held at the Hornemann 1939 1 September: Germany invades Poland; outbreak at the memorial. Brothers Park in Eindhoven in of World War II The fate of the 20 children has the Netherlands, and a travelling 1941 Ghettoes for Jews are established in Poland shocked and engaged the minds exhibition on the murders was 1942 The is held in Berlin of many people all over the world. shown in France in 2008. Biographies 1943 Large-scale Allied bombing raids on Hamburg It has been covered widely in of the children are presented in 27/28 July: The district of Rothenburgsort is destroyed the press and on television and the Auschwitz museum and in many 1944 26 November: The 20 children are taken from become the subject of books and other memorials all over the world. Auschwitz to the Neuengamme concentration camp plays. A playground with a rose December: The Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp is established 1945 27 January: The Red Army liberates Auschwitz 20 April: Murders on Bullenhuser Damm.The Swedish Red Cross completes its White Buses rescue campaign 3 May: Hamburg surrenders to British forces Almost 7,000 Neuengamme prisoners die in Lübeck Bay 8 May: End of the war in Europe The book Rapport fra Neuengamme which lists the names of 19 of the children is published in Denmark.

Article in French magazine L'événement du Jeudi about the naming of Georges-André-Kohn- Straße in Hamburg (“A street will bear the name of a French Jewish child martyred by the Nazis.”), published on 26 June 1992. The school on Bullenhuser Damm in June 1945. (ANg) 60 Chronicle Commemorating the crimes 61

1946 3 May: Three of the perpetrators are sentenced to death by 1983 The rose garden is opened a British military tribunal in the first Curio-Haus Trial 1985 The monument to the murdered Soviet prisoners is unveiled 31 July: Two more perpetrators are sentenced to death by 1986 The International Tribunal against Arnold Strippel is held a British military tribunal in the third Curio-Haus Trial at the school 1948 A prison is established in Neuengamme at the site of the former 1987 The Bullenhuser Damm school is closed concentration camp. The Bullenhuser Damm school is reopened 1992 The first streets in the Hamburg district of Burgwedel are named 1963 30 January: The first commemorative plaque is unveiled after Bullenhuser Damm victims at the school 1995 The President of the Hamburg Parliament receives relatives of 1965 Official opening of the International Monument at Neuengamme the murdered children at Hamburg City Hall 1966 Kurt Heißmeyer is sentenced to life imprisonment in East 1999 The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial passes under the aegis of Germany the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 1967 The Hamburg state prosecutor's office abandons the proceed- 2001 An exhibition about the Bullenhuser Damm children is shown ings against Arnold Strippel at Hamburg City Hall 1979 22 to 26 January: The Holocaust mini-series is shown on 2005 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial is reopened West German TV after significant expansion and redesign works with a new 8 March to 12 April: Günther Schwarberg's feature story permanent exhibition and a centre for international exchange “The SS Doctor and the Children” is published in weekly and historical studies at the site of the former prisoners' instalments in Stern magazine compound The Children of Bullenhuser Damm association is founded 2011 20 April: The newly expanded and redesigned Bullenhuser 1980 The association opens the first exhibition in the basement Damm Memorial opens with a new exhibition of the Bullenhuser Damm school 1981 The Document Building with an exhibition on the Neuengamme concentration camp is opened at the site of the former camp

Philippe and Denise Kohn in the basement of the Bullenhuser Damm school on 20 April 1979. (StA HH) Monument to the murdered children on Roman-Zeller-Platz in Burgwedel, 13 July 2001. (ANg) Main exhibition at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial in 2010. (ANg) 62 The memorial today 63

The memorial today

On 20 April 2011, a new permanent their families. In another room, exhibition was opened at the visitors can explore the history of expanded Bullenhuser Damm the site further by looking at written Memorial. The exhibition focuses on documents and photographs or the murders of the 20 children and listening to interviews with relatives at least 28 adults but also includes of the murdered children at computer information on the history of the terminals. This section of the ex- building both as a school and as a hibition is designed to encourage satellite camp, the persecution of exploratory learning. Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe and The basement rooms in which the the medical experiments at the murders were committed have been Neuengamme concentration camp. left empty. Quotes from statements Suitcases containing biographical information on the children and their families, 2011. Other subjects it touches on are the made by the perpetrators during the Photograph by M. Kottmeier (ANg) history of the site after 1945, the Curio-Haus Trials in 1946 have been prosecution of the perpetrators, put on the walls to illustrate how are available for guided tours and projects can be arranged for school the commemoration of the murder the murders took place. project seminars at the Bullenhuser and youth groups. Students are also victims and the development of With its wealth of information in Damm Memorial. Project seminars given the opportunity to exhibit the memorial itself. panels, documents, photographs allow smaller groups to examine their own artworks or projects on the A central design element of the and interviews, the exhibition is well particular aspects or individual subject at the Bullenhuser Damm exhibition is a curved platform with suited to educational group visits. biographies in more detail. The Memorial. 20 suitcases which contain inform- The Neuengamme Concentration memorial also has a seminar room ation on the lives of the children and Camp Memorial's educational staff for group discussions. Customized

Exhibition section on recon- For more information on the memorial's structing and commemorating the educational programme, please contact murders with interviews and Dr Iris Groschek audio points, 2011. Photograph Neuengamme Concentration Camp by Michael Kottmeier. (ANg) Memorial Students from the Büchen Phone: +49 (0)40 428131-521 comprehensive school planting roses [email protected] at the rose garden in 2009. (Private photograph) 64 The memorial today 65

Map of the Bullenhuser Damm Memorial

Reconstructing and commemorating the crimes Site of the murders The crime

WC

SEMINAR ROOM INFORMATION DESK

MAIN ENTRANCE The satellite camp The medical experiments Persecution and deportation The children The children's carers The school TO THE ROSE GARDEN The perpetrators 66 The memorial today 67

Literature

Literature in English Archival sources Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial: Traces of History. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial archive: Prisoner testimonies The Exhibitions. Trilingual edition. Bremen: Edition Temmen, 2005. collection, Günther Schwarberg and Hans Schwarz collections Russell, Lord of Liverpool: The Scourge of the Swastika. A short history Hamburg State Archive: Bestände 213–11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht Strafsachen, of Nazi war crimes. London: Cassell & Co., 1954. 332–5 Standesämter, 353–2 II Wohnungsamt II, 361–2 VI Oberschulbehörde VI, Schwarberg, Günther: The Murders at Bullenhuser Damm. The SS doctor 361–3 Schulwesen Personalakten and the children. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1984. Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives, Berlin: Heißmeyer trial records International Tracing Service, Bad Arolsen: Children's and correspondence files. Literature in German and Danish Benz, Wolfgang and Distel, Barbara (eds): Der Ort des Terrors. Geschichte Abbreviations (photo credits) der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Bd. 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. Munich, 2007 ANg Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial archive Bredel, Willi: Unter Türmen und Masten. Geschichte einer Stadt in Geschichten. BArch Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archives) Schwerin, 1960 BStU Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives, Berlin Bringmann, Fritz: Kindermord am Bullenhuserdamm. SS-Verbrechen in Hamburg DA HH Denkmalschutzamt Hamburg (Hamburg Office for the Preservation of 1945: Menschenversuche an Kindern. Frankfurt am Main, 1978 Historical Buildings) Buggeln, Marc: Arbeit & Gewalt. Das Außenlagersystem des KZ Neuengamme. IWM Imperial War Museum, London Göttingen, 2009 MOL Musée de l'Ordre de la Libération, Paris Diercks, Herbert: Gesucht wird: Dr. Kurt Heißmeyer, in: Beiträge zur Geschichte MDF Museum of Danish Resistance 1940–1945, Copenhagen der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung in Norddeutschland 9 (2005), pp. 102–115 NIOD Dutch Institute for War Documentation, Amsterdam Kühnert, Marco: Die Ermordung sowjetischer Gefangener am Bullenhuser Damm StA HH Hamburg State Archive und die Reaktionen von Justiz und Memorialkultur, in: von Wrochem, Oliver (ed.): TNA The National Archives, London Das KZ Neuengamme und seine Außenlager. Geschichte, Nachgeschichte, Erinne- USHMM United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D. C. rung, Bildung. Berlin, 2010, pp. 151–163 Prokop, Otto and Stelzer, Ehrenfried: Die Menschenexperimente des The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial was unable to locate all persons Dr. med. Heißmeyer (Medizinische und kriminalistische Erhebungen), holding the rights to images reproduced in this brochure. We would therefore kindly in: Kriminalistik und forensische Wissenschaften 1 (1970), no. 3, pp. 67–104 ask all those who hold rights to any images included here to please contact the Rundberg, Gerhard and Meyer, Henry: Rapport fra Neuengamme. Svensk Røde Kors' memorial. Hjælpeaktion blandt Fanger fra Koncentrationslejre i Tyskland i Tiden 7. Marts–Maj 1945. Copenhagen,1945 Schwarberg, Günther: Der SS-Arzt und die Kinder. Bericht über den Mord vom Bullenhuser Damm. Hamburg 1979 68

Opening hours and guided tours

Bullenhuser Damm Memorial For any further information, Bullenhuser Damm 92 please contact the Neuen- 20359 Hamburg gamme memorial: Germany Neuengamme Concentration Camp Rothenburgsort urban railway station Memorial Lines S2 and S21 Phone: +49 (0)40 428131-500 [email protected] Opening hours: www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de Sundays, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and by prior arrangement The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial Admission is free is a branch of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. Guided tours and project seminars: To book tours or seminars, please contact the Hamburg Museum Service (Museumsdienst Hamburg) at: Phone: +49 (0)40 428131-0 www.museumsdienst-hamburg.de

For more information on educational services, please contact: Dr Iris Groschek Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial Phone: +49 (0)40 428131-521 [email protected]