Brünnlitz labor camp

Brünnlitz
Nazi concentration camp
The remains of the main factory at Brünnlitz in 2004
Other names Arbeitslager Brünnlitz
Known for Schindler's List
Location Brněnec, Czech Protectorate
Operated by Nazi Germany and the Schutzstaffel
Commandant
  • Josef Leipold
  • (Oct 1944 – Jan 1945)
Original use Armaments factory
Operational October 1944 – January 1945
Inmates Jews (Schindlerjuden)
Number of inmates 1,200
Killed none
Liberated by Soviet Union, 9 May 1945
Notable inmates Joseph Bau, Ryszard Horowitz, Itzhak Stern, Poldek Pfefferberg, Mietek Pemper, Leo Rosner

The Brünnlitz labor camp (Arbeitslager Brünnlitz) was a concentration camp of Nazi Germany which was established in 1944 just outside the town of Brünnlitz, solely as a site for an armaments factory run by German industrialist Oskar Schindler, which was in actuality a front for a safe haven for Schindlerjuden.

Command and control

The Brünnlitz labor camp was administratively a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen concentration camp. The camp was assigned an SS garrison consisting of about one hundred SS guards and female staff. The commander of the camp was SS-Obersturmführer Josef Leipold. From the very beginning, Schindler told the SS his factory would not operate as a typical camp, forbade guards to punish or harass the camp inmates, and barred any SS member from entering the operational part of the factory.[1]

History

Brünnlitz labor camp was created in the fall of 1944, after Oskar Schindler learned that his work force of over one thousand Jews were to be killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. A large segment of Schindler's labor force were in fact unskilled workers, which Schindler had been protecting under the guise of essential labor, and Schindler knew they would not stand up to scrutiny at Auschwitz and would be exterminated per Nazi policy. Using the last of his considerable black market wealth, Schindler bribed SS and Nazi officials to transfer his entire workforce to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The transport list, the famous "Schindler's List", was created through bribery with the SS charging a fee for each worker Schindler took with him to Brünnlitz.

The "concentration camp" at Brünnlitz was simply a factory complex, with an attached barracks for the workers, and no real external security to speak of. A token front gate and a perimeter fence were all the camp had in ways of preventing escape, however every Jew at the complex was grateful to be there and hoped to survive the war under Schindler's protection. The SS at the camp were left with little to do, to which Schindler took advantage by supplying alcohol and good food, in order to keep the SS away from his workers.

Between November 1944 and January 1945, the Brünnlitz labor camp was visited several times by former Płaszów commandant Amon Göth, who considered himself a friend to Schindler. The inmates at Brünnlitz, many of whom had suffered harshly under Göth, remarked that he was a physically changed man and looked feeble and pathetic compared to his early tenure when he was a figure who commanded absolute fear and terror.[2]

Oskar Schindler went bankrupt keeping his factory running, mainly due to bribes to the SS and the purchase of armaments from other facilities, so that his factory would not contribute to the war effort and thus, in Schindler's mind, hasten its end. The Red Army liberated Brünnlitz on May 9, 1945. A few days prior, the SS guards had deserted and Schindler had escaped to American lines with the help of his Jewish workers.[2]

As of October 2016, Jaroslav Novak and the Endowment Fund for the Memorial of the Shoah and Oskar Schindler has purchased the site where the camp was located and plans to convert it into a museum.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Snyder, T. "Encyclopedia of the Third Reich", Wordsworth Editions Ltd (1998)
  2. 1 2 Crowe, David, Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story Behind the List, Westview Press (2004)
  3. ↑ Tait, Robert (11 October 2016). "Fate of former Schindler's list factory is met with Czech ambivalence". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-08-29.
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