Bullenhuser Damm
Encyclopedia
Bullenhuser Damm School is located at 92–94 Bullenhuser Damm, a street in the Rothenburgsort
section of Hamburg
, Germany
. During heavy air raids
many portions of Hamburg were destroyed including the Rothenburgsort section which received heavy damage. The school was only partly damaged. By 1943 the surrounding area was largely obliterated so the building was no longer needed as a school. In October 1944, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp was established in the school to house prisoners used in clearing the rubble after air raids. The Bullenhauser Damm School was evacuated on April 11, 1945. Two SS men were left to guard the school SS Unterscharführer
Johann Frahm and SS Oberscharführer
Ewald Jauch and the janitor Wilhelm Wede.
On the night of April 20, 1945, 20 Jewish children who had been used in medical experiments at Neuengamme, their four adult Jewish caretakers and six Red Army
prisoners of war (POWs) were killed in the basement of the school. Later that evening, 24 Soviet POWs who had also been used in the experiments were brought to the school to be murdered. The names, ages and countries of origin were recorded by Hans Meyer, one of the thousands of Scandinavian prisoners released to the custody of Sweden in the closing months of the war. Neuengamme was used as a transit camp for these prisoners.
was desirous of eventually obtaining a professorship. In order to do so he needed to present original research. Although previously disproven, his hypothesis was that the injection of live tuberculosis
bacilli into subjects would act as a vaccine. Another component of his experimentation was based on pseudoscientific Nazi racial theory that race played a factor in developing tuberculosis.
He attempted to prove his hypothesis by injecting live tuberculosis bacilli into the lungs and bloodstream of "Untermensch
en" (subhumans), Jews
and Slavs being considered by the Nazis to be racially inferior to Germans.
He was able to have the facilities made available and to test his subjects as a result of his personal connections: his uncle, SS general August Heissmeyer
, and his close acquaintance, SS general Oswald Pohl
.
The medical experiments on tuberculosis infection were initially carried out on prisoners from the Soviet Union and other countries at the Neuengamme concentration camp. The experiments were then extended to Jews. For this he chose to use Jewish children. Twenty Jewish children (10 boys and 10 girls) from Auschwitz
concentration camp were chosen by Josef Mengele
and sent to Neuengamme. Mengele allegedly asked the children, "Who wants to go and see their mother?"
The children were accompanied to Neuengamme by four women prisoners. Two were Polish nurses and one was a Hungarian pharmacist, and they were killed upon arrival at Neuengamme. The fourth woman, Polish-born Jew Paula Trocki, was a doctor. She survived the war and later gave testimony in Jerusalem about what she had witnessed:
The children were injected with live tuberculosis bacilli, and they all proceeded to become ill. Heissmeyer then had their axillary lymph nodes
surgically removed from their armpits and sent to Hans Klein at the Hohenlychen Hospital for study. All the children were photographed holding up one arm to show the surgical incision.
The collapsing western front and imminent approach of British troops prompted the perpetrators to murder the subjects of the experiment in order to cover up
their crimes. The orders for the murders were issued from Berlin
.
The children, their four adult caretakers and six Soviet prisoners were brought by truck to the Bullenhuser Damm School in the Hamburg suburb of Rothenburgsort. The school had been taken over by the SS to house prisoners from Neuengamme used to clear rubble from the surrounding area after Allied bombing raids. The SS evacuated the building around April 11, 1945 leaving a skeleton crew of two SS guards Ewald Jauch and Johann Frahm and a janitor. They were accompanied by three SS guards (Wilhelm Dreimann, Adolf Speck and Heinrich Wiehagen), as well as the driver, Hans Friedrich Petersen, and SS physician, Alfred Trzebinski
. The children as well as others were told they were being taken to Theresienstadt. Upon arriving at the school they were led into the basement. According to one of the SS men present, the children "sat down on the benches all around and were cheerful and happy that they had been for once allowed out of Neuengamme. The children were completely unsuspecting."
They were then made to undress and were then injected with morphine
by Trzebinski. They were then led into an adjacent room and hanged from hooks set into the wall. The execution was overseen by SS Obersturmführer Arnold Strippel
. The first child to be hanged was so light that the noose wouldn't tighten. Frahm grabbed him in a bearhug and used his own weight in order to pull down and tighten the noose. The adults were hanged from overhead pipes; they were made to stand on a box, which was pulled away from under them. That same night, about 30 additional Soviet prisoners were also brought by lorry to the school to be executed; six escaped, three were shot trying to do so, and the rest were hanged in the basement.
The children were in the care of four male prisoners, two French professors and two Dutch prisoners, all of whom had been imprisoned because of their anti-German activities.
The two French professors were:
The two Dutch prisoners were:
Some of those involved in the killings were tried by the British in the Curio Haus in Hamburg in 1946. Trzebinski, Neuengamme commandant Max Pauly
, Dreimann, Speck, Jauch and Frahm were convicted and given the death sentence. They were hanged on October 8, 1946.
Two of those directly responsible for the children's suffering and murder, Kurt Heissmeyer and Arnold Strippel
, escaped and remained at large. Strippel had served at other concentration camps before Neuengamme, including Buchenwald. He was recognized on the street in Frankfurt
in 1948 by a former Buchenwald prisoner. He was tried for the murders of 21 Jewish inmates committed on November 9, 1939 as retribution for the failed assassination of Adolf Hitler
at the Bürgerbräukeller
in Munich
by Georg Elser
. Strippel was tried, convicted and sentenced to 21 life terms by a Frankfurt court in 1949.
In 1964, an investigation into his involvement with the Bullinghauser Damm School murders was begun by the Hamburg prosecutors office. The statute of limitations had run out for manslaughter
so he had to be charged with murder. Among the criteria for murder it had to be proven that the accused acted cruelly, insidiously or with motive. In 1967 the prosecutor, Helmut Munzberg, dropped the charges for lack of evidence, stating that Strippel had not acted cruelly as "the children had not been harmed beyond the extinction of their lives".
He was released from prison in 1969. After his release, he applied for a retrial, and in 1970 his original conviction was overturned and he was retried. At this retrial, he was convicted as being just an accessory to the Buchenwald murders and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. Because he had already served 20 years in prison, 14 years longer than this sentence, he was compensated with 121,477.92 Deutschmarks.
In 1979, partly as a result of articles written by Günther Schwarberg
, Strippels' case was reopened. He was not reincarcerated, and in 1987 the case was abandoned by the Hamburg prosecutor's office, owing to Strippel's frailty. Strippel died on 1 May 1994.
Kurt Heissmeyer
returned to his home in Magdeburg
in postwar East Germany and started a successful medical practice as a lung and tuberculosis specialist. He was eventually found out in 1959. In 1966, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. At his trial he stated, "I did not think that inmates of a camp had full value as human beings." When asked why he didn't use guinea pigs he responded, "For me there was no basic difference between human beings and guinea pigs." He then corrected himself: "Jews and guinea pigs". Heissmeyer died on 29 August 1967.
School: Korczak was a Polish—Jewish paediatrician and author who died at Treblinka extermination camp
with about 190 orphans. A rose garden was established in 1985. Later, in the Schnelsen Quarter of the city several streets were named after the children who died at the school and a memorial tablet was installed. Much of the work of identifying the victims and of bringing the story to the public's attention was due to the efforts of Günther Schwarberg.
In 2005, Wolfgang Peiner, Minister of Finance of Hamburg, published plans to sell the building. However, after several protests a spokesman denied these plans.
Rothenburgsort
Rothenburgsort is a quarter in the Hamburg-Mitte borough of the Free and Hanseatic city of Hamburg in northern Germany. In 2006, the population was 8,660.-Geography:The quarter is situated in the south-east center of Hamburg...
section of Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. During heavy air raids
Bombing of Hamburg in World War II
The Allied bombing of Hamburg during World War II included numerous strategic bombing missions and diversion/nuisance raids. As a large port and industrial center, Hamburg's shipyards, U-boat pens, and the Hamburg-Harburg area oil refineries were attacked throughout the war...
many portions of Hamburg were destroyed including the Rothenburgsort section which received heavy damage. The school was only partly damaged. By 1943 the surrounding area was largely obliterated so the building was no longer needed as a school. In October 1944, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp was established in the school to house prisoners used in clearing the rubble after air raids. The Bullenhauser Damm School was evacuated on April 11, 1945. Two SS men were left to guard the school SS Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the Schutzstaffel between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives...
Johann Frahm and SS Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...
Ewald Jauch and the janitor Wilhelm Wede.
On the night of April 20, 1945, 20 Jewish children who had been used in medical experiments at Neuengamme, their four adult Jewish caretakers and six Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
prisoners of war (POWs) were killed in the basement of the school. Later that evening, 24 Soviet POWs who had also been used in the experiments were brought to the school to be murdered. The names, ages and countries of origin were recorded by Hans Meyer, one of the thousands of Scandinavian prisoners released to the custody of Sweden in the closing months of the war. Neuengamme was used as a transit camp for these prisoners.
Background
The SS physician Kurt HeissmeyerKurt Heissmeyer
Kurt Heissmeyer was a Nazi physician involved in medical experimentation on concentration camp inmates including children. He was involved in an infamous tuberculosis experiment conducted on 20 Jewish children at Neuengamme concentration camp...
was desirous of eventually obtaining a professorship. In order to do so he needed to present original research. Although previously disproven, his hypothesis was that the injection of live tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
bacilli into subjects would act as a vaccine. Another component of his experimentation was based on pseudoscientific Nazi racial theory that race played a factor in developing tuberculosis.
He attempted to prove his hypothesis by injecting live tuberculosis bacilli into the lungs and bloodstream of "Untermensch
Untermensch
Untermensch is a term that became infamous when the Nazi racial ideology used it to describe "inferior people", especially "the masses from the East," that is Jews, Gypsies, Poles along with other Slavic people like the Russians, Serbs, Belarussians and Ukrainians...
en" (subhumans), Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and Slavs being considered by the Nazis to be racially inferior to Germans.
He was able to have the facilities made available and to test his subjects as a result of his personal connections: his uncle, SS general August Heissmeyer
August Heissmeyer
August Heißmeyer was a leading member of the SS. After the World War II, he was sentenced to a prison term as a war criminal. His nephew, Kurt Heissmeyer, an SS physician, was as well.-Life:After finishing school, Heißmeyer joined the Prussian military...
, and his close acquaintance, SS general Oswald Pohl
Oswald Pohl
Oswald Pohl was a Nazi official and member of the SS , involved in the mass murders of Jews in concentration camps, the so-called Final Solution.-Early years:...
.
The medical experiments on tuberculosis infection were initially carried out on prisoners from the Soviet Union and other countries at the Neuengamme concentration camp. The experiments were then extended to Jews. For this he chose to use Jewish children. Twenty Jewish children (10 boys and 10 girls) from Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
concentration camp were chosen by Josef Mengele
Josef Mengele
Josef Rudolf Mengele , also known as the Angel of Death was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University...
and sent to Neuengamme. Mengele allegedly asked the children, "Who wants to go and see their mother?"
The children were accompanied to Neuengamme by four women prisoners. Two were Polish nurses and one was a Hungarian pharmacist, and they were killed upon arrival at Neuengamme. The fourth woman, Polish-born Jew Paula Trocki, was a doctor. She survived the war and later gave testimony in Jerusalem about what she had witnessed:
The children were injected with live tuberculosis bacilli, and they all proceeded to become ill. Heissmeyer then had their axillary lymph nodes
Axillary lymph nodes
The Axillary lymph nodes are of large size, vary from twenty to thirty in number, and may be arranged in the following groups:* brachial lymph nodes * pectoral axillary lymph nodes...
surgically removed from their armpits and sent to Hans Klein at the Hohenlychen Hospital for study. All the children were photographed holding up one arm to show the surgical incision.
The collapsing western front and imminent approach of British troops prompted the perpetrators to murder the subjects of the experiment in order to cover up
Cover Up
Cover Up is an American action/adventure television series that aired for one season on CBS from September 22, 1984 to April 6, 1985. Created by Glen A. Larson, the series stars Jennifer O'Neill, Jon-Erik Hexum, Antony Hamilton, and Richard Anderson....
their crimes. The orders for the murders were issued from Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
The children, their four adult caretakers and six Soviet prisoners were brought by truck to the Bullenhuser Damm School in the Hamburg suburb of Rothenburgsort. The school had been taken over by the SS to house prisoners from Neuengamme used to clear rubble from the surrounding area after Allied bombing raids. The SS evacuated the building around April 11, 1945 leaving a skeleton crew of two SS guards Ewald Jauch and Johann Frahm and a janitor. They were accompanied by three SS guards (Wilhelm Dreimann, Adolf Speck and Heinrich Wiehagen), as well as the driver, Hans Friedrich Petersen, and SS physician, Alfred Trzebinski
Alfred Trzebinski
Alfred Trzebinski was an SS-physician at the Auschwitz, Majdanek and Neuengamme concentration camps in Nazi Germany. He was sentenced to death and executed for his involvement in war crimes committed at the Neuengamme subcamps.-Life:Trzebinski was born in Jutroschin, Province of Posen...
. The children as well as others were told they were being taken to Theresienstadt. Upon arriving at the school they were led into the basement. According to one of the SS men present, the children "sat down on the benches all around and were cheerful and happy that they had been for once allowed out of Neuengamme. The children were completely unsuspecting."
They were then made to undress and were then injected with morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
by Trzebinski. They were then led into an adjacent room and hanged from hooks set into the wall. The execution was overseen by SS Obersturmführer Arnold Strippel
Arnold Strippel
Arnold Strippel was an SS-Obersturmführer and a member of the SS-Totenkopfverbände who while assigned to the Neuengamme concentration camp was given the task of murdering the victims of a tuberculosis medical experiment conducted by Kurt Heissmeyer.Strippel served in various concentration camps...
. The first child to be hanged was so light that the noose wouldn't tighten. Frahm grabbed him in a bearhug and used his own weight in order to pull down and tighten the noose. The adults were hanged from overhead pipes; they were made to stand on a box, which was pulled away from under them. That same night, about 30 additional Soviet prisoners were also brought by lorry to the school to be executed; six escaped, three were shot trying to do so, and the rest were hanged in the basement.
Victims
- Marek James, a boy aged 6, from RadomRadomRadom is a city in central Poland with 223,397 inhabitants . It is located on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship , having previously been the capital of Radom Voivodeship ; 100 km south of Poland's capital, Warsaw.It is home to the biennial Radom Air Show, the largest and...
, PolandPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
; prisoner no. B 1159. - H. Wassermann, a girl aged 8, from Poland.
- Roman Witonski, a boy aged 6, and his sister; prisoner number A-15160.
- Eleonora Witonski, a girl aged 5, from Radom, Poland; prisoner number A-15159. (Roman and Eleanora Witonski were deported to Auschwitz along with their mother, Rucza Witonska (prisoner number A-15158) from the ghettoGhettoA ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
in Radom, Poland. Their father, Seweryn Witonski, a paediatrician from Radom, was gunned down at an execution in the SzydlowiecSzydlowiecSzydłowiec is a town in Szydłowiec County, Mazovian Voivodeship, Poland, with 15,243 inhabitants . It is the seat of Szydłowiec Commune...
cemetery. Ruzca worked in the laboratory of Josef Mengele. In November 1944, the children were separated from their mother when she was sent to the concentration camp in Gebhardsdorf in Lower SilesiaLower SilesiaLower Silesia ; is the northwestern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Upper Silesia is to the southeast.Throughout its history Lower Silesia has been under the control of the medieval Kingdom of Poland, the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy from 1526...
. Roman and Eleonora were sent to the "Kinderheim" (orphanage) at Auschwitz. Rucza survived the war and tried to find her children. She later remarried. Rosa Grumelin has visited the memorial.) - Roman Zeller, a boy aged 12, from Poland.
- Riwka Herszberg, a girl aged 7, from Zdunska WolaZdunska WolaZduńska Wola is a town in central Poland with 44,671 inhabitants .Situated in the Łódź Voivodeship , previously in Sieradz Voivodeship . It is the seat of Zduńska Wola County.- Famous people from Zduńska Wola :...
, Poland. (Her parents were Mania and Moishe Herszberg. They were kept in the family barracks for a period of time. Her mother survived the war.) - Mania Altmann, a girl aged 5, from Radom, Poland.
- Surcis Goldinger, a girl aged 11, from Poland.
- Lelka Birnbaum, a girl aged 12, from Poland.
- Ruchla Zylberberg, a girl aged 8, from ZawichostZawichostZawichost is a small town in Sandomierz County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, Poland. It is located by the Vistula River in southern Poland, near Sandomierz....
, Poland. (Ruchla's sister, Esther, and her mother, Fajga (née Rosenblum), were gassed upon arrival in Auschwitz. Her father, Nison Zylberberg, survived the war in the Soviet Union, with his brother, Henry, and his sister, Felicja; he then emigrated to the United States. He died in Colorado on September 29, 2002 at the age of 86. He visited the memorial.) - Edouard Reichenbaum, a boy aged 10, from KatowiceKatowiceKatowice is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, on the Kłodnica and Rawa rivers . Katowice is located in the Silesian Highlands, about north of the Silesian Beskids and about southeast of the Sudetes Mountains.It is the central district of the Upper Silesian Metropolis, with a population of 2...
, Poland. (His brother Itzhak survived the war and emigrated to HaifaHaifaHaifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
, Israel.) - Blumel Mekler, a girl aged 11, from SandomierzSandomierzSandomierz is a city in south-eastern Poland with 25,714 inhabitants . Situated in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship , previously in Tarnobrzeg Voivodeship . It is the capital of Sandomierz County . Sandomierz is known for its Old Town, a major tourist attraction...
, Poland. (Her sister, Shifra, survived the war because, as she recalled, her mother told her to "run! Shifra! run!" as the round-up began. She was 8 at this time, and Blumel was 5. She was kept hidden by a Polish family. She emigrated to Tel AvivTel AvivTel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
, IsraelIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and married. She has visited the memorial.) - Eduard (Edo) Hornemann, a boy aged 12. (Born on January 1, 1933), he lived with his mother, Elisabeth, his father, Philip, and his brother, Alexander, at 29 Staringstraat in Eindhoven, the NetherlandsNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. His parents worked at the PhilipsPhilipsKoninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
factory. Philip died on February 21, 1945 at Sachsenhausen, where he arrived after a stop at Dachau with the "death march". Elisabeth died of typhus in Auschwitz in October 1944. - Alexander Hornemann, a boy aged 9. (b. May 31, 1936.)
- Georges André KohnGeorges André KohnGeorges André Kohn was a distant relative of the Rothschild banking family of England. His father Armand Edouard Kohn was the manager of the Rothschild Hospital in Paris, and his mother Suzanne Jenny was a first cousin of Bertrand Léopold Goldschmidt, son-in-law of Lionel Nathan de Rothschild...
, a boy aged 12, from ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. (b. April 23, 1932.) - Jacqueline Morgenstern, a girl aged 12,from Paris. (b. May 26, 1932. A cousin, Henry Morgenstern, survived the war and has visited the memorial.)
- Sergio de Simone, a boy aged 7, from NaplesNaplesNaples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
; prisoner no. 179694. (b. November 29, 1937. Son of Italian Eduardo de Simone and his Yugoslav Jewish wife Gisella (née Perlow). Arrested March 21, 1944 in Fiume. First sent to San SabbaRisiera di San SabbaRisiera di San Sabba was a Nazi concentration camp for the detention and killing of political prisoners during World War II, located in Trieste, northern Italy. SS members Odilo Globocnik and Karl Frenzel, and Ivan Marchenko are all said to have participated in the killings at this camp. Erwin...
then on March 29, 1944 to Auschwitz. His mother survived the war and has visited the memorial.) - Marek Steinbaum, a boy aged 10, from Radom, Poland. (His sister, Lola, survived the war and emigrated to the USA, living in San Francisco; she has visited the memorial.)
- W. Junglieb, a boy aged 12, from YugoslaviaYugoslaviaYugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. - Lea Klygermann, a girl aged 12, from Poland; prisoner no. A 16959.
The children were in the care of four male prisoners, two French professors and two Dutch prisoners, all of whom had been imprisoned because of their anti-German activities.
The two French professors were:
- Professor René Quenouille (b. December 6, 1887 in LyonLyonLyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
). He was a physician and radiologist at a hospital in Villeneuve-Saint-GeorgesVilleneuve-Saint-GeorgesVilleneuve-Saint-Georges is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-Transport:Villeneuve-Saint-Georges is served by two stations on Paris RER line D: Villeneuve – Triage and Villeneuve-Saint-Georges.-Demography:-International...
, near Paris and a member of the French ResistanceFrench ResistanceThe French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
. He was arrested by the GestapoGestapoThe Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, together with his wife, Yvonne, on March 3, 1943. Yvonne was released after three and a half months, but he was sentenced to death, although the sentence was later commuted to imprisonment. - Professor Gabriel Florence (b. June 12, 1884). He was a biologist who taught at the University of LyonUniversity of LyonThe University of Lyon , located in Lyon and Saint Etienne, France, is a center for higher education and research comprising 16 institutions of higher education...
. He fought in World War IWorld War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and joined the French Resistance during World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He was arrested by the Gestapo on March 4, 1944.
The two Dutch prisoners were:
- Anton Holzel (b. May 7, 1909), who came from DeventerDeventerDeventer is a municipality and city in the Salland region of the Dutch province of Overijssel. Deventer is largely situated on the east bank of the river IJssel, but also has a small part of its territory on the west bank. In 2005 the municipality of Bathmen Deventer is a municipality and city in...
. He was a driver and a member of the Dutch Communist Party, who joined the Resistance after the German invasion. He became a waiter at the Novotel Den Haag, a hotel in The HagueThe HagueThe Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, to facilitate the transfer of messages. He was arrested on September 11, 1941 and sent to BuchenwaldBuchenwald concentration campBuchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...
. He was later transferred to Neuengamme. - Dirk Deutekom (b. December 12, 1895), who was a typographer. A member of the Dutch ResistanceDutch resistanceDutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, summitting in over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly...
, he tried to hinder the deportation of Dutch Jews from the Netherlands. He was arrested in July, 1941 and sent to Buchenwald, where he was given a job in the infirmary, owing to his fluency in German. On June 6, 1944 he was transferred to the concentration camp at Neuengamme.
Criminal prosecutions
Max Pauly
Max Pauly was an SS Sturmbannführer who was the commandant of Stutthof concentration camp from September, 1939 to August 1942 and commandant of Neuengamme concentration camp and the associated subcamps from September 1942 until liberation in May 1945.During his tenure as commandant of Neuengamme...
, Dreimann, Speck, Jauch and Frahm were convicted and given the death sentence. They were hanged on October 8, 1946.
Two of those directly responsible for the children's suffering and murder, Kurt Heissmeyer and Arnold Strippel
Arnold Strippel
Arnold Strippel was an SS-Obersturmführer and a member of the SS-Totenkopfverbände who while assigned to the Neuengamme concentration camp was given the task of murdering the victims of a tuberculosis medical experiment conducted by Kurt Heissmeyer.Strippel served in various concentration camps...
, escaped and remained at large. Strippel had served at other concentration camps before Neuengamme, including Buchenwald. He was recognized on the street in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
in 1948 by a former Buchenwald prisoner. He was tried for the murders of 21 Jewish inmates committed on November 9, 1939 as retribution for the failed assassination of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
at the Bürgerbräukeller
Bürgerbräukeller
The Bürgerbräukeller was a large beer hall located in Munich, Germany. It was one of the large beer halls of the Bürgerliches Brauhaus company, and after Bürgerliches merged with Löwenbräu, the hall was transferred to that company. It was located on Rosenheimer Street in the neighborhood of...
in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
by Georg Elser
Georg Elser
Johann Georg Elser was a German opponent of Nazism. He is most remembered for his unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, but he also wanted to assassinate Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels in 1939....
. Strippel was tried, convicted and sentenced to 21 life terms by a Frankfurt court in 1949.
In 1964, an investigation into his involvement with the Bullinghauser Damm School murders was begun by the Hamburg prosecutors office. The statute of limitations had run out for manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
so he had to be charged with murder. Among the criteria for murder it had to be proven that the accused acted cruelly, insidiously or with motive. In 1967 the prosecutor, Helmut Munzberg, dropped the charges for lack of evidence, stating that Strippel had not acted cruelly as "the children had not been harmed beyond the extinction of their lives".
He was released from prison in 1969. After his release, he applied for a retrial, and in 1970 his original conviction was overturned and he was retried. At this retrial, he was convicted as being just an accessory to the Buchenwald murders and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. Because he had already served 20 years in prison, 14 years longer than this sentence, he was compensated with 121,477.92 Deutschmarks.
In 1979, partly as a result of articles written by Günther Schwarberg
Günther Schwarberg
Günther Schwarberg was a German journalist and author whose 1979 series of articles in German news magazine Der Stern and subsequent book "The SS Doctor and the Children" brought the World War II era war crimes committed in Neuengamme concentration camp and Bullenhuser Damm School in Hamburg to...
, Strippels' case was reopened. He was not reincarcerated, and in 1987 the case was abandoned by the Hamburg prosecutor's office, owing to Strippel's frailty. Strippel died on 1 May 1994.
Kurt Heissmeyer
Kurt Heissmeyer
Kurt Heissmeyer was a Nazi physician involved in medical experimentation on concentration camp inmates including children. He was involved in an infamous tuberculosis experiment conducted on 20 Jewish children at Neuengamme concentration camp...
returned to his home in Magdeburg
Magdeburg
Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....
in postwar East Germany and started a successful medical practice as a lung and tuberculosis specialist. He was eventually found out in 1959. In 1966, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. At his trial he stated, "I did not think that inmates of a camp had full value as human beings." When asked why he didn't use guinea pigs he responded, "For me there was no basic difference between human beings and guinea pigs." He then corrected himself: "Jews and guinea pigs". Heissmeyer died on 29 August 1967.
Memorial
The building at Bullenhuser Damm was used by the British as a transit camp for German POWs until 1947. It was then used by the Hydograpichal Institute's meteorological service until 1949, when it again became a school, for 800 boys. In 1959, the organization representing Neuengamme survivors proposed to the Hamburg school board that a memorial plaque should be placed in the school. However, it was not until 1963 that the text for the plaque was approved. The text aroused controversy because it omitted mention of the Soviet victims and did not state that the children were Jewish or give any information about their personal identity. In 1980, information signs were placed in the basement of the school, and the Senate of Hamburg (government) declared the school to be a memorial site, renaming it Janusz KorczakJanusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit was a Polish-Jewish children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor or Stary Doktor...
School: Korczak was a Polish—Jewish paediatrician and author who died at Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...
with about 190 orphans. A rose garden was established in 1985. Later, in the Schnelsen Quarter of the city several streets were named after the children who died at the school and a memorial tablet was installed. Much of the work of identifying the victims and of bringing the story to the public's attention was due to the efforts of Günther Schwarberg.
In 2005, Wolfgang Peiner, Minister of Finance of Hamburg, published plans to sell the building. However, after several protests a spokesman denied these plans.
External links
- The 20 Children of Bullenhuser Damm (Italian)
- Georges-André Kohn at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe In Berlin
- Phillipe Kohn speaks about his brother's deportation and death
- Bullenhuser Damm (Dutch)
- Documentary on Sergio de Simone (Italian)
- Neuengamme Museum
- VR Movie: Rose Garden for the Children of Bullenhuser Damm
- Zeit Online The amazing career of the prosecutor Münzberg (German)