Holocaust Memorials - Monuments, Museums and Institutions in Commemoration of Nazi Victims

in detail

In August 1944 the Büssing truck manufacturer had about 1200 Jewish prisoners selected from the Auschwitz concentration camp to do slave labor in Braunschweig. Barracks were erected on the grounds near the historical Schill monument to house the prisoners. The death rate was very high as a result of the prisoners’ poor condition, the miserable living conditions and the slave labor in the nearby factory. The prisoners were “evacuated” by March 1945.

In 1955 the Schill monument was rededicated as a monument for the fallen soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Since the early nineties the events conducted at the monument on the National Day of Mourning evoked increasing criticism. In December 1996 The City Council of Braunschweig resolved to erect a memorial site for the victims of the subcamp. Initiated by the Hamburg artist Sigrid Sigurdsson, the Open Archive “Braunschweig, a city in Germany remembers“ stands at the center of the memorial site that opened in 2000 in the former building of the Schill Foundation. More than seventy individuals, institutions and associations contributed to the collection. Texts of the collection are set on panels placed on the periphery wall of the former factory grounds. Lectures and talks with survivors, exhibits and educational programs are organized regularly at the memorial site.