In the spring of 1944, Kammler, who had just finished the underground construction for the rocket-building program, both in the Dora Tunnel and at Lehesten and Redl-Zipf, embarked upon new underground and surface work sites, making use of an abundant concentration camp labor force. These work sites opened throughout what was then the territory of the Reich except on the north German plain. Some were located in the area around the Harz Mountains, particularly in the Dora area.
The largest work sites were placed under the control of a new SS operation known as the Sonderstab Kammler. Elsewhere it provided prisoners for work being done for the Todt Organization. It also used Baubrigaden made up of prisoners, directly administered by WVHA departments in Oranienburg.
In any case it was these departments that decided on the use of the newly arrived prisoners and on the redeployment of a portion of veteran prisoners. All that remained for the big camps’ Arbeitsstatistik offices to do was to draw up lists for the “transports” to the exterior Kommandos, forced upon them by Oranienburg. Kammler ran no risk of difficulty on that front either, given that he was himself the head of Department C of the WVHA. His powers were thus very extensive.
The structure that came progressively into place was thus made up of two networks: that of the work sites and that of the camps. The network of work sites depended on the work to be done: digging tunnel galleries or building railways, roads, bridges, and so on. These work sites were thus more or less mobile. The camp network was partially distinct from that of the work sites in that the same camp could provide prisoners for several different work sites, and the same work site could use prisoners from different camps—as shall be seen with regard to Mittelbau as a whole.
To house the prisoners, existing buildings were sometimes used—industrial or farm buildings, more or less adapted for the purpose. New barracks were also built, in some cases added on to existing structures, in others making up entire camps. The prisoners’ fate varied considerably depending both on housing conditions and on conditions of getting from the camps to the work sites. One last characteristic of the new setup was the extensive mobility of many of the prisoners. The individual “trajectories” of some of them, as will be seen further along, were quite complicated.
The three chapters of this particularly dramatic fourth section seek to make a complex situation more intelligible. However, only that overall group that ended up being known as Mittelbau—along with several other neighboring Kommandos—will be dealt with in a thoroughgoing fashion. Similar indications could have been given for other areas of the Reich.
Aside from more general characteristics, this chapter deals above all with the Helmetalbahn railway work site, the corresponding Wieda and Ellrich-Theater camps, along with their Kommandos. Chapter 12 is devoted to the Ellrich and Harzungen camps and those work sites known as B 3, B 11, B 12, B 13, and B 17. Chapter 13 brings together a variety of data on Rottleberode, Blankenburg, Langenstein, and various other camps in the Harz area.
THE SONDERSTAB KAMMLER’S ORGANIZATION. As was shown in chapter 7, the Sonderstab Kammler was created in March 1944 when, on Hitler’s instructions, Göring put Kammler in charge of getting the aeronautical industry set up underground. This special staff—which is the translation of Sonderstab—was divided in terms of geography into four Sonderinspektionen.1
Sonderinspektion I was based in Porta Westfalica, near Minden, in the north of Westphalia, on the border of Lower Saxony. In principle, Sonderinspektion II’s headquarters was in Halle, on the Saale, but was actually in Bischofferode, near Woffleben.2 This location will be discussed in the next chapter. Sonderinspektion III had its headquarters in Bad Wimpfen on the Neckar River near Heilbronn. Sonderinspektion IV’s headquarters was ostensibly in Vienna, for the work sites located in Austria. Which of the known Kommandos were actually concerned by each of these inspectorates will be examined later.
Each of these inspectorates was in charge of a certain number of projects. A Führungsstab—or management team—was at the head of each project. All the projects were coded by a letter, A, B, or S, followed by a number. The letter A seems to have been applied to the modification of existing underground structures, including caves, mines, or railway tunnels: thus, A 5 designates the Heimkehle cave at Rottleberode. The letter B apparently concerned underground structures that were to be dug—such as B 3, B 11, and B 12, which will be mentioned. The letter S seems to have been reserved for special work sites, S III designating, for instance, the command post built for Hitler at Ohrdruf.
Emphasis was laid in chapter 4 on the systematization of coding that distinguished codes based upon mineral names from those based upon animal names, both of which were used by Speer’s services. The mineral code names apparently referred to underground installations; in addition to Zement and Schlier, mentioned above, there were also, for instance, Kaolin for B 12, Zinnstein (cassiterite) for B 11, Malachit for the Langenstein work site, and Porphyr and Turmalin for the work sites at Blankenburg. The animal names refer more to programs, such as Kitz (kid) for Peenemünde, or Kuckuck (cuckoo), Eber (boar), Schildkröte (tortoise) for the subsequent work done by B 11, or Reh (deer) for Neu Stassfurt and Gazelle (also a German word) for Weferlingen. Chronologically, the last of these programs seems to have been Kalb (calf) for the restructuring of a salt mine at Springen, in Thuringia, on the Hesse border. Marcel Colignon arrived there in January 1945 with a Kommando coming from Buchenwald.3
To these sites and programs correspond—or do not correspond as the case may be—camps that are themselves designated by codes. The danger of using such indications without adequate precaution is to overlook the fact that many of them, in one way or another, had more than one use. Caution will thus be shown in this regard in the following chapters.
LOCATIONS OF THE WORK SITES. One finds a certain number of underground installations in the foothill region in the north of the Harz Mountains, especially to the east of Helmstedt. These correspond to the code A 3, because they had to do with transforming old mines. They were dependent on Porta Westfalica, where the A 2 work site was also to be found. The corresponding Kommandos, created by Buchenwald, were subsequently linked to Neuengamme.
Other work sites were situated to the east of the Harz Mountains, first Langenstein (B 2), then Neu Stassfurt and Wansleben, whose Kommandos remained linked to Buchenwald. By way of exception, the Blankenburg work site was operated by the Todt Organization. The Heimkehle work site, to the east of Nordhausen, given the code A 5, was dependent on Porta Westfalica, as was Stempeda (B 4); the neighboring Kommando of Rottleberode was transferred in late 1944 from Buchenwald to Mittelbau. But the Mittelraum’s largest group was at the Kohnstein and Himmelberg work sites, which will later be examined in greater detail.
More to the south, two large Kommandos dependent on the Flossenbürg camp provided manpower for work sites B 5 (at Leitmeritz, in the Sudetenland) and B 7 (at Hersbruck, in Franconia). The Leitmeritz work site depended on Porta Westfalica. The corresponding camp will come up again in the chapters dealing with evacuations. The Kommandos in the Neckar valley, dependent on the Struthof camp, supplied those work sites dependent on the Bad Wimpfen inspectorate. The Kommandos of the B 8 work sites, in Linz, and the B 9 work sites, in Melk, in Austria, were Mauthausen-based Kommandos as were those in Gusen and Ebensee.
In late 1944 there was an S III work site at Ohrdruf on a military site in Thuringia building a command post for Hitler. That Kommando was dependent on Buchenwald.
THE NEW WORK SITES AT KOHNSTEIN AND HIMMELBERG. The existence of the Dora Tunnel, capable of sheltering three large factories, clearly shows the interest in using the layer of anhydrite located to the south of the Harz Mountains for digging out new underground spaces. The layer was thick and regular, the rock required no retaining structure, and the tunnels could emerge straight onto the nearby plains and easily be hooked up to the railway network. The Zorge River had cleared a wide valley from Woffleben to Niedersachswerfen through the bed of anhydrite, separating Kohnstein in the south from Himmelberg and Mühlberg to the north. Three of the principal projects of Kammler’s4 Sonderinspektion II were located in this context: B 3, B 11, and B 12.
Project B 12, alias Kaolin, had to do with digging out the Kohnstein to the west of the Dora Tunnel starting at Woffleben. It was a large-scale project in that the overall usable surface was to be some 1.73 million square feet, as opposed to 1.325 million for the Dora Tunnel. The blueprints show several tunnels, C, D, E, and F, running parallel to tunnels A and B and joined together by halls. The south end of the envisaged underground complex was to be situated (but without any way out) underneath the hill located to the north of the Dora camp, by the crematorium. It seems that the purpose of this complex was to house two aircraft factories.
Project B 11, alias Zinnstein, was also located beneath the Kohnstein, to the east of the Dora Tunnel on the Niedersachswerfen side. It was there that the open-pit mine was located (still being exploited some fifty years later) as well as the entrance to the two galleries whose other ends opened into tunnel A: the Notstollen to the north at the level of Hall 17 and the Grenzstollen to the south at the level of Hall 43. The blueprint is a diamond-shaped plan, between these two galleries, with a usable surface of 860,000 square feet. Responsibility for carrying out the work was given primarily to the Ammoniakwerk Merseburg company, the subsidiary of IG Farben supplying the Leuna factory, former partner of the WIFO. It continued to use anhydrite for its needs. Three factories were subsequently planned on the site: Kuckuck was to produce fuels, Eber liquid oxygen, and Schildkröte was to be an aircraft factory. As will be seen further on, a B 17 project also existed further to the west, associated with B 11.
The B 3 project—alias Anhydrit—concerned the west part of the Himmelberg toward Bischofferode. It had a diamond-shaped layout with twenty-eight east-west tunnels hooked together by perpendicular halls. It was more irregular to the south because of the shape of the hill. The planned usable surface was 1.4 million square feet and the factory—known as Hydra—was to have been an aircraft factory. This work site was generally known as project B 3a, in that there had also been a project B 3b, which was abandoned in favor of Ohrdruf. It was located further to the east, toward Appenrode.
Finishing all these work sites meant establishing major rail and other links, which led to an upheaval on the Zorge plain because of the multitude of earthworks underway. The plain was moreover cluttered with stockpiles, such as the Mittelwerk’s Freilager in Niedersachswerfen, mentioned above. The civilian workers—whether German or foreign—from the neighboring factories and work sites such as the Junkers Nordwerk also had to be housed. A camp was built for them at Woffleben. It was even envisaged to move the inhabitants out of the village. The execution of all these infrastructures was sometimes referred to as project B 13. It was apparently because of superstition that the number 13 was not given to any underground project.
The next chapter is entirely devoted to the life of the prisoners on these work sites and in the corresponding camps.
PASSING THROUGH THE LAURA CAMP. It is not possible to speak of Dora and the attached Kommandos without making some reference to the Laura camp. Indeed, three of the principal witnesses, Aimé Bonifas, Jacques Courtaud, and Jean-Henry Tauzin, passed through this camp after their quarantine period at Buchenwald before getting to Ellrich or Wieda. But contrary to what is often held—and has sometimes been written—the Laura camp never depended on Dora. It was and remained until the end a Buchenwald Kommando.
As noted in chapter 4, after the bombing of Peenemünde the decision was made to scatter the sites involved in V2 production. At the same time the Kohn-stein Tunnel was being adapted for assembly, propulsion-system test centers were being installed both at Lehesten, in a slate quarry in the south of Thuringia, and in Redl-Zipf, in Upper Austria. The camp set up near Lehesten for prisoners sent from Buchenwald was given the name Laura at the same time the camp near Kohnstein was named Dora.
Aimé Bonifas,5 whose identity number was 20801, arrived there on October 1, 1943, with the second transport. The housing was “an immense hangar full of drafts” with a rudimentary Revier in “a kind of low cellar.” There were the same nationalities as at Dora, including the Italian prisoners of war, who soon fell victim to the Ukrainians. Within a couple of weeks the camp came to hold a thousand prisoners. On November 1 it was installed in three blocks set up in farm buildings and outfitted with an electric fence.
The work site was very harsh. The prisoners had to dig the underground galleries, which made up a “veritable molehill,” and construct outside access points, including a railway link. It was bitterly cold, “a terrible winter.” There were many sick, the Revier was overrun, and a Schonung was set up in conditions similar to those at Dora. “Twice a week, a truck packed the cadavers away to the crematory oven at Buchenwald.”
When the digging was finished the machines were installed. “The beginning of spring coincided with the end of the terrible period at Laura.” The mortality rate dropped quickly, but on May 26 a transport of sick prisoners left for Bergen-Belsen. Bonifas and several French and Belgian friends were in Block 2—the best one—with a block leader who was a German communist for whom Bonifas had “profound esteem.” The rest of the supervision, including the position of Lagerältester, was in the hands of Greens.
Jean-Henry Tauzin,6 part of the first convoy of 1944, left Buchenwald for Laura on March 28 (or 24?) along with René André,7 Jacques Courtaud,8 and his friends Olaf, Poussin, and Lefauve, who were in the third convoy. They remained there until May 9. The work was often very hard, in particular the loading and transport of iron bars, camouflage nets, cement, and sand, with Kommandos working round the clock.
On the other hand, Tauzin and Courtaud found that camp life was tolerable because roll call was brief, the blocks were clean, there were weekly hot showers, and care packages arrived intact. There was a—fairly impoverished—canteen and even a movie theater: Bonifas points out that on Sundays the SS would sometimes chase the prisoners out and pack into the theater themselves.
Bonifas explains the purpose of the Lehesten factory: “The underground factory was finished after a work project on a gigantic scale. It was used for fine tuning and as a test stand for the V2’s propulsion device. [ . . . ] The compressor rooms were used to produce liquid oxygen. The device’s ignition took place in the two blockhouse-shaped test stands overlooking the quarry’s enormous theater. [ . . . ] Every day, twenty-five or thirty tests were carried out. Each time, the siren would sound the alert and everyone had to run for cover. The effect it produced was just incredible; out of these blockhouses there would come a roar and a 160-foot-high column of fire would shoot out, which would send all the stones flying with an infernal racket.” Bonifas adds that many of the tests backfired.9 Tauzin gives an identical description of the explosion, without knowing what it was, putting forth the hypothesis of tests on underwater mines (though why underwater he doesn’t say). At the time Courtaud also believed them to be mines.
Tauzin and André as well as Courtaud and his friends left Laura on May 9 and ended up at Ellrich, as did Pierre Inchauspé,10 who arrived with Bonifas. Bonifas left Laura on August 31, 1944, and ended up at Wieda, as did Georges Jougier, who arrived with Tauzin. Many others remained at Laura; they would be evacuated by train in the direction of Dachau in April 1945.
THE HELMETALBAHN WORK SITE. A whole series of railway branch lines—both those that already existed, such as the Dora line to the south of the Kohn-stein or the Nordwerk line to the north, or those that were just being put in for the future factories at Kohnstein and Himmelberg—hooked into one and the same line that ran through the Zorge valley from Herzberg, through a tunnel between Walkenried and Ellrich, all the way to Nordhausen via Woffleben and Niedersachswerfen. In order to reserve the line for industrial traffic and personnel transports, long-distance trains were to be routed along a new line between Herzberg and Nordhausen to be built farther to the south. It was a project of long standing for which plans already existed. Because part of the route ran from west to east through the valley of the Helme—a tributary of the Zorge—the planned line was known as the Helmetalbahn, or Helme valley line. It was to go through the towns of Osterhagen, Nüxei, Mackenrode, and Günzerode before reaching Nordhausen station by means of several civil engineering structures.11
THE SS-BAUBRIGADEN AND THE EARLY DAYS AT WIEDA. In order to build the Helmetalbahn, it was decided in 1944 to call upon SS-Baubrigaden. These construction brigades were special Kommandos of prisoners used for building roads and railways. They were used in particular in the north of France. But they were also deployed in German cities that had been bombed, and the two brigades that were brought into the Mittelraum were BB 3—then based in Duisburg and Cologne—and BB 4, based in Wuppertal. They arrived in May.12
BB 3 set up in Wieda, a village located in a valley in the south of the Harz Mountains, while BB 4 set up in Ellrich itself, in the buildings of the Bürgergarten Restaurant in the Spiegelgasse—which came to be known as Ellrich-Theater, or the “little camp,” as opposed to Ellrich-Station, or the “big camp,” which will be discussed in the next chapter.
The prisoners who arrived on May 11 in Wieda, followed by the camp equipment, were Russians and Poles under the supervision of Germans. On June 6 these prisoners of long standing were joined by French prisoners who arrived by train from Buchenwald at the Walkenried station. They belonged to the convoy that had left Compiègne on May 12, 1944, and their identity numbers ran from the “49,000”s to the “53,000”s. Among them were Jacques-Christian Bailly, who wrote a detailed account of this period, Paul Chandon-Moët, René Cogny, Roger Couëtdic, Raoul Giquel, Bernard Girardin, Roger Jourdain, André Laroche, Maurice Leteuil, Marc Maire, Max Oesch, Jean de Sesmaisons, Louis Vallier, and Jean Voisin.
Bailly13 notes that the camp commander greeted them in French with a surprising speech, informing them of the landing and asking them simply to remain calm. The camp was comprised of farm buildings with a courtyard, all of which was surrounded by simple wire mesh. Barracks were adjoined to the camp for the troops, made up principally of soldiers from the Luftwaffe. As Bailly continues:
“German prisoners left the camp to go to the village unescorted. Certain SS men chatted with the Polish prisoners. Everything seemed strange in this Kommando—so different from the Buchenwald camp. Rumors spread. The former prisoners from Wieda came back from Cologne where they had taken part in the cleanup work in the bombed-out city. In the ruins, they had discovered the riches which the SS had expropriated for themselves. An agreement had been concluded: war booty for the wardens, lives spared until the end of the fighting for the prisoners.” On Sunday afternoons, villagers who were out walking came to see the prisoners behind their fence. The Russians would dance to the sound of the harmonica of a prisoner named Ivan, and the villagers would toss them cigarettes. In June 1963 a woman from Wieda, Emilie Denecke, gave Manfred Bornemann14 the following—and perhaps somewhat embellished—account:
“The sentries belonged to the air force. They treated the prisoners decently and we even had the impression that the prisoners were not subjected to the sort of abuse which was often talked about. The relations between the troops and the prisoners struck us as being fairly good at Wieda. [ . . . ] An example comes to my mind to illustrate this feeling: it happened that the soldiers would play football against the prisoners, on the Wieda sporting club’s field. After the match, the prisoners, accompanied by the soldiers, would come through the village singing, followed by the children and the inhabitants. [ . . . ] The camp’s existence and the sight of prisoners dressed in black-and-white stripes was initially very unusual for the villagers, and the camp was something of a pole of attraction. It sometimes resembled a veritable fairground. The prisoners, after work, grouped together in the roll-call area and played music.”
The newly arrived were first of all put to work helping the village peasants with hay-making. The French were asked to sing the Madelon as they went along. Then they were sent in Kommandos to Osterhagen, Nüxei, and Macken-rode for clearing and deforestation work along the route of the future railway. Provisional camps had to be set up along the way. In 1972 a Nüxei farmer, Wilhelm Walter, told how an enormous barn had been requisitioned from him in which an entire level was added by laying floorboards. The problem quickly became one of water supply, as is confirmed by Sesmaisons’s diary.15 In Osterhagen, Bailly refers to an isolated barracks out in the country where there was only a single tap with ice-cold water.
Wieda remained the central camp from where the daily food supplies were sent out to the three Kommandos. It also housed a rudimentary Revier. A certain laxity prevailed, as Walter suggests: “From time to time, the German prisoners obtained permission to go have a drink in the village café. [ . . . ] On Sundays, the prisoners helped me clean up, cut wood, or put up a new chicken coop. I had them served a hot lunch as recompense for their work.”16 Through the camp, the farmer got hold of various items such as nails.
This situation could not go on forever. One morning in July, Bailly, who was at Wieda, heard gunfire. He gives the following account: “A group of prisoners were assembled at the barn entrance. [ . . . ] Through the door, I saw helmeted SS, arms in hand, going into the courtyard. The SS commander came out of his office, pale, bare-headed, his face worn, and his uniform undone. An SS man, a defiant smile on his lips, was pushing him with violent shoves in the back, a revolver pointed between his shoulders. They left the camp and got into a black Volkswagen which sped off with a squeal of its tires. [ . . . ] When they arrived, the SS (sent from Buchenwald) had found the camp open, German prisoners unsupervised in the village, and the commander asleep in his office.”
The very next day, in Wieda and in the Kommandos, everyone—both wardens and prisoners—had to leave. The prisoners reached the Dora camp on foot. It is not known what became of the wardens and prisoners who made up the Wieda administration. It seems that in the end the consequences were not too serious for them. The French prisoners were spread out between the various Kommandos. Most of them remained assigned to Dora, especially to the tunnel. Others were subsequently sent to Harzungen (such as Sesmaisons), Ellrich (such as Oesch), or Kleinbodungen (such as Giquel and Voisin). On July 30 a thousand prisoners from Dora, some of whom had been there several months already, such as Lucien Colonel, Alain de Lapoyade, Marcel Patte, and Bernard Perrot or the Dutchman Van Dijk were sent to replace them at Wieda and in the Kommandos. They were joined by others, including Bonifas, Ego, and Jougier coming from Laura. The Wieda incident thus changed the destiny of a great many prisoners—for better or for worse.
A quote from Rassinier17 gives some idea of how the events can be quickly “doctored up” by hearsay: “I had seen next to me [in the Revier] a prisoner who had spent a month at Wieda and who had told me that the camp’s 1500 occupants were not too badly off. Of course, there was work and not much to eat, but it was a family-style life: on Sunday afternoons, the villagers would come dance at the edge of the camp to the prisoners’ accordions, exchange a few friendly words with them, and even bring them things to eat. It seems that it didn’t last, that the SS got word of what was going on and that within two months Wieda had become as harsh and inhuman as Dora.”
THE BAUBRIGADE 3 KOMMANDOS IN OSTERHAGEN, NÜXEI, AND MACKEN-RODE. By the summer of 1944 the preliminary clearing and deforestation work was finished, and leveling and filling-in work got under way—without the adequate equipment. The fate of the prisoners on the work sites worsened with the coming of the rains in late September.
Bonifas,18 at Mackenrode at the time, observed: “The camp organization was always extremely precarious and, with the coming of the bad weather, a life of misery began once again. We had to go out in the morning for roll-call in the driving rain, head off to work in the rain, work twelve hours outside in the rain, and return to camp soaked to the skin. Our poor clothes were heavily soaked with water, and we had nothing to change into and not even the slightest fire to dry ourselves out. Fortunately, we had a blanket for every two persons for sleeping, which enabled me to get partially undressed. But just try and imagine the moment when the blow of the whistle rustles you out of bed before dawn when you have to put that wet poultice back on. [ . . . ] The camp turned into a swamp, and roll-call, where we wallowed up to our calves in the sticky clay, was a dreaded chore. [ . . . ]
“The filth invaded us. [ . . . ] Our clothes, in a pitiful state from working in the forest, had not been replaced. No change of clothes was to be found in the camp. For three months, we had been wearing the same shirt, without a sweater or a coat. The snow flurries pierced right through us. The water was so cold that even the bravest could no longer wash themselves. Vermin appeared and we scratched ourselves raw. I walked along in the snow and mud in shoes without soles. The whole day long, my feet were in an ice bath that ensured that I had a perpetual head-cold. I fortunately learned how to blow my nose proficiently without a handkerchief, because of course we lacked absolutely everything, and every last bit of cloth I could get my hands on I used to wrap around my poor feet, which was far more essential.”
There was a French doctor at Mackenrode, René C., whom the SS commander had appointed camp doctor. When Bonifas had a very serious carbuncle, he had him evacuated to the Revier at Wieda.19 Bonifas relates: “Because in the infirmary I wouldn’t be needing clothes, I was forced to leave my jacket and pants for another prisoner.” At Wieda at that time there were “a hundred or so occupants dispatched between the kitchens, the infirmary, the clothing store and the administration offices of the three other camps.” Bonifas was entitled to a hot bath and clean bedclothes. A French doctor, Dr. René A., from Gap, operated on his carbuncle. He stayed at Wieda from December 6 to 25, 1944, at which time he was transferred to the infamous Straflager at Osterhagen,20 “the disciplinary camp of foul reputation” where, on Christmas Day, he ran into Abbot Amyot d’Inville.
As work on the Helmetalbahn was interrupted because of the frost, the Osterhagen prisoners were taken daily by train to work sites near Woffleben, from January 2 to February 15, 1945. This period was all the more arduous as the camp had been invaded by lice. Moreover, food diminished and “everyone could be seen growing thinner as you watched.”
The return to the railway work site, eliminating as it did the fatigue of the daily trips, along with a general disinfecting on February 20, which got rid of the lice, enabled Bonifas and his friends to overcome the trials of the final weeks.
“And then a sort of generalized sluggishness overtook the work site. Not only did the prisoners lack the strength to lift their picks and began to pace their every movement, but the Kapos themselves no longer had the strength to yell at them; both Meister and SS also seemed resigned to no longer being able to push us on. The masters’ morale was burnt out; the German people were inexorably marching toward the greatest disillusion of their history. Thus, our objective was to do as little as possible, to work ‘with our eyes,’ that is, to pretend to be working when we were being looked at. There was no other solution. Some days, I scarcely moved more than three or four wheelbarrow loads of dirt in the course of the whole day.”21
Bonifas’s account, providing a continuous picture of what took place on the Helmetalbahn work sites from September 1944 to April 1945, is the only overall document published on the subject. Manfred Bornemann’s Chronicle of the Ell-rich Camp—several pages of which are devoted to the Baubrigaden—makes reference to no other text of this kind. It contains indications as to the number of prisoners concerned.22 At the end of October 1944 the BB 3 in Wieda with its three Kommandos had 996 prisoners. This number had reached 1,102 by January 15, 1945, at which time it was administratively linked to the camp at Sachsenhausen.
THE BAUBRIGADE 4 KOMMANDO IN GÜNZERODE. The BB 4 was made up of 826 prisoners at the end of October 1944, a third of whom were at Ellrich-Theater while the rest were part of the Günzerode Kommando. The Lagerältester from Ellrich-Theater was a German communist who made sure there was a fair distribution of foodstuffs, even among the prisoners in the Revier and the Schonung, who were ever more numerous in the Bürgergarten in the early months of 1945.
Denis Guillon23 has described the Günzerode camp as follows: “We were housed in a large abandoned sheep barn, requisitioned for that purpose. There were almost a thousand of us all told, crammed in like animals. Bunks five levels high entirely filled the first floor. Down below as well, a large part of the space had been transformed into a five-story dormitory.
“We were put behind the central buildings of a beautiful farm. The little camp was surrounded by posts and barbed wire, with a watchtower at each corner, and large lights on the top of each post. A guard post was set up at the entrance. A house located outside of the barbed-wire compound housed the sentries. [ . . . ] Whole families passed by in front of the barbed-wire fences and our passing by ‘in ranks of five,’ solidly guarded by the SS, was always followed by an attentive crowd which turned up to look at their slaves.”
Guillon’s highly evocative account—who was there with his friend Lucien Clot—tallies with Bonifas’s: the obsession with the mud, the soaking-wet clothes that never dried at night and that had to be put on again in the morning: “The work site was more waterlogged than ever. We sunk in past our ankles into the freezing-cold water and the snow which would melt during the day and freeze up once again the following night. The backfill was a pothole against which we fought for the ragged remains of our Russian socks, what was left of our clogs, which were forever threatening to stay stuck in the sickeningly glacial and viscous muck. The landscape was squalid—as if you were looking at it through swampy water. The sky was dirty and the heavy clouds hung low in the sky, clinging to the hills where they fizzled out, driven by a violent wind that ran through us.”
There was a kind of Revier with a French doctor, Dr. Jean Berthéol. On March 23, 1945, the survivors of Günzerode were removed to Ellrich-Theater. On April 6 the sick and the invalid were evacuated by train. In chapter 20, Guillon will be found evacuating on foot in the Harz Mountains.