As previously mentioned, I was blessed to spend a month in Germany with my son, his wife and my new grand baby. I stayed in the German state of Bavaria, and technically we were just an hour outside of the Czech Republic. I stayed in a small town called Weiden (in der Oberpfalz). I got to visit Amberg, Nuremberg, and Floß. I walked just a little bit in Frankfurt when I arrived but didn’t stay too long there.
Since we were just a few miles outside of Floß my son took me to the Floßenbürg Concentration Camp. The Camp has been preserved and the Country of Germany has done a very good job at tastefully and respectfully telling the stories of the victims of Floßenbürg. Actually Germany has preserved it to remind the world what can happen… what did happen. No matter what the holocaust deniers in this world try to assert, the proof and evidence is kept to either silence them or prove them to be fools. Below are the pictures I took. You will not see tons of pictures and I did not pose in any of them. It was a very solemn and very sad visit. I took pictures to share with those of you who have never been there, and may never see it. I took pictures to share the story of those who lost their lives and those who survived.
As you walk through the processing hall it is now a museum. There are little stations with original documents, letters form prisoners, clothing, pictures, logs, and the most amazing part are recorded stories told by survivors. Their voices are heard and they speak not only for themselves but in memory of the friends, family and inmates who died brutally in Floßenbürg. I also highlight some items about Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was executed in Floßenbürg just days before its liberation.
Below are the pictures with commentary. If you click on an individual picture it should take you to a larger version.
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- The Main Administration Building
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- Walking from the administration building into the field where the prisoners would stand for formation and roll call twice a day.
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- The main processing building where new prisoners would come for cleaning, shaving, and prison uniform.
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- This was the kitchen.
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- Showers where prisoners would come after they were stripped, shaved, deloused, and processed.
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- A very sad caption that caught my eye when I was walking through the shower area.
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- This was a hallway and there were rooms which were stations. When a prisoner came they went through a systematic de-humanization and preparation for prison life. Prisoners did not come to Floßenbürg for rehab… it was created to literally work prisoners to death.
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- Walking toward the area where prisoners were brought to ‘discipline’.
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- We think this may have been the remains of old barracks.
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- This was looking down from the discipline area. This would have been the area where officers and workers would have lived and raised their families. It was odd to see children playing in the same area where these atrocities were happening.
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- This is a door leading into a very small chamber where they probably crammed discipline problem prisoners.
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- Guard Tower
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- Gates leading into the field of death.
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- There are gardens here now, but there are also scattered headstones. There are still people buried here.
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- The Jewish memorial.
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- The temple that is called “Jesus’ Dungeon.”
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- Back view of Jesus’ Dungeon.
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- Inside the Chapel
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- A tribute to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Theologian, Pastor, leader of the Confessing Church, and co-conspirator in Operation Valkyrie
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- Looking down into the field of death… more explanations in a minute.
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- Walking down into the valley of death. For many this was the last few steps of their life.
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- Steps leading down to the crematorium, the ash pile, mass graves and a place where they would line up prisoners and shoot them.
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- The next picture is of a big grass mound that is where the ashes and bones were dumped.
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- The mound is only covered in grass because of the ashes, bones, and remains that were dumped here after mass executions and burnings.
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- The sign near the small area they used to shoot prisoners to death.
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- I am not sure what the number represents. This number is higher than all the deaths at Flossenberg total, so not sure.
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- Many mass executions where done here in this spot. Posted after the pictures is an account of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s execution here. He was hung, but it was in the valley of death.
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- A dedication plaque from the memorial itself to the 90th Infantry Division who liberated the camp in April of 1945.
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- A Thank You Plaque From Survivors to the 97th Infantry and the US 3rd Army
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- 2 Unknown Pilots were KIA/MIA in the liberation of the camps. They were the only American casualties of the camp.
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- The oven in the crematorium. I told Mike it felt awful to be in a place where so much evil was done…. I don’t believe in ghosts, so it wasn’t creepy to me that way, just a deep sadness.
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- Shoes that we assume belonged to prisoners who were set for cremation. We also saw the autopsy table, but I didn’t take a picture of it.
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- Another guard tower. We hiked up there but it is shut off.
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- Another guard tower in the distance
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- Ariel View of the camp one month before it was liberated
From Wikipedia on Bonhoeffer’s death:
Bonhoeffer was condemned to death on April 8, 1945, by SS judge Otto Thorbeck at a drumhead court-martial without witnesses, records of proceedings or a defence in Flossenbürg concentration camp.[32] He was executed there by hanging at dawn on April 9, 1945, just two weeks before soldiers from the United States 90th and 97th Infantry Divisions liberated the camp,[33][34] three weeks before the Soviet capture of Berlin and a month before the capitulation of Nazi Germany. Like other executions associated with the July 20 Plot, the execution was particularly brutal. Bonhoeffer was stripped of his clothing and led naked into the execution yard, where he was hanged with thin wire for death by strangulation. Hanged with Bonhoeffer were fellow conspirators Admiral Wilhelm Canaris; Canaris』 deputy General Hans Oster; military jurist General Karl Sack; General Friedrich von Rabenau;[35] businessman Theodor Strünck; and German resistance fighter Ludwig Gehre. Bonhoeffer’s brother, Klaus Bonhoeffer, and his brothers-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi and Rüdiger Schleicher were executed elsewhere later in the month.
The camp doctor who witnessed the execution wrote: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer … kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”[31]