Flossenburg Concentration Camp

Even though Monday was Labor Day, it didn't feel like it here in Germany. It was a chilly, drizzling rain kind of day, and we planned to go to a little town about 35 minutes from our house called Flossenburg. The weather couldn't have been more fitting for our excursion. We went to an old concentration camp site in Flossenburg, as well as to the castle ruins there. There's so much to say about our visit to the concentration camp that I will save the castle ruins for another post.

I really didn't know what to expect from the concentration camp site, as far as how much there would be to see. I honestly didn't think we'd spend more than an hour or hour and a half there. I couldn't have been more wrong. We ended up spending most of the afternoon at the site. We have been to a lot of museums and historical sites as a family, and usually there is a lot of banter between us - "Momma, look at this", "Daddy, did you see this?", "Come check this out". There was almost none of that here. We all seemed to individually sink into our own solitary rhythm and pace as we walked through this camp site. The museum portion of the site is very well done, and I think we all read every word that was printed there. In amongst the exhibits were audio and video clips recorded by survivors of the camp. The kids were especially drawn to these. I feel like a lot of times in museums, you grow tired of reading and absorbing before you get to the end of an exhibit. That was not the case here for any of us.

The Flossenburg concentration camp was established in May 1938. It was originally intended for the containment of criminals, "asocial" persons, and Jews. Later it grew to include political prisoners and foreign POWs, most of whom were Soviets. The site was established in Flossenburg because of the granite hills there. This is where the prisoners were put to work in a large quarry. Approximately 96,000 prisoners passed through the camp, and around 30,000 prisoners died at Flossenburg and its subcamps before it was liberated by the U.S. Army in April 1945.

Today the camp site is surrounded on its front by houses and businesses. Driving up to it, you're not even sure you are in the right place. Once we determined where to park and where to start, we began our tour.

The first building you see is the camp's former administration building.

Behind that building lies the heart of the camp. Only two of the buildings in this area remain standing - the kitchen/dining hall and the laundry building. These two buildings house the museum exhibits now. In between these two building was the roll call area which is just a large open space. New prisoners would be herded into this area upon arrival at the camp. Roll call took place here daily, and sometimes the entire camp's population would be required to stand here for hours on end in harsh weather conditions and weakened physical states. This is also where punishments and executions were performed, for all the prisoners to see. For me, this was the most chilling location on the site. To stand there in the very spot where countless innocent people had stood and suffered in mass was very humbling.

This is the roll call area with the kitchen/dining hall on the left and laundry building on the right.

 

In the basement of the laundry building was the area where new prisoners were in-processed. Here they would be stripped of all their belongings, to include all of their clothes. Once they were naked, they were shaved from head to toe, then they were sent to the shower room. They were sprayed, and sometimes beaten, with large hoses shooting out water with great force. Sometimes the water would be extremely hot, and other times extremely cold. Once this torture and humiliation was over, the prisoners were given a new set of clothes and a number. Everything about their former selves was stripped away, to include their names.

This is the showering area and a quote from one of the prisoners who went through it.

The remainder of the laundry building housed more exhibits, to include many personal stories and accounts of those who were imprisoned here.

This is one of the actual roll books,

and this is a book which contains the name of every prisoner who set foot in the camp.

After we toured the buildings, we headed behind the main area of the camp where the memorials and gravesites have been established. A beautiful chapel was built with stones from demolished guard towers, and numerous graves lie peacefully surrounded by beautiful flowers and foliage. There are also still a couple of guard towers standing in this area.

One surprising thing I learned is that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed at the Flossenburg camp, back in that main roll call area. I was familiar with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as a former pastor of ours quite often quoted him in his sermons. Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian who was active in the German resistance against Hitler. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. He was executed at Flossenburg in 1945 just before the end of the war. This statue of him sits in the chapel.

When you come out the front door of the church you see this, an overlook with steps descending into this valley.

It is called the Valley of Death, a large memorial area that lies next to the crematorium at the back of the property. We descended the stairs, each at our own pace. The kids were ahead of me, and Don was behind. I stopped before going down the last set of stairs and watched as Austin approached the first set of memorials. He is a very respectful kid, always has been. He says ma'am and sir, please and thank you, opens doors for everyone, and never wears his cap inside. As he took his first step inside this memorial, he very slowly took his cap off and just held it behind his back where he kept it until he was completely out of the memorial area. I was obviously very proud of him and got a glimpse into the kind of man he's growing into, but I was also very aware of the magnitude and weight of what had happened here to elicit this sort of response from a 15 year old boy.

The following pictures are from the memorials in the Valley of Death.

As you come to the end of the Valley of Death, there is a small building to the right. This was the crematorium. Inside are two large objects which speak volumes. In the first room you see the oven, and in the second room, you see the dissection table. This picture is of the outside of the building. I couldn't bring myself to take any inside.

After leaving the crematorium, steps lead you back up to the ground level with the main camp site. On the way out, you pass by this tunnel which was dug when the number of bodies needing to be disposed of became so numerous that the guards needed to find a way to move them from the main camp site to the crematorium more quickly.

Our trip to this concentration camp is one that won't be soon forgotten. You can read about the holocaust, watch documentaries about it, learn about it in school, and even go to places like the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., all of which our family has done, but none of those things can compare to coming face to face with the places where these atrocities occurred. I know many Americans never have the opportunity to travel to Europe, but for any who do and who come anywhere near a concentration camp site, I highly recommend visiting. I obviously cannot say that we "enjoyed" or "had a good time" at the Flossenburg concentration camp, but I can say without a doubt that it is one of the most captivating places we've ever been, and I'm so thankful that my children were able to see this firsthand.

 

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”  - Dietrich Bonhoeffer