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Flossenbürg - The Interminable Void
We marched through the gates and our numbers were marked down again. The blanket we had been given was taken back. This was another camp. My memory of this time is clouded but I recall myself and my clothes being disinfected.The structure of the camp was the same: barracks, gates, barbed wire, concrete posts, and an Appelplatz.This camp was larger than Gross-Rosen and situated on a hill. There was a selection immediately in the Appelplatz. I was much weaker and my spirit to survive was grated thin by my frail physical condition.
There were people of many nationalities, more than I saw in Gross-Rosen.The barracks were larger, each holding at least 600 men. My Kapo was a Polish Jew with a brother in the camp. He was a cruel and sadistic man.
The first day after we arrived we were loaded onto trucks covered with a tarpaulin. I expected the worst. I knew that people taken in groups were killed, We were brought to work in another Messerschmidt factory It was impossible to communicate with anyone in this factory We heard planes in the day and saw them flying low This was encouraging and gave us hope, unlike in Gross-Rosen, where the planes flew at night. During the air raids in Gross-Rosen the barracks were evacuated and we were convinced that bombs would be dropped. In Flossenbürg the low-flying planes were not threatening and I hoped or wanted to believe that it was the Allies surveying, checking out what they had to overcome. A plane that dropped bombs hurled itself from above and had a different presence than the American investigatory pilots.
It was probably the end of November when I was taken away from the factory to work on the railroad.This was physically taxing and the weather was becoming intolerable. It was a vicious circle; if you worked you were warmer but your strength was drawn; if you did not work you were cold.
We were forced to watch a mass hanging of inmates who had tried to escape. It was probably in December, as I recall seeing coloured lights decorating the SS homes on a hillside that was visible from the camp. îLong live Polandî and ìI will see you soonî were the last words of two of the prisoners. About ten inmates were hanged in the Appelplatz that night. Everyone in the camp was forced to file by and look at the bodies.
The Flossenbürg concentration camp as Peter entered it in 1944. The castel on the hill reminded him of the one in Munkács (Polanko). (KFF Archives)
The photograph of the Bavarian village Flossenbü was taken at the same time. The camp was located in the town.
I was more alone than ever; there was not even a single familiar face from Munkács. I was in a world outside of civilization. I had no idea that I was in Germany I worked on the railroad only for a few weeks. From there I was sent to work in the quarry I was a slave labourer toiling as in Gross-Rosen. Men were beaten and flogged to death for not working strenuously enough.As I write this, I am struck with the bizarre description of a man’s death being predicated on strenuous labour. It was not that he did not work laboriously or painstakingly or thoroughly enough, but rather that a whim had overcome the agent of murder and there was no changing one’s fate.
My hunger in the camps was never satisfied. It possessed me. My mind could think of nothing but how to fill this interminable void. I was empty People were like animals jumping each other for a piece of bread. At night in the bunk when trying to sleep, I would distract myself from hunger with images so real that I actually hallucinated that I was eating challah and watched my mother light Shabbat candles. As my morale diminished, I tried to replace it with prayer in order to survive. I had no choice but to have faith. There was no earthly reason for me to believe I would survive.
Every month there were selections. All of the prisoners were made to strip. The SS men marched up and down the rows pointing to the left or right. Some of the selections took place when new transports arrived.
Peter Kleinmann speaking with a 60-year resident of Flossenbürg who describes the former concentration camp as a "recreation camp." (Photo: Naomi Kramer)
This building, the former SS administrative building of the Flossenbürg concentration camp, 1995 was an apartment building located outside of the Memorial Site of Flossenbürg.
Illustration reconstructing the layout of the former concentration camp, distributed during 1995 commemorative events.
A former officer's baracl was a domestic residence owned by Ernst P. Gorl in 1995. (Photo: Naomi Kramer)
The same building 50 years earlier was used by the Americans after liberation as the officers' mess. The windows have been modified in the interim. (KFF Archives)
The former camp building housing the latrine and Appelplatz (open area). These were located outside of Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg. (Memorial Site of Flossenbürg) in 1995. (Photo: Naomi Kramer)
Prisioners' washroom in the former Flossenbürg concentration camp. (National Archives: Suitland, taken after May 1945, R. 810)
The Messrschmidt factory in Flossenbürg, and the interior of this factory where Peter worked assembling engines. (KFF Archives; Interior, courtesy Stanley S. Marcus)
Composite photograph of inmates in Flossenbürg waiting in the Appelplatz for a soup ration in 1942. The castle ruins of Flossenbürg are in the background. (Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie Herengracht, Amsterdam)
Inmates from the Flossenbürg concentration camp working on the railroad. (Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie Herengracht, Amsterdam)
General view of the camp and closeup of the electrified barbed wire surrounding the camp. (KFF Archives)
The crematorium 50 years later. (Photo: Naomi Kramer)
The crematorium is on the left. On the right, the watchtower and a chute to hasten moving the bodies from the main camp compound directly into the crematorium. This was not visible to the inmates. (KFF Archives)
The SS administrative building is the same building as that shown in the illustration on page 71. The barracks housed the SS troops. The casino and brothel; formerly used by the SS, is the long white building in the background. (KFF Archives)
The operating room in the Flossenbürg concentration camp. The surgeon was a civilian who performed operations without anesthetics or any sterile conditions. (National Archives, May 1945, R. 112; 39.61)
The quarry in Flossenbürg where Peter was forced to labour under threat of death. (Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie Herengracht, Amsterdam)
The "shooting wall" 50 years ago and what remains of it today. The foundation and back wall in this photograph taken in 1995 is what remain of the former kitchen, next to the shoting wall. (National Archives, May 1945 [338-Cases Tried Box 503-file 000-50-48] Neg. no. 1808, 810; Naomi Kramer)
