The Grafenort concentration camp was a subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp located in Grafenort Castle,Rolf O. Becker, Niederschlesien 1945: die Flucht die Besetzung, 6th ed., Munich, Aufstieg-Verlag, 1990, p. 317. . at modern Gorzanów in south-western Poland, which was operational throughout World War II.
For 68 days from 1 March 1945, the camp was run exclusively as a women's subcamp, with between 250-400 prisoners of Jewish ethnicity from the Łódź region, transferred from the Mittelsteine concentration camp. Despite initial illusions of luxury, the prisoners at Grafenort were subjected to slave labor, building fortifications, anti-tank trenches, against the advancing Eastern Front of the Allies. They were known for receiving the most brutal treatment of any female concentration camp.
Grafenort was one of thirteen Gross-Rosen subcamps located in the Giant Mountains, collectively holding over 13,000 prisoners, about 40% of whom perished. Positioned about 10.5 kilometres north of Bystrzyca Kłodzka in Lower Silesia, the camp was within proximity to significant locations like Wrocław and Prague. Grafenort Castle previously accommodated military garrisons.
The camp was liberated on 8 May 1945 by Soviet forces, emotionally affecting the first soldier to enter, a Russian Jew, upon discovering survivors. Among its notable inmates was writer Ruth Minsky Sender.
Overview Located in an expropriated Renaissance castle, the concentration camp was operational throughout the War, but for 68 days (2 months and a week) was formally run as an all-female subcamp (Frauenarbeitslager) of Gross-Rosen between 1 March 1945 and 8 May 1945 (the latter being the date of its liberation by the Soviets) in the aftermath of the strategic liquidation of the Mittelsteine concentration camp in the latter weeks of the Wara move which the Nazis initiated owing to the advancing Eastern Front.Edward Basałygo, 900 lat Jeleniej Góry: Tędy przeszła historia: Kalendarium wydarzeń w Kotlinie Jeleniogórskiej i jej okolicach, Jelenia Góra, 2010, p. 239. Basałygo cites the official records of the German Ministry of Justice for the dates of the camp's existence (1 March 19458 May 1945). (See Bibliography for online link.) In the course of liquidating Mittelsteine, the Nazis transferred between 250 and 300 female prisoners from Mittelsteine to Grafenort.Frauen-Arbeitslager Mährisch Weißwasser 1944/45: Zwangsarbeit für TELEFUNKEN; eine Überlebensstation auf dem Weg von Auschwitz nach Palästina mit der EXODUS; Erinnerungen, Daten, Bilder und Dokumente, ed. K. C. Kasper, Bonn-Oberkassel, Verlag Klaus Christian Kasper, 2002, pp. 6465. . Some sources put the documented number of prisoners evacuated from Mittelsteine to Grafenort in April 1945 at 400.Das nationalsozialistische Lagersystem: (CCP), ed. M. Weinmann, et al., 4th ed., Frankfurt am Main, Zweitausendeins, 2001, p. 641. . All of the prisoners in the transfer were women of Jewish ethnicity originally deported from the region of Łódź.Filie obozu koncentracyjnego Gross-Rosen: informator, Wałbrzych, Muzeum Gross-Rosen, 2008, p. 35. . This source puts the total number of prisoners transferred from Mittelsteine to Grafenort ("in late March or early April 1945") at 200. The distance between the Mittelsteine and Grafenort concentration camps is about 21 kilometres (13 miles) as the crow flies or 28 km (17 mi) by road. The reasons behind the liquidation of the Mittelsteine concentration camp and the transfer of its inmates to two other campsone of them being Grafenorthave not been fully understood by historians.Cf. Bella Gutterman, A Narrow Bridge to Life: Jewish Forced Labor and Survival in the Gross-Rosen Camp System, 19401945, tr. IBRT, New York, Berghahn Books, 2008, p. 206. , . (See also the history of the Mittelsteine concentration camp.)
The Grafenort concentration camp was one of the group of thirteen subcamps of Gross-Rosen located in the Giant Mountains (Riesengebirge) which were concentrated primarily in the region of the Owl Mountains. The group of camps held collectively over 13,000 prisoners, of whom approximately 40 percent perished from hunger and exhaustion brought about by slave labour.Andrzej Strzelecki, The Deportation of Jews from the Łódź Ghetto to KL Auschwitz and Their Extermination: A Description of the Events and the Presentation of Historical Sources, tr. W. Kościa-Zbirohowski, Oświęcim, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2006, p. 97. .
Location The camp was situated in the locality called since the latter part of the 17th century Grafenort (renamed Gorzanów after 1945) in what was at the time of the camp's existence the territory of the Third Reich, about 10½ kilometres to the north of Bystrzyca Kłodzka (), the nearest larger townwithin the region of Lower Silesia.
The regional metropolis of Wrocław (Ger., Breslau) is 103 kilometres (64 miles) to the north-east, while Prague in the Czech Republic is 203 km (126 mi) away in the opposite direction.
The camp The camp was located on the premises of Grafenort Castle.Waldemar Brygier, Tomasz Dudziak, et al., Ziemia Kłodzka: przewodnik dla prawdziwego turysty, Piastów, Oficyna Wydawnicza Rewasz, 2010, p. 329. . Grafenort Castle had been used for the quartering of military garrisons (as large as 200 strong) in earlier times.Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste..., ed. J. S. Ersch & J. G. Gruber, vol. 2 (HN), Leipzig, Gleditsch, 1830, p. 200, col. 1 (s.v. "Hessen, Adolph von"). Some works of reference indicate simply a preexisting "masonry building" (murowany budynek) lying on the periphery of the village as the site of the camp.Filie obozu koncentracyjnego Gross-Rosen: informator, Wałbrzych, Muzeum Gross-Rosen, 2008, p. 35. . Sara Zyskind, a survivor, recalls that the truck in which the female prisoners were deported from Mittelsteine to Grafenort pulled up in front of one of the mansions of which the village of Grafenort was full, but one "much larger than the others and situated somewhat apart"which is consistent with the description of Grafenort Castle.Sara Zyskind, Stolen Years, New York, New American Library, 1983, p. 201. . (1st English-language ed., 1981.) Another famous survivor, Sara Selver-Urbach, writes about the prisoners' delusions indulged in for the sake of mutual moral support and survival:Already in Mittelsteine, we heard about the princely palaces in which we would be housed [at the new camp in Grafenort explanation added], about the regal, magnificent beds that would be ours, about the gold plate off which we would be served meat and every other delicacy. Scornfully, we'd tell each other those tales with cynical disbelief.But the joke was of another kind altogether. The old building of the new camp had indeed been a regal palace previously, but its looks and accommodations have been transformed thoroughly for the purpose of housing us. The first impression was a shock: all the windows were boarded and barred with barbed wire, exactly like the Gypsy compound adjoining the Lodz Ghetto. Our second impression, when we entered the "Palatial Hall", was even more horrifying: the place was not divided into "rooms" and contained no bunks whatsoever, not even our former tiered shelves. All the inmates lay sprawled on the floor, all of them together in that one single hall which, to us, looked suddenly like a morgue, filthy blankets, bulging pallets almost glued to one another all over the floor.Sara Selver-Urbach, Through the Window of My Home: Recollections from the Lodz Ghetto, tr. (from Hebrew) S. Bodansky, 3rd ed., Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 1986, p. 172.However, the physical description of the camp in the report of Ruth Minsky Sender, another survivor, differs markedly, suggesting more than one facility associated with the Grafenort concentration camp. Sender, in her book The Cage, speaks about "many barracks spread about a large field" with "rows and rows of wooden bunks reach[ing] to the ceiling".Ruth Minsky Sender, The Cage, New York, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986, p. 233. . Clearly, the Grafenort concentration camp consisted of at least two parts where the prisoners were held.
The slave labour consisted in building fortifications (anti-tank trenches) against the advancing Eastern Front of the Allies, and the camp was perhaps the most notorious among all Nazi female concentration camps for the brutality of the treatment of prisoners. Bella Gutterman, the director of the International Institute for Holocaust Research, singles out Grafenort as the only camp where women prisoners were employed exactly like men in gruelling excavation work.Bella Gutterman, A Narrow Bridge to Life: Jewish Forced Labor and Survival in the Gross-Rosen Camp System, 19401945, tr. IBRT, New York, Berghahn Books, 2008, p. 163. , .
Liberation The Grafenort concentration camp was liberated, according to best sources, on 8 May 1945. Some sources indicate the date of the liberation of the camp as 7 May 1945Judy Galens, Experiencing the Holocaust: Novels, Nonfiction Books, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Films & Music, ed. S. Hermsen, vol. 1 (Novels, Nonfiction Books), Detroit, UXL, 2003, p. 150. .World War II: Primary Sources, comp. B. C. Bigelow, ed. C. Slovey, Detroit, UXL, 2000, p. 112. . Both sources citing the 7 May 1945 date come from the same publisher. or 9 May 1945.Das nationalsozialistische Lagersystem: (CCP), ed. M. Weinmann, et al., 4th ed., Frankfurt am Main, Zweitausendeins, 2001, p. 642. . According to the information collected by the Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team and other researchers, no Gross-Rosen subcamp was liberated on 7 Mayall of the Gross-Rosen subcamps were liberated between 8 and 9 May 1945.Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team (Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp).Isabell Sprenger, "Das KZ Groß-Rosen in der letzten Kriegsphase"; in: Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager: Entwicklung und Struktur, ed. U. Herbert, et al., vol. 1, Göttingen, Wallstein Verlag, 1998, p. 1124. .Andrzej Strzelecki, The Deportation of Jews from the Łódź Ghetto to KL Auschwitz and Their Extermination: A Description of the Events and the Presentation of Historical Sources, tr. W. Kościa-Zbirohowski, Oświęcim, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2006, p. 96. . The first Soviet soldier to enter Grafenort, a Russian Jew, was overcome with emotion when he realized that there were still some survivors left at the camp.
Notable inmates Ruth Minsky Sender, writer
Bibliography Obozy hitlerowskie na ziemiach polskich 19391945: informator encyklopedyczny, ed. Cz. Pilichowski, et al. (for the Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce and the Rada Ochrony Pomników Walki i Męczeństwa), Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1979, p. 509. . Alfred Konieczny, Kobiety w obozie koncentracyjnym Gross-Rosen w latach 19441945, Wrocław, Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1982. Roman Mogilanski, comp. & ed., The Ghetto Anthology: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Extermination of Jewry in Nazi Death Camps and Ghettos in Poland, rev. B. Grey, Los Angeles, American Congress of Jews from Poland and Survivors of Concentration Camps, 1985, page 246. Zygmunt Zonik, Anus belli: ewakuacja i wyzwolenie hitlerowskich obozów koncentracyjnych, Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1988. . (Inconceivably, the Grafenort concentration camp is misnamed "Grafendorf [sic!]" in this source.) Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, ed. I. Gutman, vol. 1, New York, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1995, pages 624625. . OK Enzyklopädie des Holocaust: die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden, ed. E. Jäckel, et al., vol. 1, Berlin, Argon, 1993, page 571. , . Women in the Holocaust: A Collection of Testimonies, comp. & tr. J. Eibeshitz & A. Eilenberg-Eibeshitz, vol. 2, Brooklyn (New York), Remember, 1994, pages 67, 204205. , .