The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945.
Volume I: Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA)
The Gross-Rosen subcamp for women at Ludwigsdorf (later Ludwikowice Kłodzkie) came into being in the summer of 1944. However, the history of the camp located here goes back considerably longer. Since at least June 1942, there was a camp at Ludwigsdorf. The camp was situated in a valley on the edge of Ludwigsdorf and was surrounded by forest and mountains. It was composed of two sections: male and female. There was a common bathhouse for women and men on the border of the two sections. There were approximately 400 prisoners, Polish Jews, in the women’s camp; the men’s section held 600 Jews, who were Polish, Dutch, Belgian, and French nationals.1 Both the women and the men were put to work at the Dynamit AG and Mölke-Werke ammunition factory. Although the death rate at the camp was very high, the population remained the same. That was because new transports of Jews were sent to Ludwigsdorf from other camps. The following is known about the Ludwigsdorf camp:
On June 23, 1942, an unknown number of women arrived from the camp at Ottmuth (later Otmęt); among them was Cesia Finkiel; both sections of the camp were already in existence then.
In early 1943, a group of men arrived at Ludwigsdorf from the camp at Brande (later Prądki in Opole Province); Kazimierz Olszewski arrived in that transport.
In April 1943, approximately 100 girls arrived from the Gogolin forced labor camp for Jews; Fela Kurztag was in that transport.2
In late November and early December 1943, an unknown number of men arrived from the camp at Annaberg (later Góra Świętej Anny); Dawid Gliksman was in that transport.
In early spring 1944, approximately 50 Dutch women were transported to Ludwigsdorf.3
On March 28, 1944, a transport of 198 men arrived from the defunct camp at Markstädt. They were sick and weak prisoners who had undergone a selection and were unfit for work at the Krupp works in Fünfteichen. Berek Goldman arrived in that transport.
In April or May 1944, approximately 10 women from the camp at Annaberg were admitted.
Prior to July 1944, an unknown number of Jewish women from Hungary were transported to Ludwigsdorf.
In July 1944, women were brought from the defunct female camp at Klettendorf in Breslau (later Klecina, a section of Wrocław).
Between late August and September 24, 1944, a transport of Polish Jewish women arrived; it is probable that the women were brought from Auschwitz concentration camp.
In mid-1944, a decision was made to convert what had been a mixed men’s and women’s camp into a strictly female subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. On July 22–23 of that year, the men’s section of the camp was closed. Approximately 230 healthy prisoners were sent on to the camp in Faulbrück. However, 455 Jews unfit for work were sent on to Auschwitz concentration camp; 370 of them were gassed.
The new transports of women were lodged in the barracks that the men had vacated at Ludwigsdorf; approximately 600 women lived at Ludwigsdorf. The camp was guarded by the SS. The names of three guards are known: Margarite Schüler, Elizabeth Bischof (born June 7, 1916), and Winger. The name of the camp leader (Lagerführerin) is unknown.
All the women worked in the Dynamit AG and Mölke-Werke factory. The work went on continuously and was divided into three shifts of eight hours each. The women made ammunition, grenades, and other explosives. This work was extremely dangerous and a health hazard; the women were continuously exposed to a variety of dangerous chemicals. Weighing gunpowder was an especially hazardous job. The clouds of dust and gas caused heart, lung, and eye diseases. Depending on the type of gunpowder, the dye turned their skin yellow, green, or red. Giza Klein described the consequences of that work: “Many people got lung conditions because of the gunpowder. We were very dirty. You couldn’t get yourself clean. Everything was greenish yellow from the gunpowder. Your hands were pungent from gunpowder. Bread also had a bitter taste. There were no lice or bedbugs—they ran away from the gunpowder. The gunpowder killed every-thing.” The only supposed body protection they had was kerchiefs tied around their faces and an extra ration of a half liter (two cups) of milk a day. The death rate was high, due to the hazardous work, combined with the absence of medical care, hunger, and the terror prevalent in the camps (both the earlier camp and the Gross-Rosen subcamp). According to Josef Teichmann, a German who worked at the same ammunition factory, approximately 300 prisoners were buried in the cemetery behind the factory.
Production was halted at the factory in January 1945 due to the shortage of raw materials. The women were sent to dig ditches and to build defensive fortifications.9 In mid-April 1945, some of the prisoners were evacuated, at first on foot, then later by train, to the camp at Biesnitzer Grund. Cesia Finkiel, who was taken away in that transport, remembers that there were 300 girls in Görlitz. We do not know if they had all been transported there from Ludwigsdorf. Sick and weak women who were unfit for transport were left at the Ludwigs-dorf camp. Soviet soldiers liberated them on the night of May 8–9, 1945.
After the war, there were two trials of former SS guards from the Ludwigsdorf camp. Elizabeth Bischof was tried in 1946 by the Municipal Criminal Court in Jicin, in what is now the Czech Republic. On February 27, 1946, she was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. After she was released on probation on October 23, 1953, she went to Germany.10 Margarite Schüler, tried by the Wrocław District Court on October 31, 1947, was sentenced to 3 years in prison. She was released on January 3, 1949, having served her sentence
SOURCES:
There are no monographic essays on Ludwigsdorf. There is certain information about this camp in Bogdan Cy-bulski, Obozy podporządkowane KL Gross-Rosen (stan badań) (Rogoźnica, 1987).
The archival material on Ludwigsdorf consists mainly of former prisoner accounts on file at the AŻIH in Warsaw and AMGR in Wałbrzych. The AK-IPN in Warsaw contain reports of witness interviews regarding this camp.
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