Venusberg Subcamp
January 8, 1945 – April 13 or 14, 1945
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Prisoner camp in Venusberg, 1944. The photo was secretly taken by an unknown photographer.
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Aerial view of the former factory grounds in Venusberg, 2019 (Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial / Photo: Rainer Viertlböck)
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Prisoners
In January, 500 Hungarian-Jewish women arrived from the concentration camp Auschwitz. On February 20, 500 women were transferred from the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. 180 came from Hungary, 144 from Poland, 102 from Greece.
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The other women were French, Dutch, Italian, Czech, German, Turkish, and Yugoslavian.
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Forced labor and quarters
Production of aircraft parts for the Junkers-Werke Dessau. Junkers had relocated component parts manufacturing to the spinning mill of the Gebr. Schüller under the codename of “Venuswerke.”
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The prisoners worked in a separate section of the building on two floors. They were quartered in a fenced-off barracks compound surrounded by guard towers, located about a kilometer from the factory. The manager of the Spinnerei Schüller, Wunderlich, explicitly complained about the conditions in the subcamp, albeit unsuccessfully. One main point he protested against was that “the prisoners are so cooped up in a confined space that there is a distinct danger of epidemics breaking out.”
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Guards
Detail leader Johann Dücker, 20 guards and 21 female overseers
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Death toll
46 women; at least half of the women died on the death march from malnutrition and typhus
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Disbanding of the camp / end of the war
The subcamp was evacuated on April 13 or 14. After an odyssey lasting about two weeks jammed into closed cattle cars, the women reached the concentration camp Mauthausen on May 4, 1945. They were liberated a day later there by U.S. troops.
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Commemoration
A monument for the women and the few forced laborers who died was erected on the site of the former mass grave.