Sachsenburg concentration camp

Sachsenburg was a Nazi concentration camp in eastern Germany, located in Frankenberg, Saxony, near Chemnitz.^[1] Along with Lichtenburg, it was among the first to be built by the Nazis, and operated by the SS from 1933 to 1937.^[2] The camp was an abandoned four-story textile mill which was renovated in May 1933 to serve as a "protective custody" facility for dissidents such as Jehovah's Witnesses, who opposed the Nazi regime.^[2]

Sachsenburg was the first concentration camp in which SS used colored triangles sewn onto clothing, as well as armbands, to identify categories of prisoners.^[2] Details about the operation of Sachsenburg, held in 17 files (each containing several hundred SS reports) by the International Tracing Service, only became available to researchers in late 2006.^[2]

Indians

The Spanish author Emilio Calderón claims in his novel "La Bailarina y el Inglés" that in the town of Frankenberg the Nazis had a broadcasting facility that helped Subhas Chandra Bose, the assigned leader of India after the Endsieg, to propagate his ideological views to his countrymen all over the globe (see: La Bailarina y el Inglés by Emilio Calderón, ed. Grupo Planeta, Barcelona 2009). Bose was open to take help of Nazis and Japanese for Indian freedom movement and followed the principle of "Enemy of the Enemy is your Friend". The "Corps Freies Indien" and other Indian pro-independence organizations are supposed to have been centered there.

This is made more precise by the Lexikon der Deutschen Wehrmacht: the authors explain in their respective article that Frankenberg was only the second location of the Indian Legion, as they call it, after it had been founded. Later it was moved to another place near Dresden because Frankenberg was too small a military training ground to host a unit that was meant to grow up to the size of two battalions.

Interned people

Alfred Kästner^[3]

References

^ Frühe Konzentrationslager in Sachsen 1933–1937, Stiftung Sächsische Gedenkstätten
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Arthur Max (2006-12-24). "Holocaust infrastructure much larger than previously thought, historians say". USA Today. Retrieved 2009-04-23.
^ Ilse Krause (1960). Die Schumann-Engert-Kresse-Gruppe: Dokumente und Materialien des illegalen antifaschistischen Kampfes (Leipzig, 1943 bis 1945). English translation of the quote: "In September 1933, the Gestapo arrested Alfred Kästner [and] his family. He betrayed none of his comrades. [T]he Gestapo released his relatives after a few weeks[. Alfred] was sentenced to [32] months' imprisonment after 20 months in custody, which involved torturous ill treatment. Then the fascists dragged him through the concentration camps Sachsenburg, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald. [This] did not prevent him from resuming his political work after his release in 1939.". p. 96. Im September 1933 verhaftete die Gestapo Alfred Kästner zusammen mit seiner Familie. Er verriet keinen seiner Genossen. Während die Gestapo nach einigen Wochen seine Familienangehörigen entließ, wurde er nach 20 Monaten Untersuchungshaft, die mit qualvollen Mißhandlungen verbunden war, zu zwei Jahren und acht Monaten Zuchthaus verurteilt. Anschließend schleppten ihn die Faschisten durch die Konzentrationslager Sachsenburg, Sachsenhausen und Buchenwald. Die schweren Mißhandlungen hinderten ihn nicht, nach seiner Entlassung im Jahre 1939 die politische Arbeit wieder aufzunehmen.