Hellerberg camp for Jews
Remembrance has a face.
Dresden's last Jews are collected in the Hellerberg camp in November 1942.
Dresden in November 1942. The city's last Jewish residents, about 300 men, women and children, are forced to leave their homes and are taken to the Hellerberg camp on the northern outskirts of Dresden. The Gestapo organises and supervises this 'evacuation'. The 'municipal decontamination facility' is a stop along the way to the Hellerberg camp. In March 1943 the camp inmates are deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. Most are murdered immediately after their arrival. Only ten of them survive.
A film of the period showing the deportation to the Hellerberg camp was discovered in the mid-1990s. Twelve 60x60 cm reproductions have been selected from that film. The mundane nature of these pictures and their portrayal of the victims' faces lend an immediacy and intimacy to these events that is rarely seen. It is disquieting to observe the often unsuspecting and familiar expressions of women and children as they gaze into the camera, in contrast to the knowing, confident composure of the expressions on the faces of the perpetrators.
The exhibition panels are available on loan to interested institutions free of charge. The borrowing institution bears all responsibility for transport, insurance and erection. An introductory lecture about the exhibition and the film can be arranged.
View panels: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
The following publication was compiled as part of the research project on the Hellerberg camp for Jews:
Norbert Haase, Stefi Jersch-Wenzel, Hermann Simon (editors):
Die Erinnerung hat ein Gesicht. Fotografien und Dokumente zur nationalsozialistischen Judenverfolgung in Dresden 1933-1945 (Remembrance Has a Face. Photographs and Documents of the National Socialist Persecution of Jews in Dresden 1933-1945), revised by Marcus Gryglewski, Kiepenheuer Verlag Leipzig 1998.
„Zur Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Judenverfolgung in Dresden 1933-1945“ von Marcus Gryglewski (On the History of the National Socialist Persecution of Jews in Dresden 1933-1945) by Marcus Gryglewski
