Apolda

The Apolda subcamp was established in mid-February 1945, utilising a large bakery belonging to the “Thüringen" consumer cooperative, which had, since September 1939, supplied bread daily to Buchenwald. Eight prisoners were assigned to work there by the SS. They were accommodated on an upper floor of the bakery but nothing else is known about this.

The prisoners were specially selected because they were trained bakers, possibly even master bakers. They were aged between 42 and 64 and had been incarcerated because they were all Jehovah’s Witnesses. They had all suffered years of imprisonment for this reason. Martin Bertram from Frankfurt am Main, Otto Hörnig from Lützen (near Leipzig), and Otto Berthold from Oberlungwitz in Saxony, had first arrived at Buchenwald in 1937.

These eight prisoners remained at the bakery until they were liberated by US soldiers on 12th April 1945. They did not work at the baking ovens but instead at baking tables alongside other bakers.

No deaths were recorded at Apolda and there is no information available regarding illnesses the prisoners may have suffered.

All that is known about guard arrangements is that in February 1945 the eight bakers were supervised by two SS men.

The site of the bakery is now covered by a shopping centre.



 

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