Forgotten Horrors: The Nazi sub-camp system

Aschersleben, showing the site of the Junkers plant (right of centre) and the site of the men's subcamp (top left). Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerk AG opened another plant in May 1935, in the town of Aschersleben, located on what is now Walter-Kersten-Straße, to the NW of the city centre. In immediate proximity, to the south of the site of the plant, is a freight depot, which is now reduced by half of its former area. Junkers had used foreign forced labour at its various plants from the start of the war, employing them on the manufacture of aircraft components, particularly fuselages for the Junkers JU88. Aschersleben men's camp site, as seen from the main road (Google Earth) At Aschersleben, a subcamp was built just NW of the freight depot for this purpose. It was given the code name ‘Maus’ and was one of around a dozen such subcamps serving the plant. Alongside manufacture of the Junkers JU88, prisoners also worked on the Heinkel HE 162, for which the factory had been con...

  In mid-November 1943, prisoners from Buchenwald were brought a barracks complex in Bad Arolsen (Arolsen). Waffen SS soldiers had been based there from 1935 and in January 1944 the Leadership School of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (WVHA) also began operations there. The first prisoners were brought to the site to perform conversion tasks in the building as they had relevant skills. Some prisoners were employed at the SS clothing depot in Arolsen. Others worked in the tailor shop, a carpentry workshop, in the electrical and automotive workshops, a kitchen and canteen, the SS barbershop, and as gardeners and cleaners. The prisoners were held in the eastern wing of a former tool and machine hall, equipped with three-tiered bunk beds. There was also an infirmary and a sanitary area in the building. In January 1944, the total number of prisoners reached 80, but by September it had increased again to 123. The SS rotated the prisoners through the camp, meaning that a ...