MEMORY IN PRACTICE

Since March 1944, families from the Soviet Union had been housed in the library room of the German Museum. The men, women and young people were assigned to the city’s immediate standby unit and had to help mainly with clean-up work after bombing raids.

Construction of the former Reichsbahnausbesserungswerke camp began at the end of 1942 on the site on today’s Ehrenbürgstraße. The first forced labourers arrived in the same year. A total of at least 1,000 people were housed here until the camp was liberated in April 1945. The camp was administered by the Reichsbahn and run by German employees. The people lived in cramped conditions without privacy and often suffered from hunger. The forced labourers came mainly from the Soviet Union, Poland, France, the Netherlands and Italy. Most of them had to perform heavy labour in the nearby Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk (RAW) Neuaubing. Armed guards led them in columns past the neighbouring residential buildings to their workplaces in the morning and back to the camp in the evening. After the end of the war, the camp was first used as a refugee camp, then as accommodation for railway employees and small businesses. Today, eight barracks remain. The NS Documentation Centre Munich is currently developing a place of remembrance for forced labour. The opening is planned for 2025.

The camp was built in the summer of 1942 and consisted of 19 living quarters and 5 special barracks for up to 2,000 people. After it was destroyed in air raids in September/October 1943, it was repaired by the camera factory at its own expense.

Up to 300 forced labourers from different countries (Belgium, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Poland, Soviet Union) were accommodated in the barracks housing camp maintained by the construction company Leonhard Moll, and were employed by the company on various construction sites in the city area. During an air raid on 16/17 November 1944, the camp was hit and largely destroyed. At least 20 forced labourers were killed.

This camp for “Eastern workers” was built with budgetary funds from the city of Munich: The 200 forced labourers housed in this camp were used by the city of Munich to repair damage after air raids and lent to private construction companies. The camp at Cimbernstraße 68 was converted into a refugee camp (residential camp for 290 people) after 1945.

The camp consisted of a partial camp for French and a partial camp for “Eastern workers” and had a capacity of about 1,500 people. They were mainly employed in the Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk (RAW) Freimann.

In 1944/45, up to 438 female forced labourers, mainly from the Soviet Union, Poland and France, were housed in the Boschetsrieder school. Most of them worked for the Siemens and Halske company, but also for the Uher company, among others. During an air raid on this company on 11/12 July 1944, at least 9 female residents of the camp were killed.

In 1944/45, the school housed up to 400 Soviet prisoners of war who were employed by various companies in the city area.

From 17 August 1944 to May 1945, about 700 forced labourers, mainly from France, who worked for BMW, were housed in the school.

The barracks camp, with a capacity of up to 725 people, housed women of different nationalities who had to do forced labour for the Metzeler company.

At the end of 1939, 150 Yugoslavs and Slovaks were housed in the forced labour camp of the Reichsbahn, which had already existed before the start of the war. Later, the camp was used as a prisoner of war camp and housed up to 800 prisoners.

The camp was built in 1942 to house “Eastern workers” of the Reichsbahn and comprised about 7 barracks.

The communal camp operated by the Reichsbahn housed civilian forced labourers who worked mainly in the Reichsbahn repair works in Freimann or in the construction of the marshalling yard, as well as several work details with prisoners of war, including work detail 3176L with 51 Frenchmen who worked for the Stöhr construction company, and work detail 1990 with 206 Frenchmen who worked for the army clothing office.

The camp was presumably established at the suggestion of the District President of Munich on 30 April 1942. It was guarded by a Gestapo officer and some women. The imprisoned women mainly worked in the neighbouring Reichsbahn depot in Baumkirchner Straße.

The prisoners were used for cable laying work, among other things.

The camp housed 70 Italians and 120 Frenchmen (prisoners of war on leave and civilian workers). After extensive destruction during an air raid, most of the residents were moved to the Gebeleschule.

The collection camp operated by the Steinheil company had a capacity of 840 persons. It was mainly occupied by forced labourers from the Soviet Union. In August 1943, 595 women and 176 men lived there. The camp was partially destroyed by the air raid on 2 October 1943, but was subsequently rebuilt.

The camp was planned as a shelter for bomb-damaged people and was built by the city’s construction office Hochbauamt. Most of it (15 barracks) was already completed in May 1944.

The housing camp for forced labourers of the newly built BMW aircraft engine plant (BMW II) in Allach was built in 1942 and had a capacity of 3,000 people. It consisted of a two-storey utility barrack, several communal facilities and a number of residential barracks. In autumn 1944, a section to the south was separated and fenced off as a so-called “Russian camp”. It consisted of 5 accommodation barracks, one utility barrack and 4 sanitary barracks and was guarded by SS members.

The barracks camp, which was built in late summer 1940, housed forced labourers who were used by the city of Munich to redesign the “capital of the movement”. Initially these were Italian civilian workers, but from 1941 they were mainly prisoners of war from Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Among other things, they were employed by construction companies working for the city. The camp was heavily destroyed in an air raid on 21/22 December 1942, but was subsequently rebuilt. In September 1944, 425 Soviet prisoners of war were housed there. After the end of the war in 1945, the camp was converted into a refugee camp for several years.