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{{short description|Concentration camps in Nazi Germany (1940-1945)}}
{{Infobox concentration camp
| type               = [[Nazi concentration camp]]
| name               = Gross-Rosen
| image              = Gross Rosen 3.JPG
| image size         = 
| caption            = Gross-Rosen entrance gate with the phrase ''[[Arbeit Macht Frei]]''
| alt                = 
| location map       = Germany 1937
| map caption        = Location of Gross-Rosen within Nazi Germany
| other names        = {{langx|de|Konzentrationslager Groß-Rosen}}
| known for          = 
| location           = 
| built by           = 
| operated by        = 
| commandant         = {{plainlist|
*[[Arthur Rödl]], May 1941 – September 1942
*[[Wilhelm Gideon]], September 1942 – October 1943
*[[Johannes Hassebroek]], October 1943 until evacuation
}}
| original use       = 
| construction       = 
| in operation       = Summer of 1940 – 14 February 1945
| gas chambers       = 
| prisoner type      = mostly [[Jews]], [[Polish people|Poles]] and [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] citizens<ref name="gross-rosen.eu"/>
| inmates            = 125,000 (in estimated 100 subcamps)
| killed             = 40,000
| liberated by       = 
| notable inmates    = [[Boris Braun]], [[Adam Dulęba]], [[Franciszek Duszeńko]],  [[Heda Margolius Kovály]], [[Władysław Ślebodziński]], [[Simon Wiesenthal]], Rabbi [[Shlomo Zev Zweigenhaft]]<ref name="Konieczny1">{{cite book |last1=Konieczny |first1=Alfred |title=Arbeitslager Bunzlau I - podoboz KL Gross Rosen |publisher=Muzeum Gross-Rosen |isbn=83-919919-8-9 |pages=69, 75 |edition=2004}}</ref>
| notable books      = 
| website            = 
}}

'''Gross-Rosen''' was a network of German [[Nazi concentration camps]] built and operated by [[Nazi Germany]] during [[World War II]]. The main camp was located in the German village of Gross-Rosen, now the modern-day [[Rogoźnica, Lower Silesian Voivodeship|Rogoźnica]] in [[Lower Silesian Voivodeship]], Poland,<ref name="gross-rosen.eu" /> directly on the rail-line between the towns of [[Jawor]] (Jauer) and [[Strzegom]] (Striegau).<ref name="Rogoźnica">[http://www.gross-rosen.pl/ The Gross-Rosen Museum in Rogoźnica.] Homepage.</ref><ref name="Konieczny">Alfred Konieczny [[:pl:Alfred Konieczny|(pl)]], ''[[Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust]]''. NY: Macmillan 1990, vol. 2, pp.&nbsp;623–626.</ref> Its prisoners were mostly [[Jews]], [[Polish people|Poles]] and [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] citizens.<ref name="gross-rosen.eu"/>

At its peak activity in 1944, the Gross-Rosen complex had up to 100 subcamps located in eastern Germany and in German-occupied [[Czechoslovakia]] and [[Poland]]. The population of all Gross-Rosen camps at that time accounted for 11% of the total number of inmates incarcerated in the Nazi concentration camp system.<ref name="gross-rosen.eu"/>

==The camp==
[[File:Gross Rosen (b&w).jpg|250px|left|thumb|Model of the Gross-Rosen main camp from the Rogoźnica Museum<ref name="Rogoźnica"/>]]
KZ Gross-Rosen was set up in the summer of 1940 as a satellite camp of the [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp]] from Oranienburg. Initially, [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|the slave labour]] was carried out in a huge stone quarry owned by the ''SS-Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH'' (SS German Earth and Stone Works).<ref name="Konieczny"/> In the fall of 1940 the use of labour in Upper Silesia was taken over by the new [[Organization Schmelt]] formed on the orders of [[Heinrich Himmler]]. It was named after its leader ''[[SS-Oberführer]]'' Albrecht Schmelt. The company was put in charge of employment of prisoners from the camps with Jews intended to work for food only.{{fact|date=April 2024}}

The Gross-Rosen location, close to occupied Poland, was of considerable advantage.<ref name="Andrzejewski">Dr Tomasz Andrzejewski, Dyrektor Muzeum Miejskiego w Nowej Soli (8 January 2010), [http://www.tygodnikkrag.pl/cms/index.php/artykuy/nowa-sol/33-historia/628-marsz-mierci-znneusalz-skradziona-pami  "Organizacja Schmelt"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141021051618/http://www.tygodnikkrag.pl/cms/index.php/artykuy/nowa-sol/33-historia/628-marsz-mierci-znneusalz-skradziona-pami |date=2014-10-21 }} Marsz śmierci z Neusalz. Skradziona pamięć! ''Tygodnik Krąg.'' {{in lang|pl}}</ref> Prisoners were put to work in the construction of a system of subcamps for [[Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany|expellees from the annexed territories]]. Gross Rosen became an independent camp on 1 May 1941. As the complex grew, the majority of inmates were put to work in the new Nazi enterprises attached to these subcamps.<ref name="Konieczny"/>

In October 1941 the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] transferred about 3,000 [[German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war|Soviet POWs]] to Gross-Rosen for execution by shooting. Gross-Rosen was known for its brutal treatment of the so-called ''[[Nacht und Nebel]]'' prisoners vanishing without a trace from targeted communities. Most died in the [[granite]] quarry. The brutal treatment of the political and Jewish prisoners was not only in the hands of guards and German criminal prisoners brought in by the ''SS'', but to a lesser extent also fuelled by the German administration of the stone quarry responsible for starvation rations and denial of medical help. In 1942, for political prisoners, the average survival time-span was less than two months.<ref name="Konieczny"/>
[[File:WW2-Holocaust-Poland.PNG|thumb|Map of Nazi concentration camps in occupied Poland. Concentration camps are marked by black squares; Gross-Rosen is located on the far left of this map, in the province of ''Niederschlesien''.]]

Due to a change of policy in August 1942, prisoners were likely to survive longer because they were needed as slave workers in German war industries. Among the companies that benefited from the slave labour of the concentration camp inmates were German electronics manufacturers such as [[Blaupunkt]], [[Siemens]], as well as [[Krupp]], [[IG Farben]], and [[Daimler-Benz]], among others.<ref name="H.E.">Holocaust Encyclopedia (2014), [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005454  Gross-Rosen.]  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.</ref> Some prisoners who were not able to work but not yet dying were sent to the [[Dachau concentration camp]] in so-called ''invalid'' transports.

The largest population of inmates, however, were [[Jews]], initially from the Dachau and Sachsenhausen camps, and later from [[Buchenwald]]. During the camp's existence, the Jewish inmate population came mainly from Poland and [[Hungary]]; others were from [[Belgium]], [[France]], [[Netherlands]], [[Greece]], [[Yugoslavia]], [[Slovakia]], and [[Italy]].

Following the unsuccessful Polish [[Warsaw Uprising]] of 1944, the Germans deported 3,000 Poles from the [[Dulag 121 camp in Pruszków|Dulag 121 camp]] in [[Pruszków]], where they were initially imprisoned, to Gross-Rosen.<ref name=dul>{{cite web|url=http://dulag121.pl/encyklopediaa/transporty-z-obozu-dulag-121/|title=Transporty z obozu Dulag 121|website=Muzeum Dulag 121|accessdate=8 May 2021|language=pl}}</ref> Those Poles were mainly people of 20 to 40 years of age.<ref name=dul/>

[[File:Gross Rosen 6.JPG|thumb|Gross-Rosen memorial]]
[[File:Rogoźnica, Krematorium - fotopolska.eu (273564).jpg|thumb|Remains of the crematorium]]
[[File:Rogoźnica, Obóz koncentracyjny Gross Rosen - fotopolska.eu (273565).jpg|thumb|Mass grave of cremated victims]]

===Subcamps===
At its peak activity in 1944, the Gross-Rosen complex had up to 100 [[List of subcamps of Gross-Rosen|subcamps]],<ref name="gross-rosen.eu">{{cite web |url=http://www.gross-rosen.eu/historia-kl-gross-rosen/ |title=Historia KL Gross-Rosen |publisher=Gross-Rosen Museum |year=2014 |access-date=19 February 2014}}</ref> located in eastern Germany and German-occupied Czechoslovakia and Poland. In its final stage, the population of the Gross-Rosen camps accounted for 11% of the total inmates in Nazi concentration camps at that time. A total of 125,000 inmates of various nationalities passed through the complex during its existence, of whom an estimated 40,000 died on site, on [[death march]]es and in evacuation transports. The camp was liberated on 14 February 1945 by the [[Red Army]]. A total of over 500 female camp guards were trained and served in the Gross-Rosen complex. Female SS staffed the women's subcamps of [[Brünnlitz labor camp|Brünnlitz]], Graeben, [[Zielona Góra|Gruenberg]], Gruschwitz Neusalz, Hundsfeld, [[Kratzau|Kratzau II]], Oberaltstadt, [[Dzierżoniów|Reichenbach]], and Schlesiersee Schanzenbau.

The [[Gabersdorf labour camp]] had been part of a network of forced labour camps for Jewish prisoners that had operated under [[Organization Schmelt]] since 1941. The [[Textile mill|spinning mill]] where the female Jewish prisoners worked had been "[[Aryanization (Nazism)|Aryanized]]" in 1939 by a [[Vienna]]-based company called Vereinigte Textilwerke K. H. Barthel & Co. The prisoners also worked in factories operated by the companies Aloys Haase and J. A. Kluge und Etrich. By 18 March 1944 Gabersdorf had become a subcamp of Gross-Rosen.<ref name=megargee>{{Cite book| publisher = Indiana University Press| isbn = 978-0-253-35429-7| last = Megargee| first = Geoffrey P.| title = The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945: pt. A. The early National Socialist concentration camps. Introduction to the early camps| date = 2009|pages=717–731}}</ref>

One subcamp of Gross-Rosen was the [[Brünnlitz labor camp]], situated in the [[Czechoslovakia|Czechoslovak]] village of [[Brněnec]], where [[Schindlerjuden|Jews]] rescued by [[Oskar Schindler]] were interned.{{fact|date=April 2024}}

The Brieg subcamp, located near the village of [[Pępice, Opole Voivodeship|Pampitz]], had originally been the location of a Jewish forced labour camp until August 1944, when the Jewish prisoners were replaced by the first transport of prisoners from the Gross-Rosen main camp. The camp was mostly staffed by soldiers from the ''[[Luftwaffe]]'' and a few SS members. Most of the prisoners were Polish, with smaller numbers of Russian and Czech prisoners. Most of the Poles had been evacuated from the [[Pawiak prison]] in [[Warsaw]]; others had been arrested within the territory controlled by the [[Reich]] or had been transported from [[Kraków]] and [[Radom]].<ref name=megargee />

Brieg's camp kitchen was run by Czech prisoners. The three daily meals included 1 pint of ''mehlzupa'' (a soup made from water and [[flour|meal]]),<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = Interpress| isbn = 978-83-223-2138-6| last = Marszałk| first = Józef| title = Majdanek: The concentration camp in Lublin| date = 1986}}</ref> 150 grams of bread, 1 quart of soup made with [[rutabaga]], [[beets]], [[cabbage]], [[kale]] or sometimes [[nettle]]s, 1 pint of black "coffee" and a spoonful of [[molasses]].  Sometimes "hard workers" called ''zulaga'' would be rewarded with a piece of [[blood sausage]] or raw [[horsemeat]] sausage, [[jam]] and [[margarine]]. Prisoners also received {{not a typo|1 cup}} of [[Knorr (brand)|Knorr]] soup per week.<ref name=megargee />

===Camp commandants===
During the Gross-Rosen initial period of operation as a formal subcamp of [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|Sachsenhausen]], the following two ''SS'' ''Lagerführer'' officers served as the camp commandants, the ''[[Untersturmführer|SS-Untersturmführer]]'' [[Anton Thumann]], and ''SS-Untersturmführer'' [[Georg Güßregen]]. From May 1941 until liberation, the following officials served as commandants of a fully independent [[concentration camp]] at Gross-Rosen:
# ''[[Obersturmbannführer|SS-Obersturmbannführer]]'' [[Arthur Rödl]], May 1941 – September 1942
# ''[[Hauptsturmführer|SS-Hauptsturmführer]]'' [[Wilhelm Gideon]], September 1942 – October 1943
# ''[[Sturmbannführer|SS-Sturmbannführer]]'' [[Johannes Hassebroek]], October 1943 until evacuation

==List of Gross-Rosen subcamps with locations==
{{main|List of subcamps of Gross-Rosen}}
The most far-reaching expansion of the Gross-Rosen system of labour camps took place in 1944 due to accelerated demand for support behind the advancing front. The character and purpose of new camps shifted toward defense infrastructure. In some cities, as in [[Wrocław]] (Breslau) camps were established in every other district. It is estimated that their total number reached 100 at that point according to list of their official destinations. The biggest sub-camps included ''AL Fünfteichen'' in [[Jelcz-Laskowice]], four camps in Wrocław, ''Dyhernfurth'' in [[Brzeg Dolny]], ''Landeshut'' in [[Kamienna Góra]], and the entire [[Project Riese]] along the [[Owl Mountains]].<ref name="gross-rosen-filie">{{cite web |url=http://www.gross-rosen.eu/historia-kl-gross-rosen/filie-obozu-gross-rosen/ |title=Filie obozu Gross-Rosen |publisher=Gross-Rosen Museum (Muzeum Gross Rosen w Rogoźnicy) |access-date=16 October 2014 |trans-title=Subcamps of Gross-Rosen, interactive}}</ref>

==Post-war history==
After the war, the former camp was under control of the occupying Soviet forces until April 1947, when it was taken over by Polish administration.{{sfn|Sula|2013|p=165}} In 1953, a memorial to the victims designed by Adam Procki was unveiled.{{sfn|Sula|2013|p=165}}

===War crimes trial===
On 12 August 1948, the trial of three Gross Rosen camp officials, Johannes Hassebroek, Helmut Eschner and Eduard Drazdauskas, began before a Soviet Military Court. On 7 October 1948, all were found guilty of war crimes. Eschner and Drazdauskas were sentenced to life imprisonment and Hassebroek was sentenced to death, but this was later commuted also to life imprisonment.<ref>{{cite web | title=Nazi War Crimes Trials: Gross Rosen Trial (August 12 - October 7, 1948)| website=Jewish Virtual Library | url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/gross-rosen-trial-august-october-1948 | access-date=2019-01-15}}</ref>

===Museum===
From the 1950s to 1970s, the former camp was under the care of the [[Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum]] and the Historic Museum of Wrocław.{{sfn|Sula|2013|pp=165–166}} In 1958, the first museum exhibition was created.{{sfn|Sula|2013|p=166}} In 1963, the site of the former camp was added to the [[Registry of Cultural Property (Poland)|Registry of Cultural Property of Poland]].{{sfn|Sula|2013|p=166}} In 1976, it became a branch of the District Museum in [[Wałbrzych]].{{sfn|Sula|2013|p=166}} The Gross-Rosen State Museum was opened in 1983, after efforts by survivors from [[Warsaw]] and Wrocław.{{sfn|Sula|2013|p=166}}

On 10 May 2002, a ceremony to commemorate 19 officers of the [[Special Operations Executive]] murdered by Nazi Germany at Gross-Rosen in 1944, was held at the museum, with the participation of the families of the victims, various Polish officials and war veterans, and ambassadors of the [[United Kingdom]], [[Canada]] and [[France]].{{sfn|Sula|2013|p=172}}

Since its creation, the museum has been most visited by Poles, followed by Germans, according to data up to 2013.{{sfn|Sula|2013|p=177}}

==Notable inmates==
* [[Boris Braun]], Croatian university professor<ref>{{cite web |title=Aktuelles Detail – Gedenkstätte Buchenwald |url=https://www.buchenwald.de/315/date/2018/10/11/nachruf-11/ |website=www.buchenwald.de |access-date=15 June 2022 |archive-date=19 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211019072458/https://www.buchenwald.de/315/date/2018/10/11/nachruf-11/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
* [[Simon Wiesenthal]], Nazi hunter. He provides the following information about the camp in his 1967 book ''The Murderers Among Us''{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}:
:: "... healthy looking prisoners were selected to break in new shoes for soldiers on daily twenty mile marches. Few prisoners survived this ordeal for more than two weeks."
* [[Władysław Ślebodziński]], mathematician who taught prisoners<ref>{{cite book |last1=Greer |first1=Noelia Penelope |title=Władysław Ślebodziński |date=11 April 2022 |publisher=Patho Publishing |isbn=978-613-8-67272-2 |url=https://www.morebooks.de/store/gb/book/władysław-Ślebodziński/isbn/978-613-8-67272-2 |access-date=16 June 2022}}</ref>
* [[Shlomo Zev Zweigenhaft]], [[Vaad Rosh Hashochtim of Poland and Lithuania|Rosh Hashochtim of Poland]] and Chief Rabbi of [[Hannover]] and [[Lower Saxony]]<ref name="Konieczny1" />
* [[József Debreczeni]], author of the memoir, ''Cold Crematorium''
* [[Franciszek Duszeńko]], sculptor, maker of the [[Treblinka]] Monument
* [[Adam Dulęba]], Polish Army photographer
* [[Heda Margolius Kovály]], Czech writer and translator
* Philip Markowicz, author of the memoir, ''My Three Lives''
* [[Lucian Ludwig Kozminski]], convicted in the United States of swindling Holocaust survivors of their restitution money and alleged collaborator
* [[Adolphe Rabinovitch]], [[Special Operations Executive]] officer.
* [[Henri Story]], Belgian business man, politician and resistance member
* [[Paul Löbe]], former president of the German Reichstag
* [[Gertruda Sekaninová-Čakrtová]], Czechoslovak politician (imprisoned at Kurzbach subcamp)
* [[Nathan Cassuto]], Italian Rabbi and physician
* [[Paul Johannes Schlesinger]], Austrian trade unionist and politician

== See also ==
* [[List of Nazi-German concentration camps]]
* [[List of subcamps of Gross Rosen]]
* [[The Holocaust in Poland]]
* [[Nazi crimes against the Polish nation]]
* [[Project Riese]]
* [[Die Glocke (conspiracy theory)]]
{{Portal bar|Germany}}

== Notes ==
{{Reflist}}

== References ==
* {{cite book| last = Harthoorn| first = W.L.| title = Verboden te sterven: Oranjehotel, Kamp Amersfoort, Buchenwald, Grosz-Rozen, Dachau, Natzweiler| year = 2007| isbn = 978-90-75879-37-7 }}
* Willem Lodewijk Harthoorn [[:nl:Willem Lodewijk Harthoorn (verzetsstrijder)|(nl)]], an inmate from the end of April to mid-August 1942: ''Verboden te sterven'' (in Dutch: ''Forbidden to Die''), Pegasus, Amsterdam. 
* {{cite magazine|last=Sula|first=Dorota|year=2013|title=30-lecie Muzeum Gross-Rosen|magazine=Nowa Kronika Wałbrzyska|publisher=Fundacja MUSEION|location=Wałbrzych|language=pl|volume=1}}
* {{cite book| last = Teunissen| first = Johannes| title = Mijn belevenissen in de duitse concentratiekampen| year = 2002| isbn = 978-90-435-0367-9 }}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20111007091936/http://www.druhasvetovavalka.cz/galerie.php?g=grossrosen Druhasvetovavalka.cz] collection of photographs from the KZ Gross-Rosen World War II field trip.

== External links ==
{{Commons category-inline}}
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEQdVlVgSY4 Concentration camps of Nazi Germany: illustrated history] on [[YouTube]]
* The [[Death marches (Holocaust)|Death March]] [https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/volary_death_march/index.asp through Schlesiersee to Volary], at [[Yad Vashem]] website
* [https://www.chroniclesofterror.pl/dlibra/results?action=AdvancedSearchAction&type=-3&search_attid1=62&search_value1=Mass+extermination+%E2%80%93+KL+Gross%5C-Rosen Collection of testimonies concerning Gross-Rosen camp in 'Chronicles of Terror' database]

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{{Nazi concentration camps}}
{{The Holocaust|camps}}
{{Holocaust Poland}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp}}
[[Category:Gross-Rosen concentration camp| ]]
[[Category:1940 establishments in Germany]]
[[Category:1945 disestablishments in Poland]]
[[Category:Museums in Lower Silesian Voivodeship]]
[[Category:Registered museums in Poland]]
[[Category:Reich Security Main Office]]
[[Category:World War II museums in Poland]]
[[Category:World War II sites in Poland]]