BERLIN-ORANIENBURG KONZENTRATIONSLAGER DEUTSCHLAND
Nancy (?) France: Croix-Rouge Française, 1936-1945. Item #43212
; No Date (1936-1945). Single sheet, printed on one side, approximately 4 x 3 inches. Unused label for packets sent via the French Red Cross based in Nancy, France to inmates in Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
“The SS established the Sachsenhausen concentration camp as the principal concentration camp for the Berlin area. Located near Oranienburg, north of Berlin, the Sachsenhausen camp opened on July 12, 1936….
In the early stage of the camp's existence the SS and police incarcerated mainly political opponents….Between 1936 and 1945, however, Sachsenhausen also held Jews, gay men, Jehovah's Witnesses, ‘asocials’ (among these prisoners were Roma and Sinti), and, later, Soviet civilians. Prominent figures interned in Sachsenhausen included Pastor Martin Niemöller, former Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg, Georg Elser, Herschel Grynszpan, and Joseph Stalin's son, Yakov Dzhugashvili….
During the nationwide Kristallnacht (‘Night of Broken Glass’) pogrom of November 1938, Reichsführer SS (SS chief) and Chief of German Police Heinrich Himmler ordered the arrest of up to 30,000 Jews. The SS transported those arrested to Sachsenhausen, Dachau, and Buchenwald concentration camps. Almost 6,000 Jews arrived in Sachsenhausen in the days following the Kristallnacht riots….
In the spring of 1944, SS authorities began to bring thousands of Hungarian and Polish Jews from ghettos and other concentration camps to Sachsenhausen as the need for forced laborers in Sachsenhausen and its subcamps increased. Many of these new Jewish prisoners were women….
The guards of Sachsenhausen in the early years of the camp were men from the SS Death's Head units (SS-Totenkopfverbände); later, members of the Waffen-SS were transferred to the SS Death's Head Battalion and deployed as guards” (USHMM).
For the Red Cross’ description of its attempts to support concentration camp inmates, see www.icrc.org/en/document/icrc-wwii-holocaust.Toning, otherwise Very Good Condition. Displayable (B) (Holo2-163-7).
Price: $225.00