Bullenhuser Damm

Bullenhuser Damm is a street in Hamburg, Germany's Rothenburgsort quarter. At the former school "Schule Bullenhuser Damm", partly destroyed during air raids, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp was established in October 1944 [http://bundesrecht.juris.de/begdv_6/anlage_6.html Official list de icon] for more than 1,000 inmates to clean up the destroyed city. On the night of April 20 1945 20 children and their orderly were killed in the basement of the school.

The children of Bullenhuser Damm

Case history

The SS - physician Kurt Heißmeyer had done medical experiments to Soviet union prisoners of war at the camp Neuengamme. He ordered 20 Jewish children (10 boy and 10 girls) from the camp Auschwitz to continue his experiments. His purpose had been to inject tuberculosis bacteria and to excise the axillary lymph nodes.

British troops had entered Hamburg as the children and their orderly were brought into the basement of the school Bullenhuser Damm. SS-physician Alfred Trzebinski injected morphine into the children and they were hanged in boiler room. That same night 28 other adults died, mostly Soviet prisoners of war.

Criminal prosecutions

Some of the murderers were arrested, sent to trial and executed. In 1946 Trzebinski was arrested—after working for the British forces in the POW camp Neumünster—and sentenced to death during the "Curiohaus processes" in Rotherbaum. He was executed by hanging on 8 October 1946. [cite web |url=http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=360 |title=Axis History Factbook: Neuengamme Trial |accessdate=2008-10-11 ] [cite web |title=Die Kinder vom Bullenhuser Damm |url=http://www.abendblatt.de/daten/2005/04/20/423690.html?s=2 |publisher=Hamburger Abendblatt |date=2005-04-20 |accessdate=2008-10-11 de icon] Heißmeyer practised under his real name as a physician till 1963 in East Germany. SS Obersturmführer Arnold Strippel was sentenced to 21 times lifelong imprisoment, but was later paroled.

List of the children

* Marek James,a boy, 6 years of age, from Radom, Poland.
* H. Wassermann, a girl, 8, Poland.
* Roman Witonski, 6, and his
* sister Eleonora, 5, from Radom, Poland.
* R. Zeller, a 12 year old boy from Poland.
* Eduard Hornemann, 12, and his brother
* Alexander, 9, from Eindhoven, from the Netherlands.
* Riwka Herszberg, 7, girl
* Georges André Kohn, 12, a boy from Paris, France.
* Jacqueline Morgenstern, 12, girl, from Paris.
* Ruchla Zylberberg, 8, a girl.
* Edouard Reichenbaum, a boy, 10.
* Mania Altman, 5, from Radom in Poland.
* Sergio de Simone, 7, a boy from Naples, Italy.
* Marek Steinbaum, 10.
* W. Junglieb, a 12 years ol boy.
* S. Goldinger, a girl, 11.
* Lelka Birnbaum, a girl, 12.
* Lola Kugerman, 12.
* B. Mekler, 11, a girl. [cite web |url=http://www.schoah.org/stumme-zeugen/bullenhuser-damm.htm |title=Die Schule am Bullenhuser Damm |accessdate=2008-04-20 |format= de icon]

Aftermath

The building was again used as a school after 1948. Not until 1963 was a plaque, without mention of the Soviet victims, affixed to the stairway. In 1980 informational signs were placed in the basement; and the Senate (government) of Hamburg declared the school as a memorial site, renaming it to Janusz Korczak school. (Korczak was a Polish-Jewish pediatrician and author, who died at Treblinka extermination camp with about 190 orphans.) A rose garden was established 1985, because the school was in use until 1987. Later in the Schnelsen quarter several streets were named after the children and a memorial tablet was installed there.

In 2005 Wolfgang Peiner, Minister of Finance of Hamburg, published plans to sell the building Bullenhuser Damm 92/94. After several protests a spokesman denied these plans.

ee also

*List of subcamps of Neuengamme
*Cap Arcona

Notes

Literature

* Günther Schwarberg: Meine zwanzig Kinder. Steidl, Göttingen 1996, ISBN 3-88243-431-7 de icon
* Günther Schwarberg: Der SS-Arzt und die Kinder vom Bullenhuser Damm. Steidl, Göttingen 1988, ISBN 3-88243-095-8 de icon

External links

* [http://www.abendblatt.de/daten/2005/04/20/423690.html?s=2 Hamburg newspaper article 2005] de icon
* [http://www.annefrank.dk/Bullenhuser.htm annefrank.dk website]
* [http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/VR/ROSE.htm VR Movie: Rose Garden for the Children of Bullenhuser Damm] A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust