Posting

From Name to Number

Art, concentration camp, Women in concentration camp

key data

details
place/state: Lower Saxony
SCHOOL: Kooperative Gesamtschule Stuhr
TEACHER: Ilse Henneberg
age group: 16 years and older
subject: Religion

learning activities
Creating an exhibition
Learning by research at memorial sites
Reflecting forms of remembrance
Working with art

topics
Arrival/registration procedures
Art drawn in concentration camps
Bergen-BelsenOpened in 1940 as a prisoner-of-war camp, this facility was renamed Stalag 311 in 1941 when it housed approximately 20,000 Soviet POWs, 16,000-18,000 of these prisoners died of epidemics, malnutrition and exposure by 1942. The camp was renamed Bergen-Belsen in April 1943 and then held male and female Jews with foreign passports or visas who might be exchanged for German nationals held abroad. Between March 1944 and early 1945, Bergen-Belsen received prisoners from other camps for possible exchange as well as large numbers of prisoners evacuated from camps in the east. Rapidly deteriorating conditions led to massive epidemics, starvation and the deaths of thousands.
BuchenwaldA concentration camp opened in 1937 on the Ettersberg hillside overlooking Weimar, Germany. The first German and Austrian Jewish prisoners arrived in 1938, German and Austrian Gypsy prisoners were deported there after July 1938. During the war, nearly 65,000 of Buchenwald's 250,000 prisoners perished, others died in its more than 130 satellite labor camps. Buchenwald was one of the few major camps where prisoners rebelled in the days preceding liberation by units of the U.S. Army on April 11, 1945.
Concentration camps
DachauThe first durable concentration camp, near Munich, Germany, opened in late March 1933. At first, political opponents were interned in Dachau. Gradually more groups were incarcerated there. In Dachau, there was no mass extermination program, but out of a total of 206,206 registered prisoners, there were 31,591 registered deaths. However, the total number of deaths in Dachau, including victims of individual and mass executions and death marches, will never be fully known. On April 29, 1945, the camp was liberated by units of the U.S. Seventh Army.
Mass murder
NeuengammeA concentration camp near Hamburg, Germany, opened in December 1938, initially as a satellite of Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Neuengamme became an independent camp in June 1940. British troops liberated Neuengamme on May 4, 1945.
Perpetrators
Ravensbrück
SachsenhausenConcentration camp for men opened in 1936. Located in Oranienburg, a suburb of Berlin and the site of an earlier "wild" concentration camp, Sachsenhausen was adjacent to the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps. It held about 200,000 prisoners, of whom 100,000 perished. It was liberated by the Soviet army in late April 1945.
Victims
Women in concentration camps

Relying on specialized literature, SSThe SS started as guard detachments formed in 1925 to act as Hitler's personal guard. From 1929 on, under Heinrich Himmler, the SS developed into the elite units of the Nazi party. These Nazi paramilitary, black-shirted storm troops used two symbols copied from Teutonic runes -- a parallel, jagged double S usually used as a warning for high-tension wires or lightning. The SS was built into a giant organization by Himmler and provided the staff for the police, concentration camp guards and fighting units [Waffen SS]. documents, and prisoner sketches, students from Lower Saxony reconstructed the arrival procedures at five concentration camps. To better understand what being confined was like, the students contacted survivors of the camps. They then exhibited the results of their research. During a stay at the BuchenwaldA concentration camp opened in 1937 on the Ettersberg hillside overlooking Weimar, Germany. The first German and Austrian Jewish prisoners arrived in 1938, German and Austrian Gypsy prisoners were deported there after July 1938. During the war, nearly 65,000 of Buchenwald's 250,000 prisoners perished, others died in its more than 130 satellite labor camps. Buchenwald was one of the few major camps where prisoners rebelled in the days preceding liberation by units of the U.S. Army on April 11, 1945. Youth Center, the students also created artwork to memorialize individual victims.

Working Process

During their summer break in 1995, students from the Cooperative Comprehensive School (KGS) in Stuhr, Lower Saxony, traveled to DachauThe first durable concentration camp, near Munich, Germany, opened in late March 1933. At first, political opponents were interned in Dachau. Gradually more groups were incarcerated there. In Dachau, there was no mass extermination program, but out of a total of 206,206 registered prisoners, there were 31,591 registered deaths. However, the total number of deaths in Dachau, including victims of individual and mass executions and death marches, will never be fully known. On April 29, 1945, the camp was liberated by units of the U.S. Seventh Army., Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, NeuengammeA concentration camp near Hamburg, Germany, opened in December 1938, initially as a satellite of Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Neuengamme became an independent camp in June 1940. British troops liberated Neuengamme on May 4, 1945., and Hanover-Ahlem concentration camp memorials in order to gain a better understanding of the process of degradation suffered by prisoners when they were turned into numbers on arrival in concentration camps. The staff of the memorial archives helped the students find an unexpectedly large number of prisoner art works and reports that documented the importance of arrival procedures.

During the following school year, the students evaluated their research as the class project for their Protestant religion class. The goal was to organize the materials into.a traveling exhibition entitled "From Name to Number." Participation was voluntary, but it was assumed that fifteen students would be actively involved.

Exhibition

The idea for the exhibition had originated during a previous visit to the Buchenwald Memorial. The exhibition was eventually planned with the help of Bernd Gempe, a member of the memorial's educational staff. The archives of the AuschwitzA complex of concentration, labor and extermination camps located approximately 40 miles west of Cracow in Upper Silesia (Poland). Established in 1940 as a concentration camp, it became a killing center in 1942. Auschwitz I was the central camp. Auschwitz II, also known as Birkenau, was the killing center. Auschwitz III, or Monowitz, was the IG Farben labor camps, also known as BUNA. In addition, there were numerous subsidiary camps. Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Army on January 27, 1945. State Museum, the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich, the Bergen-BelsenOpened in 1940 as a prisoner-of-war camp, this facility was renamed Stalag 311 in 1941 when it housed approximately 20,000 Soviet POWs, 16,000-18,000 of these prisoners died of epidemics, malnutrition and exposure by 1942. The camp was renamed Bergen-Belsen in April 1943 and then held male and female Jews with foreign passports or visas who might be exchanged for German nationals held abroad. Between March 1944 and early 1945, Bergen-Belsen received prisoners from other camps for possible exchange as well as large numbers of prisoners evacuated from camps in the east. Rapidly deteriorating conditions led to massive epidemics, starvation and the deaths of thousands. and SachsenhausenConcentration camp for men opened in 1936. Located in Oranienburg, a suburb of Berlin and the site of an earlier "wild" concentration camp, Sachsenhausen was adjacent to the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps. It held about 200,000 prisoners, of whom 100,000 perished. It was liberated by the Soviet army in late April 1945. memorials, and the German Federal Archives in Koblenz and Potsdam each contributed supplementary material. Thomas Rahe, director of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial, advised the group on the problems of using prisoner art and survivor reports.

The exhibition was put together with the following steps. First, students prepared text panels about concentration camp arrival procedures using specialized academic literature. Then they systematically organized SS documents and prisoner drawings based on the sequence of arrival procedures, and they chose concise passages from literature to describe the experiences and emotions of the prisoners. Next, working in small groups, the students reconstructed the arrival procedures for prisoners in five concentration camps.

The students also chose drawings that they had made for the exhibition during their visit to the youth center at Buchenwald. And finally, the students contacted survivors for more details about the arrival process.

The exhibition, which opened at the KGS in Brinkum in June 1996, was divided into three sections: the dehumanizing procedures upon arrival; the unique aspects of arrival procedures at each of the five concentration camps; and survivor eyewitness accounts. Each described prisoners' suffering as they were turned into numbers in the concentration camps.

First Section

SS documentation in the first section of the exhibition demonstrated the process of degradation. Humiliating the prisoners by turning them into numbers made it easier for perpetrators to systematically plan the factory-like processes for murder. Upon arrival, the SS not only robbed individuals of their freedom, but also their clothing, personal belongings, hair, dignity and names. SS photos and documents presented arrival at a concentration camp as a sober, bureaucratic, and functional process. A Wehrmachtsfrachtbrief [military freight letter] describing five train cars full of prisoners contains nothing about the pain and death of the deportees. The crime is clear only when perpetrator documents are juxtaposed directly with evidence from the victims, making the victims' perspectives.and suffering central. In the exhibition, prisoner literature and art supplemented this material, allowing the individual to become visible again. A number of prisoners clandestinely drew or wrote in order to counteract the loss of dignity and self-respect. The prisoners drew quick realistic pencil sketches of the degrading arrival process, showing the depersonalization of broken victims. If caught, prisoners faced possible torture and death.

Most of the approximately forty sketches in the exhibition were created under extreme conditions in the camps. Due to shortages of paper and other supplies, prisoner artists used any suitable material: scraps of paper, the backs of SS forms, coal, or pencil stubs. The original drawings were often small so that they were easier to hide. Most of these drawings were enlarged for the exhibition. Color drawings, such as the watercolors by the artists imprisoned in Buchenwald, are rare. Only those prisoners ranked high in the prisoner hierarchy, such as political prisonersGerman and foreign political opponents of the Nazi regime were frequently arrested and sent to jails, labor and concentration camps. Their prisoner uniform had a red triangle, often with the initial for their country of origin (P for Poland, I for Italy). protected by their comrades, were able to obtain paper and paint. Artists such as Thomas Geve, Alfred Kantor, Wladyslaw Siwek and Mieczyslaw Koscielniak produced most of the colored and detailed works of art after liberation, when they were no longer in physical danger.

Very few well-known photographs were used in the exhibition, since they have become icons that would cause the visitor, especially students, to "write off" events as already known. Instead, the juxtaposition of SS photos and documents to prisoner drawings and quotations allowed the viewers space for their own perspectives. Personal testimonies made it possible for the visitor to become emotionally involved, while simultaneously demonstrating the unbridgeable gap between the viewer and historical reality. Each visitor was left to decide the meaning of this past for him or herself.

Second Section

The second section of the exhibition dealt with arrival procedures and experiences at five concentration camps. The exhibition used historical photos matched to a map of the camp to show the arrival of prisoners at Dachau, the model for other concentration camps, where arrival procedures were "tested." Historical photos and a camp map showed the arrival of prisoners. The arrival process eventually changed in the late 1930s with structural and functional alterations in the concentration camp system.

These changes, especially the role of political prisoners during the arrival of transports, were presented in detail on a panel about Buchenwald. The discussion of Ravensbrück focuses, through quotations and drawings from the.camp, on hair shaving and gynecological exams performed on women prisoners. Initially, the exhibitions developers decided not to explore gender specific experiences during arrival in order to avoid hasty or simplistic generalizations and comparisons of the suffering of women and men.

The Bergen-Belsen internment camp was unique because some Jews destined for ransom exchanges were allowed to keep their belongings, clothes and hair.

In Hamburg, two students visiting the Neuengamme memorial found that a prison is now located on the grounds of the former concentration camp!

Third section

The third section of the exhibition opened with the sentence "I am human again!" taken from a letter written by Ilse Stephan after liberation from Bergen-Belsen. In this segment, survivors, men and women who had been depersonalized by numbers, are introduced through photos, personal histories, books and letters that offer testimony about Nazi crimes, and all those who supported and cheered the Nazis. This testimony, which included the statements of only those survivors who had not published books or memoirs, also documented the humanity of the victims. In the exhibition, the students used charred photographs pasted on pieces of gray-black cardboard along with survivor narratives to suggest that survivors still live with this trauma more than fifty years after liberation.

Art Works

In the space between the twenty-two exhibition panels, student art works were displayed by theme. These works were made during the students' visit to the Buchenwald memorial. They commemorated the victims and their pain, and also linked historical events with the present and helped to create visual "stumbling blocksArts project to commemorate the expulsion and murder of Jews, Sinti and Roma, victims of euthanasia, politically and religiously persecuted persons and homosexuals by the Nazis. Concrete blocks with a brass plate fixed on top are set into the sidewalk in front of the houses where persecuted persons used to live. The names and most important personal data of the persecuted persons are engraved into the brass surface. The project idea was developed by Cologne sculptor Günter Demnig in 1990. More than 5,500 stones have been installed in numerous towns up to now. Persons wanting to support the project can take on a "godparenthood" for the production and installation of a stone." that encouraged the visitor to take a stand and to identify emotionally with the past. The exhibition also helped visitors visualize and understand complex historical events.

Slides

Slides showed daily camp life from receipt of a prisoner number until death. At the close of the exhibition, the words "Is this a human being?" were projected on the back of a plaster of Paris body.

We hope the exhibition led people to remember Nazi crimes and to commemorate the victims and survivors.