KZ Hinzert Memorial: Trier, Germany

May 5, 2024

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In March I visited the KZ Hinzert concentration camp (the “KZ” stands for Konzentrationslager, the German word for Nazi concentration camps from 1933-1945) near Trier, Germany, located close to the borders of Luxembourg and France. Operated from 1939-1945, a memorial was opened here in 2005. I first discovered KZ Hinzert when I toured the absolutely incredible Topography of Terror museum and archive in Berlin. Pouring over a map of concentration camps in Germany, I noticed a small marker close to where we currently live (about an hour drive away).

A few weeks after visiting the memorial site, I watched the haunting Zone of Interest (2023) and found myself absolutely unnerved by so many aspects of the film (the sound! the dialogue! the wide shots!). But one of the most jarring was the mention of Hinzert among the list of concentration camps overseen by Rudolf Höss, the SS commander that expanded the murder capabilities of Auschwitz, approving the installation of a new gas chamber and crematorium system, along with the systemic mass deportation of over 700,000 Jewish people from Hungary into the death and labor camps established by the Nazis in Poland.

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Similarly to questions raised by activists on colonial photography — leading to an exhibit in Berlin’s Humboldt Museum (highly recommend a tour with Dekolonial ) — this post will not contain any photos of the victims of violence and control at KZ Hinzert. They did not have any say or agency when the perpetrators of crimes against them took photographs of forced labor, whether it be on plantations (as is in the German colonial context) or in extermination camps (imprisoned people at the control of the Nazis in power). What I find more useful — and similarly to how SS members are portrayed in Zone of Interest — is how the perpetrators photograph themselves implementing power, control, and war crimes, while enjoying the mundane activities of the every day — sipping coffee, reading a book, playing with a pet. Cameras can be just another weapon, another tool of oppression.

“The pictures mirror and result from a discrepancy of knowledge between the photographer and the photographed, which was also essential to the SS’ organisation of mass murder. Disentangling the circumstances of these pictures demonstrates most poignantly why we must move beyond the notion of visible, physical violence in order to address the brutality condensed in these pictures.”
Koppermann, Ulrike. 2019. “Challenging the Perpetrators’ Narrative: A Critical Reading of the Photo Album ‘Resettlement of the Jews from Hungary.’” Journal of Perpetrator Research 2:2. 101-129. Available here.

Particularly in the context of the Holocaust, photographs helped share the atrocities of the camps and the genocide of communities by the Nazis. In many ways, this evidence was used to convince that the violence was real, that murder and brutality took place. However, for me — especially as a person who utilizes photos to share — this is not the method I choose to tell the story of KZ Hinzert. Visually documenting war crimes is an important aspect, but one often abused, whether intentionally or not. Providing context and agency to this medium is an enormous undertaking and a growing field within archives that seeks to center the stories of those in the photos, returning their power back to them.

This post contains references to the Holocaust, forced labor, and executions. Please read with care ❤

KZ Hinzert

*Hinzert Concentration Camp in 1941*
*Source: **Frank Falla Archive** and the Topography of Terror Foundation*

Originally established as a “police detention and education camp” in October 1939, “work-shy” people were sent to KZ Hinzert as a part of “rehabilitation” and “disciplinary treatment”. Those forced to work here (on the autobahn of the Reich and the Westwall) were not only German Nationals deemed as “delinquents” by the Nazi government, but also citizens from occupied countries. An estimated 13,600 people transitioned through the camp during its operation.

The space transitioned to a concentration camp at the beginning of WWII, with the first commander of the SS camp, Hermann Pister, appointed in 1939 and official designation named in 1940. Political prisoners of German, Soviet, and Polish descent were forcibly detained here, as well as resistance fighters from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Following the passing of the “Nacht-und-Nebel” (“Night and Fog”) decree on December 7th, 1941, more than 2,000 French, Belgian, and Dutch members of resistance groups were deported to KZ Hinzert during May 1942 – October 1943. Imprisoned Polish men convicted of “forbidden relations” with “imperial” German women were also detained here until they could be reviewed and approved for their ability to “become German.” Nearly 14,000 people (ages 13-80) were forcibly detained at KZ Hinzert before the camp was evacuated to Buchenwald in 1945.

*Group Portrait of SS Officers in Front of A Barrack in the Hinzert Concentration Camp*
Photo Credit: **The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum**, curtesy of Robert A. Schmuhl
Description: Far right is Anton Ganz, second from right is Paul Sporrenberg (commander of the camp from 1942-1945) and center is Hermann Pister, the first commander of KZ Hinzert and later commander of Buchenwald from 1942-1945.

While the camp was designed to hold 560 people maximum, at times more than 1,200 people were forcibly held here. Violence, hunger, and grueling labor defined daily life in Hinzert. Imprisoned people were fed bread, coffee substitute, tea, and soup while working extremely long days in the nearby quarry and highway, exposed to the weather and other elements; their labor was also loaned out across the region to nearby companies (again, one of the great points made by Zone of Interest). They worked in mines, forestry, coal, and rubber.

One of the eyewitness accounts documented at the memorial stated:

“Companies, but also private individuals, turned directly to the “SS-Sonderlager Hinzert bie Hermeskeil,” as the postal address was called, and asked for the transfer of poisoners as cheap labor. It was mostly about wood transport, construction and earthworks, use in agriculture or in nurseries. In the surrounding communities such as Hinzert, Poleter, Rascheid;

Even within the camp, the prisoners had to do work on behalf of companies. For the company Romika, for example, rubber rings for plate mines were produced in the warehouse. Or the Hitler Youth… Hermeskeil asked in June 1942 whether the objects necessary for the repair of their sports field could by made by prisoners.

The prisoners also had to work in the camp in various workshops (tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, painters, etc.), in the laundry, in the clothing store, in the nursery, and also in the SS garage.”
AuBenkommando. SS Special Camp / Concentration Camp Hinzert Documentation Exhibit. Accessed: 7 March 2024.

Another account detailed the humiliation faced by imprisoned people at the hands of the guards — notoriously vicious toward those forcibly detained there — including acts of violence and humiliation. As noted by survivor Albert Kaiser, a union supporter from Luxembourg, they were forced to run naked in circles in front of (and to the amusement of) the local population; locals passed by the camp fence on the same road used today. This was further corroborated by Channell Islander Peter Hassall who stated: “all staring and seemingly pleased with the ‘show’ going on inside’”. Torture, neglect, and starvation were part of daily life at KZ Hinzert.

KZ Hinzert was not an extermination camp — the space was used primarily as a forced labor camp and transit holding for those sent to other camps across Germany and their occupied territories — but the SS did often murder those imprisoned here. While the total number is unknown (the recorded number is 321 killed due to lack of medical treatment, lethal injections, and torture), it was the site of the mass killing of a number of groups. Twenty-three people were murdered on 25 February 1944 as a warning to the Luxembourg resistance movement and seventy Soviet POWs were killed in 1941. Of those arrested during the Night and Fog decree, the French government estimates that at least 804 of their citizens were killed at KZ Hinzert.

After four years in operation, KZ Hinzert became part of the Buchenwald concentration camp system in November 1944. The camp remained opened — despite areas destroyed by an air raid — until March 1945 when survivors were either forced on a death march to Hessen or shipped to Buchenwald. Just two weeks later, the camp was discovered by the 94th Infantry Division, although very few people remained there at the time of liberation. Following 1945, the French government exhumed victims from mass graves located near the forest, returning their remains back to France and Luxembourg.

Memorial Today

The Memorial Site of the SS Special Camp / Concentration Camp Hinzert is near the German city of Trier. Very little of the camp remains standing today; the landscape of the surrounding area is peaceful and green, today dotted with slowly turning windmills. Easily accessible by car, the memorial offers a detailed map of sites related to the history of the concentration camp including locations of mass graves, the former quarry, and a number of related spaces.

Not included in the official map, but something to note, is the decommissioned Reinsfeld Bahnhof (train station). This station was the last stop for thousands of those deported to Hinzert; after exiting the train, they were forced to march the 3.25 km (two miles) from the station to the camp. The rail line was decommissioned in the 1980s and privately sold. Now an event space, an informational plaque was recently placed opposite the building, detailing the forced journeys of imprisoned people throughout Germany and its occupied countries.

*View of the Documentation and Meeting House from the cemetery.*

The intention behind the design of the Documentation and Meeting House was to:

“pursue the fundamental thoughts which portray the ambivalence of the present day idyll and the crimes of the past. They wanted to build a building ‘that reveals a fault of the countryside which deceives us of the idyll of this place’. With this building they wanted to set a ‘mark of an irritation.’ The exhibition to be integrated in this building was to be marked by the view to the grounds of the former prisoner’s camp.”
Landeszentrale Politische Bildung Rheinland-Pfalz. “The Memorial Site of the SS Special Camp / Concentration Camp Hinzert.” Blätter Zum Land (Number 71). 1-19.

The site consists of a couple of buildings including the Documentation and Meeting House, established in December 2005. This space includes information on the camp, SS guards, and incredible primary source material from survivors including oral narratives and artwork. I listened to the audio tour in English (provided free by the staff).

This aspect of the Documentation and Meeting House was incredible to see in person. The view outside is of what the space looked like as a concentration camp — this view was also seen from the road that connected the towns still in use today. The design gives visitors an idea of how massive this operation once was even if you can’t see any of this in the landscape in its present state. Outside, the view from this building is of meadows and recently built windmills.

*Located next to the Documentation and Meeting House is the Cemetery of Honor.*

Established in 1946 by the French military, the Cemetery of Honor was previously occupied by the guard’s barracks. While many of the victims murdered here were returned to their countries, there are 217 people still buried here.

Up until the 1990s, the cemetery “had a shadowy existence… and actually covered up the background of the camp” (as stated on the memorial’s website). Memorialization in Germany takes a number of forms and over a long period of time; I wanted to note how recent the genuine efforts to formally memorialize the spaces in the former KZ Hinzert actually are.

Lucien Wecollier’s memorial was commemorated on October 1986.
Wecollier was a Luxembourgish sculptor who rejected to join the Reich Chamber of Culture after Nazi Germany occupied Luxembourg. Instead, he joined a resistance organization (Letzeburg People’s Legion) and was arrested after refusing to join the mandatory conscription service. He was first deported to KZ Hinzert and then sent to Lublin, a camp in Poland, near today’s border with Ukraine.

Youth groups from Hermeskeil Gymnasium (upper school) and Luxembourg helped design the landscape and confront the history of the space at the former prisoner’s cemetery and site of the murdered Soviet prisoners of war (1941). These efforts were led by Mr. Volker Schneider.

[ Just an update on the SS officers in the photo posing at Hinzert:
Ganz: After WWII, Ganz went into hiding in Austria, then returned to Germany in 1949, working in construction under his real name. He retired in 1965 and was arrested two years later, then released on bail. His trial started in 1972 and he was sentenced to life imprisonment for four murders (he worked both in Hinzert, Mauthausen, and Ebensee concentration camps) but was released due to medical reasons and died of cancer in 1973.
Sporrenberg: Sporrenberg went into hiding after the war ended and was considered missing until he was arrested in 1959. He was accused of causing the deaths of at least 60 people through mistreatment, murdering people in nine cases, and carrying out the execution of 23 Luxembourgers in 1944. He died before the trial started in 1961.
Pister: After KZ Hinzert, Pister became the commander of the Buchenwald concentration camp. In 1945, Pister was arrested by American troops near Munich and was tried before the American Military Tribunal at Dachau for violating the Laws and Usages of War of the Hague Convention of 1907. He was found guilty in 1947 and sentenced to death, but died in Landsberg Prison of an acute heart attack in September 1948. ]

“And I think that we have a moral and one could also argue, legal obligation to compare the Holocaust and the atrocities committed during the Second World War to the present. If we take the promise of never again, seriously, we once again have to constantly be asking ourselves, are we laying the foundations for the mass murder of millions of people? Are we employing or as part of the world employing the same kinds of tactics that were employed by the Nazis?”
Treisman, Rachel and Leila Fadel. 2023. “Despite Backlash, Masha Gessen Says Comparing Gaza to a Nazi-Era Ghetto is Necessary.” NPR News. Available here.

Currently:

Reading: The Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade (Hannah Durkin)
Watching: Loot Season 2 (Hulu)
Listening: Cowboy Carter (Beyoncé)

Sources:

Cole, Teju. 2019. “When the Camera Was the Weapon of Imperialism (and Still is).” The New York Times Magazine. Available here.

Frank Falla Archive. 2024. “Hinzert Concentration Camp.” Frank Falla Archive. Available here.

Koppermann, Ulrike. 2019. “Challenging the Perpetrators’ Narrative: A Critical Reading of the Photo Album ‘Resettlement of the Jews from Hungary.’” Journal of Perpetrator Research 2:2. 101-129. Available here.

Landeszentrale Politische Bildung Rheinland-Pfalz. “The Memorial Site of the SS Special Camp / Concentration Camp Hinzert.” Blätter Zum Land (Number 71). 1-19.

Megargee, Geoffrey P. 2009. “Hinzert Concentration Camp.” The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume I: Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration. Available here.

Rosenthal, Nora. 2024. “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk about The Zone of Interest.” Cult MTL. Available here.

Treisman, Rachel and Leila Fadel. 2023. “Despite Backlash, Masha Gessen Says Comparing Gaza to a Nazi-Era Ghetto is Necessary.” NPR News. Available here.

4 responses to “KZ Hinzert Memorial: Trier, Germany”

Andreas Moser

May 5, 2024 at 1:39 pm

I am shocked to admit that I have never heard or read of KZ Hinzert before. (I am German and studying history.)

But I use the same method you did whenever I move to a new area: I go to a museum or get a book and look at a map with all the concentration camps, labor camps, Gestapo prisons, and so on. It’s always totally overwhelming and surprising. They were everywhere! And I find these smaller, lesser known places somewhat more poignant and impressive than the ones everybody visits (Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, and so on). It’s exactly the proximity and ubiquitousness of these sites of terror which can counter the folk narrative that the mass murder was committed secretly and that nobody couldn’t have known nothing.

Last year, I was staying in Müggelheim, a small and peaceful village on the outermost outskirts of Berlin. At the memorial for the slave laborers in Berlin, they had such a map as you saw at Topography of Terror. And lo and behold, there was a (small) concentration camp in Müggelheim. :O I noted down the address, went to the site the same afternoon, and there was a car-painting shop, houses in the old barracks. No sign, no memorial, no plaque, nothing.

When educators or activists sometimes demand that every German school should visit Auschwitz, I always think: Maybe it’s better to visit the sites in your own city/county. Because then you realize that it was your great-grandparents who did this, who knew about it, who possibly benefited from it.

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1. asphochasphoch
  
  May 6, 2024 at 9:31 am
  
  Thank you so much for such a thoughtful reply!
  
  You are absolutely right — those maps are so overwhelming and I’m ALWAYS learning something new. I’m American and when I talk about KZ Hinzert to other Americans around the area everyone is always very surprised to hear of its existence, even those who have visited the more well-known camps that you mention too. WOW about Müggelheim; I’m so interested in the decision on how and why spaces are memorialized while others are not. It reminds me a little of Płaszów, the concentration camp in Kraków. You literally stumble upon the remains of the camp (there are a few signs up in what looks like a field) but folks are walking dogs, etc, while Auschwitz is less than an hour away and clearly memorialized in a VERY specific and intentionally way. Of course it should be, but I’m just so curious about the decisions behind these choices (of course funding is a huge factor as well) and by whom.
  
  I totally agree on visiting the local sites near their hometown. In so many ways we “other” perpetrators of violence without understanding the people who committed crimes in our own country, town, etc. This is especially true in the American south.
  
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  1. Andreas Moser
    
    May 6, 2024 at 10:45 am
    
    I think in Eastern Europe (and Müggelheim was in East Berlin), one factor was the preference for few, but big and heroic monuments. Remembrance policy was more about the anti-fascist struggle, often lumping it together with the “Great Patriotic War”.
    I saw on your blog that you have also been to Salaspils outside of Riga, and that’s exactly the kind of site I mean.
    
    In Eastern Europe, some of the memorials initially established by Holocaust survivors were even taken down by the respective governments in the late 1940s and early 1950s. One reason was a resurgence state-sponsored of antisemitism, the other reason was that communist governments wanted to focus exclusively on anti-fascist resistance.
    Outside of Vilnius, in the forest of Paneriai, the site of mass executions, for example, Jewish survivors erected a monument soon after the Holocaust. It was removed in 1950 by the Soviet Union and replaced by one of those heroic obelisks with a big red star on top. (I lived in Vilnius for a year and sometimes went to that forest to think and reflect. And the locals were collecting mushrooms. I just remembered this as you mentioned the people walking dogs in Płaszów.)
    The site of Babi Yar in Kyiv is also a great example of these contested memories: https://andreasmoser.blog/2020/11/12/babi-yar/
    
    In West Germany, it wasn’t much better. People tried to forget, and only in the 1960s did local initiatives pop up and begin to research, put up information plaques and try to establish proper memorials. Of course, a lot of the physical sites had been destroyed or built over by then.
    In Flossenbürg, for example, people built houses on the site of the former concentration camp. And they continued extracting the granite from the quarries where the prisoners had been worked to death.
    Flossenbürg only became a memorial site in the early 2000s, and the extraction of granite continues to this day.
    
    I have a feeling it also depends on the activity of individuals/groups/schools whether memory work is carried out or not.
    I recently attended a talk by a lady from “Sächsische Landesarbeitsgemeinschaft Auseinandersetzung mit dem Nationalsozialismus” about how to remember KZ Sachsenburg (just outside of Chemnitz, where I live). They are doing tremendous work, but the municipality is split and has now initiated its own project. This being East Germany, when you speak about National Socialism, there is soon a debate about the socialist dictatorship, and who did what to whom. Then the state is withholding funding, because they think the activists are left-wing radicals, and so on.
    I almost think that at every site, there is a whole novel about the conflicting attempts to remember and to forget.
    
    In any case, I am happy to have stumbled across the blog of someone interested in the same issues and questions.
    
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  2. asphochasphoch
    
    May 7, 2024 at 8:36 am
    
    Thank you for this and the link to Babi Yar. I had a very brief visit to Kyiv and am so sad to not have visited the site.
    
    I’ve loved reading these comments as this is EXACTLY what I am interested in researching. From the American perspective, the perception of German memorialization of the Holocaust is seen as the government making amends, and maybe that is true in some instances, but what is left out of that narrative is the activism and push by community groups to memorialize these spaces. Wow about Sachsenburg — do you see any resolutions decided soon? Also, adding Flossenbürg to my list — its so interesting to me how recent and how the site is used today.
    
    Particularly in Eastern Europe, many examples of these large Soviet memorials were erected without input from survivor communities or without context on specifics that occurred here. Vilnius is a great example. Budapest too.
    
    I’m headed to Bulgaria next week and have a whole list of monuments and sites — have you been? Any spaces that are a must-visit in terms of contested history and narrative (there’s so many I feel like I need six months to just wander and learn!)?
    
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