Gross-Rosen,
located in Silesia between Görlitz and Breslau (Wrocław)
opened August 2, 1940, initially as a Sachsenhausen subcamp,
mainly to receive prisoners from the occupied and annexed
territories. Together with Mauthausen, Gross-Rosen was among
the harshest of all the camps. Lagerstufe 1, the most
lenient level, was the designation for Dachau and
Sachsenhausen. Lagerstufe 2, the intermediate level,
included
Flossenbürg, Buchenwald, and Neuengamme. Gross-Rosen was
classified Lagerstufe 3, the most severe. On May 1, 1941,
Gross-Rosen became an independently operated camp, mainly
for Jews, about thirty percent of the inmates were women,
almost all of them Jews. It later became a holding and
transit camp for Jews destined for death camps to the East,
and finally was closed and evacuated on February 11, 1945.
Below: A
June 28, 1942, formular lettercard from German Jewish
prisoner Heinz Israel Katz to his non-Jewish son in Berlin.
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