Zittau

Members of the Boys were slave labourers in the Zittau labour camp, a subcamp of Gross Rosen concentration camp.

The Gross Rosen concentration camp was operated by Nazi Germany.  The camp had 100 subcamps.

The Boys were teenage and child-Holocaust survivors, who were brought to the UK after the war for rest and rehabilitation.

History

On 20 September 1944, the Junkers Aircraft and Engine Works received notification that they could relocate part of their production to the buildings of the “Gebrüder Moras AG” in Zittau. This newly established branch at Herwigsdorfer Str. 4b was henceforth known as “Zittwerke.”

Forced labourers were then assigned to the company, and one month later, a concentration camp subcamp of Gross Rosen was established on the grounds of the POW camp in the neighbouring community of Klein-Schönau, now Sieniawka in Poland.

On 28/29 October 1944, 450 women arrived in Zittau on the first transport from Auschwitz concentration camp.

The women, who came from Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, were selected by a representative of the Junkerswerke and registered with the Gross-Rosen identification numbers 83701-84157.

Structure
In addition to an infirmary, there was a maternity ward in the attic of the camp building, where women from the camps in Ober Hohenelbe, Sackich, and Liebau were also brought for delivery.

On January 27, the original women’s camp was expanded to include a men’s camp, to which 250 Polish, Hungarian, and Belgian Jews were brought from Buchenwald to Zittau.