Magdeburg

Members of the Boys were slave labourers in the Magdeburg labour camp, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

Buchenwald concentration camp was operated by Nazi Germany. The camp had 139 subcamps.

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

History

The Magdeburg camp was located in Magdeburg, the capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt in central Germany.

The camp was run by Brabag (Braunkohle Benzin AG), who worked closely with the Nazi regime. The production of synthetic petroleum was vital for the German war effort and the company was set up in 1934. Petroleum was made from brown coal. Brabag managers ruthlessly exploited the slave labourers assigned to them, to speed up construction of their plants. An estimated 13,000 slave labourers worked for Brabag during the World War II.

Structure

The camp was built between Heinrichsberger Strasse and Köbelitzer Strasse. It consisted of four barracks, a large tent and a building with a kitchen and infirmary, in which housed mainly Hungarian Jews, of which Isaac Brandstein was one.

Dissolution & Liberation

The camp was dissolved and the prisoners sent on a death march to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The factory was then seized by the US Army in April 1945.

Aftermath

Magdeburg was handed over to the Red Army in July 1945 and the hydrogenation plant was immediately repaired on the orders of the Soviet Military Administration but in November 1946, it was dismantled and relocated to the Soviet Union.

After the war, the firm and its remaining assets were dissolved. Brabag denied any responsibility for the prisoners and rejected all claims for compensation by former prisoners.