Siegendorf ( hr, Cindrof, hu, Cinfalva) is a town in the district of

Eisenstadt-Umgebung The Bezirk Eisenstadt-Umgebung ( hr, Kotar Željezno-okolica) is an administrative district (''Bezirk'') in the federal state of Burgenland, Austria. The area of the district is 455.5 km², with a population of 44,257 (2022), and a populatio ...

in the

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n state of

Burgenland Burgenland (; hu, Őrvidék; hr, Gradišće; Austro-Bavarian: ''Burgnland;'' Slovene: ''Gradiščanska'') is the easternmost and least populous state of Austria. It consists of two statutory cities and seven rural districts, with a total of ...

History

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, a

forced labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (espec ...

staffed by

Hungarian Arrow Cross The Arrow Cross Party ( hu, Nyilaskeresztes Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom, , abbreviated NYKP) was a far-right Hungarian ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary they named the Government of National ...

guards forced

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

men from northern

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the ...

located in Hungarian-occupied Romania, was located in Siegendorf. Nearly all of the inmates were executed by the Hungarian guards as the Soviet liberation forces were approaching when the guards pretended to want to march the Jewish inmates to an unknown location. Very few prisoners survived. Almost none of them documented their experience at this camp except one former inmate who incorrectly claims to be the "sole" survivor. Bear in mind, many survivors were not articulate and did not care to memorialize this experience in writing. But they have passed their experience along via their children and/or grandchildren. The Jewish slaves at the Siegendorf Camp were enslaved in a local gold mine.

Population

References

Cities and towns in Eisenstadt-Umgebung District Nazi concentration camps in Austria Jewish Austrian history Jewish Hungarian history Holocaust locations in Austria {{Austria-hist-stub