Malchow was one of the numerous sub-camps of Nazi concentration camp: Ravensbrück, located in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

, which is believed to be first opened in the winter of 1943. It was located at

Malchow Malchow () is a municipality in the Mecklenburgische Seenplatte district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. Geography It is situated on the river Elde, 25,5 km west of Waren, and 35 km north of Wittstock. History The ...

Mecklenburg Mecklenburg (; nds, label=Low German, Mękel(n)borg ) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schwer ...

Size of the Malchow camp

The Malchow camp system consisted of ten

barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are ...

on the terrain of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, which each had the capacity to house about 100 women. This meant that the Malchow camp was able to house 1,000 women prisoners. But, by 1945, the camp population had grown to 5,000 women. In the summer of 1943, the camp terrain finally became enclosed by a high fence. The ten barracks that were part of the camp, which was originally used for the construction workers of Ravensbrück, were enclosed by this fence.

Conditions and life in the camp

Day-to-day conditions in the camp were almost unbearable. The prisoners were forced against their will to stand at attention for

roll call ''Roll Call'' is a newspaper and website published in Washington, D.C., United States, when the United States Congress is in session, reporting news of legislative and political maneuverings on Capitol Hill, as well as political coverage of ...

, twice a day, like most regular concentration camp prisoners would have to do. The prisoners were guarded under the watchful eyes of the Schutzstaffel (SS) female guards and their

German Shepherd Dog The German Shepherd or Alsatian is a German breed of working dog of medium to large size. The breed was developed by Max von Stephanitz using various traditional German herding dogs from 1899. It was originally bred as a herding dog, for he ...

s. The SS were very cruel, but probably one of the harshest female guards at Malchow was the SS wardress Luise Danz. She was transferred from the main camp of Ravensbrück to Malchow and became commandant of the camp. She was captured in 1945 and put on trial for crimes against humanity at the Auschwitz trial in Kraków, Poland. She was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1947, but released due to general amnesty on 20 August 1957 In Malchow, the prisoners barely received anything to eat and were forced to kneel on sharp gravel stones. Body searches and beatings were routine at Malchow. Although residents of the town of Malchow were not allowed to have any contact with the prisoners of the camp, some townspeople provided the inmates with supplies of food. When they were discovered by the SS, they too were imprisoned in Malchow. Aside from

starvation Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism's life. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, dea ...

and

exhaustion Fatigue describes a state of tiredness that does not resolve with rest or sleep. In general usage, fatigue is synonymous with extreme tiredness or exhaustion that normally follows prolonged physical or mental activity. When it does not resolve ...

, many prisoners also died during many

epidemics An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics of infectious d ...

of diseases such as

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in w ...

and

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

. Some types of forced labor that the prisoners had to do were producing mines, collecting nettles from children's playgrounds, cleaning the factory and town, building

canals Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow ...

for the hospital of Malchow, and doing

horticultural Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

work.

Malchow as a transit camp

During 1944, when most of the

death marches A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Conven ...

were taking place across

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, Malchow served as a transit camp for other prisoners arriving from other concentration camps. Eyewitness reports of many Malchow survivors say that a transport of about 1,000 concentration camp prisoners arrived at the camp on 24 November 1944. They had traveled on a death march for several weeks. There, at Malchow, they were brought to

Wismar Wismar (; Low German: ''Wismer''), officially the Hanseatic City of Wismar (''Hansestadt Wismar'') is, with around 43,000 inhabitants, the sixth-largest city of the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and the fourth-largest city ...

, and placed on

barges Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...

that were sunk in the

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or a nearby river.

Liberation of Malchow

On 2 May 1945, Malchow, and the rest of Ravensbrück was liberated by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

Notable survivors

* Hanna Zemer, Slovak-born Israeli journalist *

Liliana Segre Liliana Segre (; born 10 September 1930) is an Italian Holocaust survivor, named senator for life by President Sergio Mattarella in 2018 for outstanding patriotic merits in the social field. Born in 1930 into a Milanese family of Jewish origins ...

, Italian Senator

Notes and references