Execution Site

The execution site was situated in a walled-in area set into the ground, which could not be seen from the camp. In contrast to the executions that took place on the roll call square or in the tunnel system, which were aimed to spread fear and terror in the camp, the SS and the Gestapo performed clandestine murders at this location. Predominantly German inmate functionaries and prominent members of the resistance were shot or hung in the gallows at this site.

It is no longer possible to determine the number of inmates murdered here. They include the German communists Ludwig Szymczak and Georg Thomas, who had refused, in their function as camp seniors, to hang another Russian inmate on the roll call square. Just a few hours before the camp was cleared, on the evening of April 4, 1945, they were shot by Gestapo officials in the jail yard, together with six other political prisoners.

The largely destroyed walls of this execution site were reconstructed with rammed concrete in 2011.