Cinema - Mittelbau-Dora Memorial

In the picture, between the trees and foliage, two walls of buildings can be seen, which are connected at right angles at the corner. An information pillar can be seen in the foreground on the right, which indicates that it is the remains of the cinema barracks. — Remains of the cinema barracks, 2022. Photo: Lukas Severin Damm.

©Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial

In the autumn of 1944, the barracks were turned into a cinema. As part of the incentive system installed by the SS, it was intended to increase the productivity of work detachments. Privileged inmates, who possessed camp money, were able to watch a programme of propaganda and entertainment films that changed weekly.

Beginning in January 1945, the cinema was used to house inmates from Auschwitz and Groß-Rosen. During the final months of the war, the SS brought 16,000 inmates to the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp as part of so-called "evacuation transports". Those who arrived alive were utterly exhausted and half frozen. Many of them died within days in the extremely crowded cinema barracks, where they were forced to lie on the floor.