Helen and Sol Krawitz Holocaust Memorial Education Center

The Halle subcamp of Buchenwald appears rarely in secondary literature. For a brief outline of basic information about the camp, such as opening and closing dates, gender of inmates, employer and so on, see the entry for Halle in the International Tracing Service, Verzeichnis der Haftstätten unter dem Reichsführer-SS (1933 – 1945): Konzentrationslager und deren Aussenkommandos sowie andere Haftstätten unter dem Reichsführer SS in Deutschland und deutsch besetzten Gebieten, vol. 1 (Arolson: Der Suchdienst, 1979).

For an overview of the Buchenwald camp system, including its subcamps, see David A. Hackett, The Buchenwald Report: Report on the Buchenwald Concentration Camp near Weimar (Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 1995), and Walter Bartel, Buchenwald: Mahnung und Verpflichtung, Dokumente und Berichte (1960; Frankfurt-M: Röderburg, 1983). For further information on the history of the Siebel Flugzeugwerke, see H-J. Ebert, Udo Mahn, H.-D. Tack, Dokumentation der 90-jährigen Geschichte der Luftfahrt und des Luftsportes in der Region Halle (Saale), Heft 3, and Die Siebel-Flugzeugwerke Halle (1934 – 1946), Heft 9 (IG Luftfahrtgeschichte im Luftsportverband Sachsen-Anhalt e.V, n.d.).

Primary documentation on the Halle subcamp is located in several archives. For general correspondence, monthly and daily statistical reports, which list the number of prisoners working at Siebel and the kinds of work performed, as well as “occupancy” lists of the Halle subcamp and other subcamps, see the German Bundesarchiv group NS 4, Records of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, in particular volumes 8, 31, 54, 55, 176 – 185, and 196. Other volumes from this collection contain relevant information pertaining to the Halle subcamp, however thorough research and statistical analysis is needed to gain extensive information about the demographics, increases and decreases, and death rate of the camp population.

The Bundesarchiv NS 4 series on Buchenwald is copied at the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, RG-14.023M. Also contained at the USHMM archives is a collection of transport lists to and from the Halle camp, copied from the Archives Nationales (France), Ministère des anciens combattants et victimes de guerre, Acc. 1998.A.0045, especially Reels 7 and 16. Additional transport lists or duplicates of the collection, as well as “strength reports” from the Archives Nationales can be found in the archives of the USHMM 1996.A.0342, Reels 146 – 180, originally copied from the United States National Archives and Records Administration A3355. Further research on these reports would yield additional detailed information about the exact daily “arrivals” to and “departures” from the subcamp at Halle and other satellite camps of Buchenwald.

Christine van der Zanden, from Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 (Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)