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The Gardalegen Massacre

Background

In April 1945, just before the end of the war, about 1,000 Jewish men and women, mostly Polish forced laborers, were brought to Gardalegen, an obscure town in central Germany, in transit from various camps, primarily Dora-Mittelbau and Salzwedel, intended to be sent to other camps. When transportation broke down it was decided to murder the prisoners and they were forced into a large barn, which was set on fire. An attempt was made to bury the bodies and hide the massacre but when American troops arrived the extent of this crime was discovered. Most of the dead have never been identified and even the records for the about 200 survivors are incomplete.

Using a variety of sources, I have managed to identify about 200 survivors, and a few of the dead where information was found. In many cases there is contradictory information on the spelling of names and I have included variants. In the case of women survivors who subsequently married, I have included their married names.Using other sources of information, it is often possible to determine what happened to these individuals, e.g. emigrated Israel.

Database

This database includes 248 Jews who were in the Gardalegen, Germany barn burning. The fields for this database are as follows:

Acknowledgments

The information contained in this database came from holdings at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (www.ushmm.org). The title of the collection is “Jüdische Häftlinge in Gardelegen” (ID:33113) which came from a photocopy from the collections of the City Museum of Gardelegen (Address: Stadtmuseum Gardelegen, Rathausplatz 10, 39638 Gardelegen, Germany). The transcription was done by Peter Landé.

Particular thanks to Nolan Altman, Director of Special Projects - Holocaust Collection.

Searching the Database

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Last Update: May 2020