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{{Short description|School in Hamburg, Germany;
{{Coord|53|32|31|N|10|2|53|E|display=title|source:dewiki}}
[[File:
The '''Bullenhuser Damm''' School is located at ''92–94 Bullenhuser Damm'' in the [[Rothenburgsort]] section of [[Hamburg]],
|title = Chi vuole vedere la mamma faccia un passo avanti (Whoever wants to see their mother, take one step forward)
|publisher = historyfilesnetwork.com
|author =
|date = 27 January 2021
|url = https://www.historyfilesnetwork.com/2021/01/27/chi-vuole-vedere-la-mamma-faccia-un-passo-avanti/}}</ref><ref name="nickname">{{cite news
|title = "Like pictures hung on the wall"
|publisher =
|author = Katja Iken
|newspaper = Der Spiegel
|date = April 20, 2020
|quote = The closer the Allies got, the greater the pressure on the SS to make the evidence of their horrific human experiments disappear. Probably on April 20, 1945, the order came from an SS office in Berlin: "The Heissmeyer department is to be dissolved." In plain language: The 20 boys and girls must be murdered, along with their four carers. An SS commando pulled the children out of bed in the evening and took them to school on Bullenhuser Damm, a satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp in East Hamburg.
|url = https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/hamburg-1945-die-ss-morde-an-den-20-kindern-vom-bullenhuser-damm-a-4e6ba126-0c94-42b3-b4d3-4c1d64777e1b}}</ref>
During heavy [[Bombing of Hamburg in World War II|air raids]] in the [[Second World War]], many
On the night of April 20, 1945, 20 [[Jewish]] children, who had been used as human subjects in medical experiments at [[Neuengamme]], along with their four adult caretakers and six Soviet prisoners, were injected with morphine and suspended from their necks to die on the basement walls of the school.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.schoah.org/stumme-zeugen/bullenhuser-damm.htm |title=Die Schule am Bullenhuser Damm |access-date=2008-04-20 |language=de}}</ref> Later that evening, 24 Soviet prisoners were brought to the school to be murdered.
The names, ages and countries of origin of the victims, who'd transited through the Neuengamme concentration camp, were recorded by Hans Meyer, one of the thousands of Scandinavian prisoners released to the custody of Sweden in the closing months of the war.
==Neuengamme experimentation==
[[SS]] physician [[Kurt Heissmeyer]], to
He attempted to prove his hypothesis by injecting live tuberculosis bacilli into the lungs and bloodstream of ''[[Untermensch
He was able to have the facilities made available and to test his subjects as a result of his personal connections: his uncle, SS general [[August Heissmeyer]], and his close acquaintance, SS general [[Oswald Pohl]].<ref>Nicosia, Francis R. (2002) ''Medicine and medical ethics in Nazi Germany: origins, practices, legacies''. Berghahn Books. pp.84–85. {{ISBN|1-57181-386-1}} {{ISBN|978-1-57181-386-2}}</ref>
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The children were accompanied to Neuengamme by four women prisoners. Two were Polish nurses and one was a Hungarian pharmacist, and they were killed upon arrival at Neuengamme. The fourth woman, Polish-born Jew Paula Trocki, was a doctor. She survived the war and later gave testimony in Jerusalem about what she had witnessed:
{{
The children were injected with live tuberculosis bacilli, and they all became ill. Heissmeyer then had their [[axillary lymph nodes]] surgically removed from their armpits and sent to Hans Klein at the Hohenlychen Hospital for study. All the children were photographed holding up one arm to show the surgical incision. Klein was not prosecuted.
The collapsing western front and imminent approach of [[British troops]] prompted the perpetrators to murder the subjects of the experiment to
The children, their four adult caretakers and six Soviet prisoners were brought by truck to the Bullenhuser Damm School in the Hamburg suburb of Rothenburgsort. The school had been taken over by the SS to house prisoners from Neuengamme used to clear rubble from the surrounding area after Allied bombing raids. The SS evacuated the building around April 11, 1945, leaving a skeleton crew of two SS guards: Ewald Jauch and Johann Frahm and a janitor. They were accompanied by three SS guards (Wilhelm Dreimann, Adolf Speck, and Heinrich Wiehagen), as well as the driver, Hans Friedrich Petersen, and SS physician [[Alfred Trzebinski]]. The children as well as others were told they were being taken to [[Theresienstadt]]. Upon arriving at the school they were led into the basement. According to one of the SS men present, the children "sat down on the benches all around and were cheerful and happy that they had been for once allowed out of Neuengamme. The children were completely unsuspecting."
They were then made to undress and were then injected with [[morphine]] by Trzebinski. They were then led into an adjacent room and [[hanged]] from hooks set into the wall. The execution was overseen by SS Obersturmführer [[Arnold Strippel]]. The first child to be hanged was so light that the noose would not tighten. Frahm grabbed him in a bearhug and used his own weight to pull down and tighten the noose. The adults were hanged from overhead pipes; they were made to stand on a box, which was pulled away from under them. That same night, about 30 additional Soviet prisoners were also brought by lorry to the school to be executed; six escaped, three were shot trying to do so, and the rest were hanged in the basement.<ref>Neumann</ref>
==Victims==
[[File:Children of Bullinhuser Damm.jpg|thumb|right|220px|The children showing the location of the scar where the axillary lymph nodes were excised
[[File:Sergio de Desimone.jpg|thumb|right|220px|[[Sergio de Simone]] (b. Nov. 29, 1937 d. April 20, 1945),
* '''
* '''
▲* '''H. Wassermann''',<ref>[http://kinder-vom-bullenhuser-damm.de/_english/h_wassermann.php The Children of Bullenhuser Damm association H. Wassermann]</ref> a girl aged 8, from Poland.
* '''Roman Witonski''',<ref>[http://kinder-vom-bullenhuser-damm.de/_english/roman_und_eleonora_witonski.php The Children of Bullenhuser Damm association Roman and Eleonora Witoński]</ref> a boy aged 6, and his sister; prisoner number A-15160.
* '''Eleonora Witonska''',<ref>[http://kinder-vom-bullenhuser-damm.de/_english/roman_und_eleonora_witonski.php The Children of Bullenhuser Damm association Roman and Eleonora Witoński]</ref> a girl aged 5, from Radom, Poland; prisoner number A-15159. (Roman and Eleanora were deported to Auschwitz along with their mother, Rucza Witonska (prisoner number A-15158) from the [[ghetto]] in Radom, Poland. Their father, Seweryn Witonski, a pediatrician from Radom, was gunned down at an execution in the [[Szydlowiec]] cemetery. Ruzca worked in the laboratory of Josef Mengele. In November 1944, the children were separated from their mother when she was sent to the concentration camp in [[Giebułtów, Lower Silesian Voivodeship|Gebhardsdorf]] in [[Lower Silesia]]. Roman and Eleonora were sent to the "Kinderheim" (orphanage) at Auschwitz. Rucza survived the war and tried to find her children. She later remarried. Rosa Grumelin has visited the memorial)<ref>[http://www.zeit.de/2005/15/A-Kinder?page=all Zwanzig Kinder erhängen dauert lange]</ref>
* '''Roman Zeller''', a boy aged 12, from Poland. Roman-Zeller-Platz, in [[Schnelsen|Hamburg Schelsen]] is named after Roman Zeller.
* '''Riwka Herszberg''', a girl aged 7, from [[Zdunska Wola]], Poland. (Her parents were Mania and Moishe Herszberg. They were kept in the family barracks for a period of time. Her mother survived the war.)
* '''Mania Altmann''', a girl aged 5, from Radom, Poland.
* '''
* '''Lelka Birnbaum''', a girl aged 12, from Poland.
* '''Ruchla Zylberberg''', a girl aged 8, from [[Zawichost]], Poland. (Ruchla's sister, Esther, and her mother, Fajga (née Rosenblum), were gassed upon arrival in Auschwitz. Her father, Nison Zylberberg, survived the war in the Soviet Union, with his brother, Henry, and his sister, Felicja; he then emigrated to the United States. He died in Colorado on September 29, 2002, at the age of 86. He visited the memorial.)<ref>[http://www.shalomfuneral.com/Obituary.asp?ObitsID=25 Shalom Funeral Service] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716050330/http://www.shalomfuneral.com/Obituary.asp?ObitsID=25 |date=July 16, 2011 }}</ref>
* '''Eduard Reichenbaum''', a boy aged 10, from [[Katowice]], Poland. (His brother Itzhak survived the war and emigrated to [[Haifa]], Israel.)
* '''Blumel Mekler''', a girl aged 11, from [[Sandomierz]], Poland. (Her sister, Shifra, survived the war because, as she recalled, her mother told her to "run! Shifra! run!" as the round-up began. She was 8 at this time, and Blumel was 5. She was kept hidden by a Polish family. She emigrated to [[Tel Aviv]],
* '''Eduard (Edo) Hornemann''', a boy aged 12. (Born on January 1, 1933), he lived with his mother, Elisabeth, his father, Philip, and his brother, Alexander, at 29 Staringstraat in [[Eindhoven]], the [[Netherlands]]. His parents worked at the [[Philips]] factory. Philip died on February 21, 1945, at Sachsenhausen, where he arrived after a stop at [[Dachau Concentration Camp|Dachau]] with the "death march". Elisabeth died of typhus in Auschwitz in October 1944.
* '''Alexander Hornemann''', a boy aged
* '''[[Georges André Kohn]]''', a boy aged 12, from [[Paris]],
* '''Jacqueline Morgenstern''', a girl aged 12, from Paris. (b. May 26, 1932. A cousin, Henry Morgenstern, survived the war and has visited the memorial.)
* '''[[Sergio
* '''Marek Steinbaum''', a boy aged 10, from Radom, Poland. (His sister, Lola, survived the war and emigrated to the
* '''Walter Jungleib''',<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/nachrichten/news/gedenkfeier-am-bullenhuser-damm-mit-einem-besonderen-gast/|title=Gedenkfeier am Bullenhuser Damm mit einem besonderen Gast}}</ref> a boy aged 12, from [[Slovakia]]. As researched by Bella Reichenbaum (Haifa), the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial received a letter from Israel in July 2015 noting that the name Jungleib had been recorded on a list of a prisoner transport from Auschwitz to Lippstadt; contact was made with this family near Tel Aviv via the website of the Yad Vashem Memorial; there the 85-year-old Grete Hamburg, born in Hlohovec / Slovakia confirmed that it was her brother: Walter Jacob Jungleib.<ref name="walter">{{cite web
|title = Walter Jungleib
|publisher = Kulturkarte.de
|author =
|date =
|url = http://www.kulturkarte.de/hamburg/EiWaJung}}</ref>
* '''Lea Klygermann''', a girl aged 12, from Poland; prisoner no. A 16959.
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The French doctor and the chemist were:
* '''René Quenouille''' (
* '''Professor Gabriel Florence''' (
The two Dutch prisoners were:
* '''Anton Holzel''' (
* '''Dirk Deutekom''' (
==Criminal prosecutions==
[[File:PlatzderKindervomBullenhuserDammHamburg.jpg|thumb|right|"Place of children from Bullenhuser Damm" in Hamburg, Germany
Some of those involved in the killings were tried by
Two of those directly responsible for the children's suffering and murder, Kurt Heissmeyer and [[Arnold Strippel]], escaped and remained at large. Strippel had served at other concentration camps before Neuengamme, including Buchenwald. He was recognized on the street in [[Frankfurt]] in 1948 by a former Buchenwald prisoner. He was tried for the murders of 21 Jewish inmates committed on November 9, 1939, as retribution for the failed assassination of [[Adolf Hitler]] at the [[Bürgerbräukeller]] in [[Munich]] by [[Georg Elser]]. Strippel was tried, convicted of 21 counts of murder, and sentenced to 21 life terms by a Frankfurt court in 1949.<ref>{{
[[Kurt Heissmeyer]] returned to his home in [[Magdeburg]] in postwar [[East Germany]] and started a successful medical practice as a lung and tuberculosis specialist. He was eventually found out in 1959. In 1966, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. At his trial he stated, "I did not think that inmates of a camp had full value as human beings." When asked why he did not use [[guinea pigs]] he responded, "For me there was no basic difference between human beings and guinea pigs." He then corrected himself: "Jews and guinea pigs".<ref>Langer, Lawrence L. (1996) ''Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays'' Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-510648-2}} {{ISBN|978-0-19-510648-0}}</ref> Heissmeyer died in prison on August 29, 1967.
== Memorial ==
[[File:RIMG0134.JPG|thumb|
Commemorating the 20 Children of the Bullenhuser Damm Massacre'''
''Bronze relief [[stele]], mounted on brick pilaster; below the relief: listing of the children's names; artist: Leonid Mogilevski (Russian, 1931-); bronze: 0,30m wide 0,60m high; placed July 13, 2001; initiative by and paid for by Hamburg citizens; marked with an annual commemoration on April 20.''<ref name="stele">{{cite web |author= |date= |title="Kunst im öffentlichen Raum" in Schnelsen |url=http://www.schnelsenarchiv.de/27kunstimoeffentlichenraum.htm |publisher=www.schnelsenarchiv.de}}</ref>
Location:<br /> Roman-Zeller-Platz<br />[[Schnelsen|Hamburg-Schnelsen]]
{{coord|53|38|48.9|N|9|54|37.3|E|type:landmark_scale:2000|display=inline}}]]
The building at Bullenhuser Damm was used by the British as a transit camp for German POWs until 1947. It was then used by the Hydrograpichal Institute's meteorological service until 1949, when it again became a school, for 800 boys. In 1959, the organization representing Neuengamme survivors proposed to the Hamburg school board that a memorial plaque should be placed in the school. However, it was not until 1963 that the text for the plaque was approved. The text aroused controversy because it omitted mention of the Soviet victims and did not state that the children were Jewish or give any information about their personal identity. In 1980, information signs were placed in the basement of the school, and the [[Senate of Hamburg]] (government) declared the school to be a memorial site, renaming it [[Janusz Korczak]] School: Korczak was a Polish-Jewish pediatrician and author who was murdered at [[Treblinka extermination camp]] with about 190 orphans. A rose garden was established in 1985. Later, in the [[Schnelsen]] Quarter of the city several streets were named after the children who died at the school and a memorial tablet was installed. Much of the work of identifying the victims and of bringing the story to the public's attention was due to the efforts of Günther Schwarberg.<ref>Uwe, Wolfgang (2006)''Man, medicine, and the state: the human body as an object of government ...'' Franz Steiner Verlag. p.246. (December 1, 2006). {{ISBN|3-515-08794-X}} {{ISBN|978-3-515-08794-0}}</ref>
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==See also==
*[[List of subcamps of Neuengamme]]
*''[[The Rose Garden (film)|The Rose Garden]]'' - a film based on these events
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== External links ==
{{Commons category|Gedenkstätte Bullenhuser Damm}}
*[https://www.kinder-vom-bullenhuser-damm.de/_english/index.php Official association]
*[http://www.holocaust-mahnmal.de/jugendwebsite/p_georges/e_index.html Georges-André Kohn at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe] In Berlin▼
*[https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/en/news/news/sara-nicht-surcis-neue-informationen-ueber-ein-kind-vom-bullenhuser-damm/ Article about Sara Goldfinger]
*[http://picpus.mmlc.northwestern.edu/mbin/WebObjects/Picpus.woa/wa/displayDigitalObject?id=10018 Phillipe Kohn speaks about his brother's deportation and death]▼
▲*[http://www.holocaust-mahnmal.de/jugendwebsite/p_georges/e_index.html Georges-André Kohn at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe] In Berlin
▲*[http://picpus.mmlc.northwestern.edu/mbin/WebObjects/Picpus.woa/wa/displayDigitalObject?id=10018 Phillipe Kohn speaks about his brother's deportation and death] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100622074343/http://picpus.mmlc.northwestern.edu/mbin/WebObjects/Picpus.woa/wa/displayDigitalObject?id=10018 |date=2010-06-22 }}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20160303205519/http://www.vannaamtotnummer.com/pageID_7500710.html Bullenhuser Damm] (Dutch)
*[http://www.officinemalessandria.it/sergiodesimone.html Documentary on Sergio de Simone] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160531024348/http://www.officinemalessandria.it/sergiodesimone.html |date=2016-05-31 }} (Italian)
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20160303205519/http://www.vannaamtotnummer.com/pageID_7500710.html Bullenhuser Damm] (Dutch)
*[http://www.officinemalessandria.it/sergiodesimone.html Documentary on Sergio de Simone] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160531024348/http://www.officinemalessandria.it/sergiodesimone.html |date=2016-05-31 }} (Italian)
*[http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/ausstellungen/bullenhuser-damm/
*[http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/VR/ROSE.htm VR Movie: Rose Garden for the Children of Bullenhuser Damm]
*[http://www.zeit.de/1993/02/schmerzensgeld-fuer-den-taeter Zeit Online The amazing career of the prosecutor Münzberg] (German)
*[https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:article-164.en.v1 Lea Wohl von Haselberg:
*[https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb46780463 The Murders at Bullenhuser Damm] (English)
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[[Category:1945 in Germany]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Nazi concentration camps in Germany]]
[[Category:Nazi human subject research]]
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[[Category:Schools in Hamburg]]
[[Category:Buildings and structures in Hamburg-Mitte]]
[[Category:Child murder in Germany]]
[[Category:Massacres committed by Nazi Germany]]
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