Detail

The historical site where the Breitenau Memorial is now located was founded as a Benedictine monastery in 1113. The monastery was dissolved during the Reformation and the buildings fell into disrepair. A workhouse was set up in 1874 in the empty monastery church and in the former monastery grounds. It was intended that the people housed here should be educated for an “ordered” civic way of life. This was the beginning of the double use of the former monastery church: on one side, the people living in the workhouse were housed, while on the other side the Protestant church community held its services.

Under the Nazis, the site was used for many purposes. First, an early concentration camp was set up on 16 June 1933. A total of 470 communists, social democrats and trade union members were incarcerated here by March 1934 in what was euphemistically called “protective custody”. It was used as a temporary place of imprisonment for Jews from Guxhagen and the surrounding area during the November pogroms in 1938. The workhouse continued in existence during the entire period of Nazi rule. Among the incarcerated, at least 21 men were victims of forced sterilisation. The workhouse was only closed in 1949.

In May 1940, the Kassel Gestapo also established the Breitenau work education camp (AEL Breitenau) in the buildings. A total of 8,304 people, predominantly foreign forced labourers and German prisoners of the Gestapo, were imprisoned here until the camp was closed in March 1945.

Through interviews with Max Mayr, a victim of Nazi political persecution, a research team at the Gesamthochschule Kassel was tipped off in the late 1970s that a large number of files had survived in the basement of the former administration building of the state labour office. The researchers examined the files and gradually uncovered more and more new details about the early concentration camp and AEL. Their research resulted in the first touring exhibition, which has been on permanent display in the historic tithe barn of the former Breitenau monastery since 1982. In 1984, the memorial was established as a permanent contact point for former prisoners of the concentration camp and AEL Breitenau. In the 2000s, it assisted many former foreign forced labourers in their applications for compensation.

The educational programme at the memorial consists of a 90-minute tour of the site, followed by work with historical documents. During the tour, participants analyse files of Gestapo prisoners at AEL Breitenau according to various criteria, such as the reasons for persecution or the perpetrators. The memorial also offers additional modules such as creative writing or independent and in-depth exploration of the historical site using QR codes. The main themes are the early concentration camp as an instrument of power and the AEL as a means of discipline and punishment, particularly in relation to forced labourers. From September 2022, the memorial will also offer city tours on the subject of Nazi forced labour in Kassel.