KL Buchenwald - sub camp Plomnitz Engraved Bracelet

KL Buchenwald - sub camp Plomnitz Engraved Bracelet
Rare and hand-engraved silver bracelet with the name "KL Buchenwald 1944-45. Plemnitz-Paissen" written on it. Plomnitz was an Außenlager or Satellite camp of KL Buchenwald. The engraving is really nice. This bracelet must have belonged to a former prisoner of this camp.We add some information of this KL Buchenwald Sub-camp.AL Leopard (Plomnitz): German concentration camp Ausenlager Leopard in Plomnitz (and also in the nearby towns of Leau, Peisen, Bernburg), Buchenwald. Founded on August 22, 1944 and on the first day it was supplied with Polish political prisoners arrested during the Warsaw Uprising. The prisoners worked slavishly in the Solvay concrete factory. subcamp of a concentration camp KL Buchenwald.The PLOMNITZ-LEAU KommandoOther names: Operation LEOPARD IQ or LEO; also BERNBURGLocation: The villages of PLÔMNITZ and PEISSEN (where the wells are located), the village of LEAU, as well as the BAALBERG station, are located 8-10 km south / south-east of the town of BERNBURG; Bemburg is located 40 km north-east of HALLEEvacuation: 11-12 / 04/45; liberation on 04/14/45 by the Americans Workforce: about 1200 men, including a large number of French Note: there was also a camp of 180 Hungarian Jewish women from 02/21/45 to 03/28/45Activities: Development of an underground plant for the construction of JUNKERS aircraft parts in the salt mines of the firm SOLVAY; led by the SCHLEMPP engineering officers office and the TODT organizationAs early as 1941, the German general staff and the management of the SOLVAY firm agreed to use the salt mines (PEISSEN and PLÔMNITZ) in order to store aircraft bombs away from Allied bombardments. At the beginning of 1944, following the intensification of the bombardments seriously damaging the factories, it was decided to bury these factories. As the PEISSEN and PLÔMNITZ mines were close to the JUNKERS factory north of BERNBURG, it was decided to transform these shafts into factories for the manufacture of parts, in particular fins, with the use of concentration camp labor.The camp was opened on 08/22/44, and very quickly convoys of deportees were transferred from Buchenwald. The French were numerous, in particular some of the numbers 69000, arrived on 09/13/44, and followed by others.Nothing was ready to welcome the deportees, and they were first accommodated in "circus" tents, in deplorable hygienic conditions (many cases of dysentery). It was not until early January 1945 that barracks were completed, built by deportees themselves, often in the rain. In addition, some of them, for reasons of "productivity", lived for several weeks at the bottom of the mine, in basic facilities, with insufficient ventilation, without seeing the light of day.The work mainly consisted of fitting out large rooms for the factory, at the bottom of mine shafts nearly 500 meters deep. The inmates extracted the salt with a pickaxe and a compressor, then loaded wagons and pushed them by hand a distance of 1000 meters through the galleries. Some detainees were also assigned to a “concrete” kommando (transport and fitting-out). This 12 hours a day (2 shifts: day and night), in half-light, in an overheated and humid atmosphere mixed with cold drafts, in the dust, under the blows of the kapos. This exhausting work caused deaths on the job site itself.The deportees made the 4 km journey on foot from the camp to the wells, then from the wells to the camp, bringing back the dead. The camp was led by SS Schmidt. Under his command, according to testimonies, the appeals constituted a real nightmare, appeals often prolonged, at the whim of the SS, sometimes accompanied by acts of sadism. In response to the failed escape of 4 Czech detainees, an interminable -17 ° call took place in retaliation. These living conditions, combined with insufficient food and unmaintained clothing (in the end some detainees no longer had shoes to walk in the snow and ice), quickly led to many diseases (bronchitis, dysentery, etc. ) and deaths.The mortality was very important. In the period from 01/17/45 to 03/22/45 alone, the Revier recorded 268 deaths, including 58 French. Again, this recording does not take into account deaths from exhaustion at work and on call.The evacuation took place on foot around April 8 to 12, 1945. Along the way, a witness recounts that those who were too weak to follow and who were imprudent enough to let the baggage carts trail, were shot by small groups by the SS. The survivors found the American tanks on April 14.