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Soviet quilted jacket

by Kim Meyers

This object is a traditional Soviet quilted jacket. Originally, the jacket would have been a paler beige/drab olive colour, but it turned slightly darker over the years.

The convertible collar indicates that this jacket was part of a soldier’s winter uniform. It is a single-breasted coat, which confirms its use as a field uniform rather than a parade uniform.[1]

 Each button has the typical five-pointed star with the hammer and sickle in the middle. Although they have become red-brownish, the buttons used to be golden.[2]

The inside of the jacket is stuffed with wool to keep the wearer safe and warm in the cold conditions of Eastern Europe.

Taking a closer look at the condition of the jacket, one can see that besides the stains no further damage or signs of repair can be found.

If the jacket had been used by a prisoner of war over a period of a couple of years, it would have considerably more damage and signs of repair. As this is not the case, one can only assume that it was not worn for very long.

It was very common in Soviet prisoner-of-war camps to give detainees a used telogreika (телогре́йка) like this one to protect them from the cold climate during the winter months. The Russian word telogreika means “body warmer”, which literally indicates its purpose.

As the detainees did not have any right to private property, and as they were only allowed to wear the clothes they had on at the moment of their arrival, these jackets were often worn over their own uniforms. Pictures of these camps therefore often look like pictures of gulags.[3] Their equipment and materials were standardised and offered no additional comfort. These people, equipped with the bare minimum, had to survive very harsh conditions of captivity.

Historical and symbolic value

This jacket, which was found in 1981 in Wiltz at a dump by Henri Krischler, presumably comes from a Luxembourgish recruit who served in the German army at the Eastern Front. As far as Mr Krischler, who was kind enough to lend this special item, could remember, the jacket was lying in the dirt and covered with mud and rubbish.

Because of the lack of background information on this particular jacket, we have to engage in speculation about its history. The jacket might have spent the 35 years after the end of the war in storage somewhere around Wiltz, in the north of Luxembourg. It is possible that someone cleaning the premises did not recognise the value of the jacket and just thought that it was an old piece of clothing that was not worth keeping anymore.

For our presentation, the exact information is less important than its symbolic meaning for (Luxembourgish) prisoners of war. It is precisely this meaning that encouraged me to do some research on the object.

It is worth noting that this item does not only trigger emotions and memories in people from the Soviet Union; it might also have some relevance for people from Western Europe.[4]

The telogreika was first introduced in the 1930s and was standard equipment for Soviet soldiers until the 1960s. So people in Eastern Europe are very familiar with this item. Men had to wear these jackets daily during their duty as soldiers, guards or elsewhere. Even today, the successor of the original telogreika, with its typical woolen interior and single-breasted design, can be found in the Russian army.

Even though this type of jacket is more widespread in the former Soviet Union than in Western Europe, it figures in pictures, drawings, memories, films and stories in both worlds.

Memories and emotions

In Western Europe, this object is mainly known as a piece of clothing worn by prisoners of war who were kept captive in Soviet camps. Jackets like this were often the only available winter clothing the men could get. Clothing for detainees was scarce and had to be worn for several years. As damaged clothes were generally not replaced, the items they had were particularly appreciated. This is the reason why in pictures of prisoners in these camps, stitching can often be seen on the clothes.

It is likely that this item, with its strong symbolic meaning, also triggered strong emotions. In the east, it represented the poor conditions in which the Soviet soldiers fought for their home country. It was a time not just of heroism but also of degrading conditions, with human needs coming second to the necessities of the war. And in the west, returning prisoners of war did not come back with positive memories.

Interestingly, returning soldiers are often depicted without these Soviet jackets. This is mainly because they were often threadbare and needed to be replaced. A group of returning soldiers in tatty clothes would not have represented the image the responsible government wanted to proudly show. There are reports that Luxembourgish prisoners of war were given new underwear and new uniforms in Wolfsburg upon their return. This fact makes the jacket even more interesting as a relic of its time, since many simply did not find their way to Luxembourg.


[1] Handbook on the Soviet Army, US Army Department, 1959, p.229

[2] Handbook on the Soviet Army, US Army Department, 1959, p.229

[3] Tininis, Vytautas, Soviet Union-controlled POW camp in Macikai 1945–1948, p.70

[4] Jones, Gareth (ed.), The Military History Book: The Ultimate Visual Guide to the Weapons that Shaped the World, Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 2012, p.363


 

RAD-pin

The history of the Second World War through objects

Written by Alex Lepesant

Nowadays, it seems hard to imagine that a small pin can simultaneously embody suffering, disgust, shame, pride and ideology. This badge of about 6cm, however, does exactly that. It was part of a uniform and would have been attached to the front of the cap. Against the generally brownish plain clothes, the little red, white and black pin would of course stick out. The composition of the badge tells us a great deal about what it actually stands for. There are three different parts to consider. The most obvious one is definitely the swastika. The main symbol of the Nazi ideology was imprinted wherever it could be to show affiliation with the state and its political leaders. Here it is imprinted on a shovel, which is framed by two heads of grain. The little badge made of embossed aluminium has of course a purely representative function.

 

Envisioned representation

The first thing one might want to ask is what the badge initially stood for. What we are seeing here is the symbol of the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD), or Reich Labour Service. Following on from various precursors, the RAD was officially introduced in 1935 as a state-controlled response to unemployment. Young men and women were recruited to help with the harvest or build bridges and streets. The shovel represents the workers’ tool par excellence. The simplicity of the shovel illustrates the idea that the men and women were willing to do honest work. Shovels are neither technologically sophisticated nor very effective. They are builder’s tools and are still used symbolically today for groundbreaking ceremonies. No matter how big and ambitious the project, it all starts with a shovel and people willing to put the needed effort in. This idea was presumably also behind the choice of the shovel as a symbol for the RAD. However, the shovel also had another interesting meaning: it used to be part of the standard military equipment given to soldiers. It was a simple but functional tool for both preparation for combat and even combat itself. With enough imagination, a lengthy shovel could serve as a perfect simulation of a typical gun of the time. One could even practise march drills and other military exercises with the shovel in one’s hands. The heads of grain, on the other hand, convey a more innocent impression. What better way of serving the public than by feeding the masses? That is exactly the image the RAD wanted to transmit: honest work for public benefit.

 

Behind the symbolism

As we know today, the reality was different. The RAD, just like the shovel, was a tool. It enabled the political leaders of the time to infiltrate their ideology into the population. The idea was to extend various control mechanisms deep into society. If every aspect of life in the Reich was determined by Nazi ideology, it is because of institutions like this one. Young people would not only become members of a workforce serving the country; they would also be familiarised with paramilitary structures. The work was usually conducted in large and strictly organised groups. During periods of service, there was very little to no free time. Booklets provided written proof of service and at the same time they were a handy instrument of control. As the war intensified and Germany proclaimed “total” war, the RAD was already well integrated into the war machinery as a means of support for warfare and victory. The badge also testifies to the tendency towards standardisation. As mentioned, the RAD was a military-like structure in which the suppression of all individuality was a key strategy for indoctrination. The regime needed devoted, self-sacrificing followers, and the RAD was just one of many organisations that tried to forge that “ideal” citizen.

 

The RAD in Luxembourg

Our specific pin belongs to the General Patton Museum in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg. The museum contains a collection of objects that were mostly brought to the museum by local contemporary witnesses. This is most likely also the case for our pin. This raises the question as to what the situation was like in Luxembourg with regard to the RAD. The first call for the medical examination and selection of candidates (Musterung) for the RAD in Luxembourg was announced in February 1941. Those born between 1919 and 1922[1] were called first. The young volunteers had to bring their birth certificate, family record book, work record and appropriate clothes for training.[2] After the hoped-for rush of enthusiastic recruits failed to materialise, letters were sent out to call out the youngsters directly and prompt them to attend a Musterung.[3] Service became mandatory. Once in the camp,[4] the daily routine was planned to the minute from 6am to 10pm. As the war dragged on, being in the RAD could also mean service near the eastern front. In essence, the whole day was taken up by work, and if at some point there was time for another activity, it still took place within the working unit. The camp was a place of conflation. Young individuals were called to serve the country and a uniform, and the aim was to produce a standardised mass of future soldiers. The RAD was part of the war machinery – or at least that was the logic behind it. The reality was of course, again, different. Service was often performed reluctantly and with no great effect in terms of political conviction. Moreover, it was common practice in Luxembourg to wear alternative pins and badges secretly. Many motifs and symbols such as the Grand Duchess became iconic counter-images to German totalitarianism. The rift between the public image, representing Nazi fantasies of a unified, fanatic workforce, and the real struggle and fate of the RAD recruits cannot be underestimated. Knowing what we know today, the fact that people were forced to join the RAD and made to wear the symbol of the RAD with a shovel and heads of grain is an egregious act in itself.

 

Bibliography:

Benz, Wolfgang, Vom Freiwilligen Arbeitsdienst zur Arbeitsdienstpflicht, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 16/4 (1968), p. 317-346.

Dostert, Paul, Reichsarbeitsdienst-Lager in Luxemburg: Bettemburg, Hesperingen, Schüttringen, Mutfort, Rosport und Hollenfels, in: Von Chorsängern, Eisenbahnen und Kirchenglocken: Festschrift zum 150jährigen Bestehen der Chorale Schuttrange, Luxembourg, 2013, p. 77-81.

Wallerang, Mathias, Luxemburg unter nationalsozialistischer Besatzung: Luxemburger berichten, Mainz 1997.

[1] On 30 August, forced recruitment into the Wehrmacht was announced in Luxembourg for those born between 1920 and 1924.

[2] Bekanntmachung über die Musterung zum Reichsarbeitsdienst, 1941. (Annexe 1.)

[3] Annex 2.

[4] See Dostert, Paul, Reichsarbeitsdienst-Lager in Luxemburg: Bettemburg, Hesperingen, Schüttringen, Mutfort, Rosport und Hollenfels, in: Von Chorsängern, Eisenbahnen und Kirchenglocken: Festschrift zum 150jährigen Bestehen der Chorale Schuttrange, Luxembourg, 2013, p. 77-81.

 

 

 

Toys from the Winterhilfswerk

A collection of objects from the General Patton Memorial Museum 

Written by Sarah Mirti

The General Patton Memorial Museum in Ettelbruck displays a multitude of small objects produced during the time of the Nazi regime. It can be assumed that most of the objects that can be seen in the museum in Ettelbruck stem from the Winterhilfswerk (WHW) campaign that began in Luxembourg in winter 1940-41.

The objects vary vastly in nature. Some are clearly propaganda objects like small collectible cards representing Nazi officers or small booklets praising Hitler with titles like “Der Führer und Mussolini”, “Der Führer und die Bewegung”, “Des Führers Kampf in Belgien”, etc. A series of 28 such booklets was published by Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s official photographer. The books were designed as gifts that could be hung on the Christmas tree.[1]

Winterhilfswerk

The objects described in this study were produced as part of the Winterhilfswerk des Deutschen Volkes (Winter Relief of the German People) programme, which was abbreviated WHW.

The National Socialist regime ran an annual fundraising campaign to help people in need by providing food, clothes, coal, etc. Slogans such as “nobody shall starve or freeze” were used to convince people to donate to the WHW.[2] The programme ran from 1931 to 1945 during the winter months from October to March. The donors received small token gifts of negligible value to thank them for their donations. Of course, the programme was also used for propaganda means and to support the regime.

Over the winter of 1940-41 Gauleiter Simon decided to replicate the WHW campaign in Luxembourg. The initiative was presented to the Luxembourg population as the German national community “helping” the Luxembourgers. Besides the fact that Gauleiter Simon probably wanted recognition from Goebbels, who oversaw the WHW programme, the aim was clearly to motivate the reluctant Luxembourg population to support the German Reich.[3]

A well-oiled “marketing machine”

The WHW issued 8,000 different objects over the years that the campaign was run. In view of the sophistication of the objects, the initiative must have functioned like a “marketing machine”.[4] The organisation went as far as designing new objects for each season that were of interest to the population, e.g. ceramic characters representing certain professions in Vienna in 1940.

There must have been a vast organisational structure to cope with the logistics of designing, producing and managing the distribution of millions of these objects every year.[5] Although there was pressure on the population to donate to the WHW, the small objects were most likely intended to raise interest and to encourage people to donate.

A variety of objects

At first glance, the objects seem colourful and appealing, so it can be assumed that the intention behind them was to please most of the population. The objects include small toys and enamel pins to pin on clothes. They were marketed towards a wide target audience encompassing several age groups, with toys for children and pins for adults, for example. They were inspired by certain themes like herbs, medallions of famous Germans, city emblems, attractive toy characters, small aeroplanes, etc.

In times of war, there was no money for toys and gadgets, so these non-essential accessories were popular amongst the local people. Through the pins, the German occupying force was able to deploy its propaganda, because when people wore them they were seen by others. The main purpose of the cards was to familiarise the population with the main leaders behind the National Socialist movement.

Many objects became collector’s items, and some are still collected nowadays.

It seems that the dissemination of propaganda through the WHW was at least as important as the original purpose of the relief organisation. It is very clear that the Nazi propaganda machine wanted to convince the population of the merits of the National Socialist regime through the WHW initiative.[6]

APPENDIX

Görlitzer, Bettina, Hilfe für Bedürftige als Mittel der Propaganda (03.03.2018), in: come-on.de Virtuelles Museum: Hilfe für Bedürftige als Mittel der Propaganda | Lüdenscheid (come-on.de) (Stand: 10.01.2021).

Dostert, Paul, WHW Winterhilfswerk des deutschen Volkes (7.11.2002), in: Ons Stad Autoren | Ons Stad (vdl.lu) (Stand: 13.01.2021).

Hoffmann, Heinrich, Winterhilfswerk-Heftchen 1937/1941 (2021), in: Heinrich Hoffmann – Winterhilfswerk-Heftchen (WHW-Heftchen) – Catawiki (Stand: 13.01.2021).

Scriba, Arnulf, Das Winterhilfswerk (WHW) (16.09.2015), in: Lebendiges Museum Online LeMO Kapitel – NS-Regime – NS-Organisationen – Winterhilfswerk (dhm.de) (Stand: 10.01.2021).

Virtuelles Brückenhofmuseum (02.01.2020) Virtuelles Brückenhofmuseum – Königswinter – Oberdollendorf (virtuellesbrueckenhofmuseum.de) (Stand: 10.01.2021).

[1] Scriba, Arnulf, Das Winterhilfswerk (WHW) (16.09.2015), in: Lebendiges Museum Online LeMO Kapitel – NS-Regime – NS-Organisationen – Winterhilfswerk (dhm.de) (Stand: 10.01.2021).

[2] Scriba, Arnulf, Das Winterhilfswerk (WHW) (16.09.2015), in: Lebendiges Museum Online LeMO Kapitel – NS-Regime – NS-Organisationen – Winterhilfswerk (dhm.de) (Stand: 10.01.2021).

[3] Dostert, Paul, WHW Winterhilfswerk des deutschen Volkes (7.11.2002), in: Ons Stad Autoren | Ons Stad (vdl.lu) (Stand: 13.01.2021). and Scriba, Arnulf, Das Winterhilfswerk (WHW) (16.09.2015), in Lebendiges Museum Online LeMO Kapitel – NS-Regime – NS-Organisationen – Winterhilfswerk (dhm.de) (Stand: 10.01.2021).

[4] Görlitzer, Bettina, Hilfe für Bedürftige als Mittel der Propaganda (03.03.2018), in: come-on.de Virtuelles Museum: Hilfe für Bedürftige als Mittel der Propaganda | Lüdenscheid (come-on.de) (Stand: 10.01.2021).

[5] Görlitzer, Bettina, Hilfe für Bedürftige als Mittel der Propaganda (03.03.2018), in: come-on.de Virtuelles Museum: Hilfe für Bedürftige als Mittel der Propaganda | Lüdenscheid (come-on.de) (Stand: 10.01.2021).

[6] Dostert, Paul, WHW Winterhilfswerk des deutschen Volkes (7.11.2002), in: Ons Stad Autoren | Ons Stad (vdl.lu) (Stand: 13.01.2021).

Saving belt

Written by Maxim Oblitsov

The historian at the front

This officer’s belt belonged to Lev Grigorievich Dyachkov. He was a historian in Voronezh State Pedagogical Institute. During the Great Patriotic War Dyachkov went through a lot of things. He was born in 1921 on the 12 July in the family of the military man. His father came from the village Uspenskoe in Korotoyaksriy uyezd (county) in Voronezh Province and he was a peasant. In 1928 Lev came to study in Voronezh and in 1941 he graduated from Voronezh Pedagogical University with the historian degree. [1].

A special gift

At the end of 1942 when the battle in Stalingrad was still going, but the outcome was almost clear. At that period the Soviet government permitted to sent parcels to the people in the front. As Lev Grigorievich remembered, despite the fact that the soldiers were fully provided with food and clothes, the parcels were send to the front and there were a lot of them. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children wanted to make happy their relatives who were at the front. So, they send them everything they could. At this period of time Lev Grigorievich’s mother send him a parcel. There was a semi-smoked sausage, metal sealed box with pure alcohol and commanding officer’s belt. This was leather belt with brass star buckle. The star was shining with the Soviet Union symbols. This belt very beautiful and many other commanders wanted to have such belt, especially young ones. (in 1942 he was 21). About 2 years later the belt played an important role in his life.

In the summer 1944 during the Vistula–Oder Offensive the Red Army was preparing for an operation. The basic tasks were to come to the river Vistula, to occupy staging ground in the western bank, to make the German soldiers run to the Oder, where the German borders were. During this period of time our hero was on duty in the 3rd guard armoured corps, which was formed in 1943 14 May by the order of Joseph Stalin [2]. The commander of this division was an outstanding Soviet Lieutenant-General [3].

The belt saved his life

In August 1944 the 3rd guard armourded corps came to Vistula, forced it and occupied the staging ground in the region of Sandomierz. They were preparing to cross the river. At the twilight the soldiers were attacked at the temporary bridge by 67 German bombers. The transport was blocked and people could not leave or go back. They were attacked and there was fuel in the cars. Lev Grigorievich’s official car “Dodge” was on fire. There were important documents. Everything was on fire. When Dyachkov understood that there was nothing left in his car and everything burnt down he ran from it and was trying to protect himself from the attack. As Lev Grigorievich remembered he felt pain in the right hand and stomach after the one of the bombs exploded. But there was no blood and the arm was dry. After that he touched the belt presented by his mother, but he could not open it. It was seized up. It turned out that the service shirt was torn above the belt. The thick buckle was damaged and the belt was blocked. The star and the corners were a little bit crushed. A piece of the exploded bomb got into the buckle but did not break through it. It only damaged it and torn the service shirt. At the break of dawn Lev Dyachkov approached to the road. There was a horrible view. All the cars were burnt. After the German attack they decided to go to Tarnobrzeg in 12 km from the temporary bridge.

Lev Grigorievich noticed that everyone was surprised. They looked at his belt and couldn’t believe it. “This belt saved me from the death: And I told that it was my mother who send me this belt. Then I continued wearing this belt till the end of the war. I took it home after the demobilization and my brother Vladimir wore it with the uniform and my great-coat. That was because we could not buy any clothes after the war. It was a hard period of time”.

The time after WWII

During the Great Patriotic War Lev Grigorievich constantly was in South-West, Voronezh, Bryansk, Central, 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belarussian fronts. He was awarded with the Order Red Star and medals “For Battle Merit”, Medal “For the Victory Over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945”, The Medal “For the Liberation of Warsaw”, The Medal “For the Capture of Berlin” for the brilliant accomplishment of commander’s tasks at the front during the battle with the german-fascist invaders. After the Great Patriotic War he contunued to serve in the Military Attorney Department of the 1st Guard armoured corps until the demobilization in 1946. The commanding unit wanted him to stay in the army. They wanted to send him to study in the Academy of Military Law, but he was eager to work as a historian. In Autumn 1946 “historian-soldier” came to Tambov where his parents lived. They were evacuated from Voronezh and he faced the problem which was typical for people in the after war period. He could not find a job. [1]. We would not even get to know about him, if his grandson did not ask to help him with the hometask. Besides, his son and historian Vladimir Lvovich Dyachkov kept the fragments of the war memories and published them in 2010 in the collection of documents about the Great Patriotic War [4]. On the 9 May 2020 a memorial complex was build in honour of lecturers and students who participated in the Great Patriotic War. And the name of Lev Grigorievich Dyachkov who was a lecturer of TSPU is also placed there. (working period 1948-1989) [5].

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[1] Dyachkov V.L. The Dyachkovy Teacher’s Dynasty. // Youth and Society / Publ: Derzhavin Tambov State University. Tambov. 2010. p. 71

[2] 3rd Guard Armoured Corps URL: http://tankfront.ru/ussr/ta/gvta3.html (reference date 30.07.2020)

[3] Rybalko Pavel Semenovich URL:  https://pamyat-naroda.ru/commander/1058/?static_hash=008f6b5159e9c2ba6b93b9e516c79029 (reference date 30.07.2020)

[4] Tambov citizens at the fronts of the World War 2 1939-1945. Collection of Documents – Tambov, 2010. 1490 p.

[5] Tambov Life URL: https://tamlife.ru/informaciya/obshhestvo/2020051414144958193.html/v-tambove-vozveli-derzhavinskij-memorialnyj-kompleks/ (reference date 01.07.2020)

Tank as a gift

Written by Madina Ismagilova

The idea of producing a series of tanks «Tambovskiy kolkhoznik» (“Tambov collective farmer”) with the help of money donated by citizens belongs to the Tambov region dwellers. For this reason, in 1949 a monument was unveiled in Tambov, on the pedestal of which a T-34 battle tank was hoisted.

History of creation

The front line went through 200 kilometers from Tambov in autumn of 1942. However, people of Tambov region made a big contribution to the victory over fascist Germany. Many of them protected their motherland on the battlefield and others worked in the rear. Tambov dwellers were the first in the country who donated a large amount of money for creating the tank column «Tambovskiy kolkhoznik» (“Tambov collective farmer”). People who did not have money, donated products and warm clothes. In total, 214 thousand poods of bread, 4700 pounds of meat, 3000 kilograms of wool were donated to the Red Army Fund, and 100 wagons of gifts were sent to soldiers. Due to this money about 300 tanks of the famous model «T-34», 25 squadrons of combat aircraft, several torpedo boats were produced in a month and sent to the front. All citizens of the USSR supported this idea and then such tank columns appeared in Moscow, Kuibyshev, Gorkov, Ivanovsk, Ryazan, Voronezh and Novosibirsk.

Purpose of creating the monument

A monument with one of the tanks from this column was created in Tambov in 1949. You can see it now on the Moskovskaya street. This tank headed by Philip Antonovich Gokov the Hero of the USSR had taken part in the Battle of Stalingrad, fights on the Kursk Bulge and battles for the liberation of Ukraine. The author of this project is V.G. Samorodov. The chief idea of the monument is to show the meaning of the Victory, in which the feat of arms of warriors was based on labor heroism. Thus, the design of a pedestal imitating masonry made of stones could symbolize the contribution to the national business of each person working in the rear. This was also indicated by the content of the preserved relief inscription on the northern plane of the pedestal: «The successes of the Red Army would not have been possible without the support of the people, without the dedicated work of the Soviet citizens in factories, mines and mines, in transport and agriculture. The selfless work of the Soviet dwellers in the rear will go down in history along with the heroic struggle of the Red Army, as an unprecedented feat of the people in the defense of their homeland». On the south side was the text of a telegram sent to Tambov, in which the Supreme Commander conveyed «my Stalinist greetings and gratitude to the Red Army». The image of the relief banners on the facade and the direction of the line of inscriptions from both sides seemed to “exalt” both feats of battle and labor.

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Prototype of Treptower Park Monument

The biography of Ivan Stepanovich Odarchenko, who became the prototype of the monument to the Soldier the Liberator in Treptower Park in Berlin, was usual for people of the WWII generation. Before being drafted into the army, Odarchenko lived in Magnitogorsk, where his family moved from the village of Novoaleksandrovka, fleeing starvation. At the age of seventeen, Ivan was already a strong young man, two meters tall, so for his exteriors he was appointed as foreman in kolkhoze, on a suburban collective farm, and in fact as its chairman.

Liberating Europe

Ivan Odarchenko was called to the front in January 1944. He fought in the 114th Guards Division of the 9th Guards Army. Odarchenko participated in liberation of Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Army. He received the medal “For Courage” and continued his military service in Berlin after WWII in Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany (SOZG).

In August 1947, on the Day of the Athlete, sports competitions of Soviet soldiers were held at a stadium in the Weissensee district of Berlin, and Odarchenko also participated in them. After having run a cross, the sculptor Evgeny Vuchetich approached him and asked him to pose for a sculpture. Vuchetich said that he was working on a monument to the Soldier the Liberator.

Being noticed

He posed for the sculptor with a girl in her arms for almost six months. At first it was a real German girl, and then she was replaced by the three-year-old Svetlana Kotikov, the daughter of the commandant of Berlin. The plot for the monument was an event that happened during the storming of Berlin. On 30th of April 1945, sergeant Nikolai Masalov, risking his life, took out a three-year-old German girl from the shelling zone.

Odarchenko also posed for the artist Anatoly Gorpenko, who created a mosaic panel inside the pedestal of the monument. This panel depicts Odarchenko twice – as a soldier with the Golden Star medal and a steel helmet in his hands, as well as a worker in a blue overalls with his head bowed, holding a wreath.

As monument and as human

A twelve-meter bronze monument was made in Leningrad and transported in parts to Berlin. The monument was inaugurated on May 8, 1949. Several times, Ivan Odarchenko had to stand in the guard of honnor at the monument, the prototype of which he was himself.

Odarchenko arrived in Tambov in the same 1949, shortly after the opening of the monument. After the discharge to the reserve, he was going to return to Kazakhstan, but on the way he stopped by to visit his sister in Tambov and decided to stay. He built a house, got married and worked for almost forty years as a turner and milling machine operator at the Tambov enterprise Avtotraktorodetal. Odarchenko didn’t advertise his involvement in the creation of the famous monument until he was found by collector Nikiforov and journalists.

The double fame

Odarchenko became famous in 1965, when the country celebrated the 20th anniversary of victory in the war. On this occasion, a ruble coin depicting the Berlin “Soldier the Liberator” was issued. Nikiforov was one of the first to have this coin. He immediately appeared with her in the regional museum of local lore, where the design of the exposition dedicated to the Great Patriotic War ended, and told employees that the turner of the Tambov plain bearings factory Ivan Stepanovich Odarchenko was minted on a coin.

Soon, a sculptural portrait of Odarchenko appeared in the regional museum of local lore, made by the monument’s author Eugene Vuchetich and donated to Tambov.

Secondly, fame came to Odarchenko 45 years later, when on May 8, 2010 in the Victory Park in Tambov a monument of the veterans was opened. According to the plans of the Tambov sculptors Viktor Kulaev and Valery Paramonov, the same Ivan Odarchenko became the model for the monument.

“Honestly, when they informed me that they would again make a monument to me,” said Odarchenko, “I thought that he would again be like in Berlin — let him do it from Vuchetich’s work.” But when the sculptor explained that he wanted to do me, as a veteran, I agreed …”

So after 65 years, the warrior-liberator “returned” home, sat down on a bench in Victory Park, put his great-granddaughter on his knees and became a symbol of the connection of time and generation. Ivan Stepanovich died on July 2, 2013 at the age of 87.

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Calling Trumpet

War and music

Have you ever wondered about the meaning of music during the war? There have been cases where military songs have saved hundreds of soldiers’ lives. The music was the spiritual weapon of the front and the back. It called to the battle, inspired with memories of peaceful days and instilled in the hearts of the people the belief in victory. It helped people to survive in that hard time and to win the cruel battle, it became a formidable weapon that did not allow to break the spirit of Soviet people. In the photo there is the musical instrument of Ilya Shatrov ­– famous Russian military musician, kapellmeister, composer. This is a truly brilliant musician who became the pride not only of our city but of all our country. This trumpet was bought by him during his studies at the Music Institute of Warsava. It went through more than one war with him and was transferred by his fellow musician Ivan Zalivin to the Tambov Museum of Local History in 1977.

The waltz goes to the front

Ilya Shatrov wrote the waltz «On the Snots of Manchuria» and thanks to it he became known all over the Country. The waltz helps you to plunge into war time, its notes aren’t tragic but they touch the hearts of listeners. This is a truly masterpiece of Russian music of the 20th-century. It was written during the Russian war with Japan and was dedicated to the fallen soldiers of the war. Later, heartwarming words were written for the waltz, it found the lyrics and became a song.

Although it was written in the early 20th century, during the Great Patriotic War its popularity increased. The Shatrov’s Waltz became one of the most performed during the war, the famous Soviet singer of those years Ivan Kozlovsky expressed his appreciation of this waltz and often performed it at his concerts, the earned money of which were donated to the fund of the Soviet Army. When the press published the information that the creator of the famous waltz lived in Tambov, a huge number of letters of gratitude were sent from soldiers, workers, schoolchildren. In one of the letters soldiers described how before the battle they had listened to the record of waltz and then went to the fight and came back from it save and having won. So the waltz became a valuable participant in this terrible war. It provided not only the spiritual assistance to the soviet army but also a material. Ilya Shatrov much desired to be called to the front, but he wasn’t accepted because he was already 64 years old. So instead of the composer his waltz went to the front.

Сentennial witness

During the fierce battle in the 1905, in whose name the waltz was written, I.A. Shatrov with other musicians, surrounded by shells, accompanied the Russian soldiers in the battle with their orchestra. Ilya Shatrov played the trumpet and we have reason to believe that exactly this trumpet you see in the photo was with him in that difficult hour and on this trumpet the famous waltz was first played.

This musical instrument witnessed many events, it was with the composer during the difficult time of the Great Patriotic War, we can only imagine how in those sad moments this trumpet helped to overcome the heavy burden of war time and how it calmed down the composer’s soul and listeners.

See related images

Listen to the trumpet:

Card of an Imprisoned Mother

by Noémie Wilmes

Background story

Yvonne Useldinger, maiden name Hostert was born on the 6th November 1921 in Steinfort and died on the 11th February 2009 in Esch/Alzette. She was a Luxembourgish politician and resistance fighter. Due to her political commitment and resistance she was arrested twice by the GESTAPO during WWII. She was first arrested in 1941 but was released after due to a lack of evidence. In 1942 Yvonne Useldinger as well as her parents and brother were arrested again. During her second arrest she was pregnant. She gave birth to her child, Fernande in the monastery of the jail in Trier, Germany. Yonne Useldinger’s mother was released and took care of Fernande in the following years.[1]

 

The deportation to the concentration camp Ravensbrück

Yvonne Useldinger herself was deported to the concentration camp Ravensbrück in late June 1943.[2] The Ravensbrück concentration camp was exclusively for women active from 1939 to 1945. In December 1944 she was transferred to the camp unit Siemenslager. It was a labor camp mainly for winding coils and building relays for telephones.[3]

Yvonne Useldinger received some letters and a package while she was in the concentration camp, sent from her mother. She received a picture of her daughter, that she occasionally was allowed to see for an hour at a time. A camp mate sketched a portrait of this picture, which Useldinger always kept with her. Useldinger left the Ravensbrück concentration camp after its liberation by the Red Army. With other Luxembourgish women she was evacuated and transported to Sweden by the International Swedish Red Cross. The evacuation was undertaken by the Swedish Red Cross and the Danish government to rescue concentration camp inmates in areas under Nazi control an transport them to Sweden, a neutral country. The operation was called “White Buses”. Within a few days around 7000 female prisoners were evacuated from Ravensbrück to Denmark and then to Sweden.[4]

 

The card ‘Ravensbrück’

The above featured picture shows a card which can be divided into three main sections. On the left side we can see a small translucent envelope with a bundle of hair. The caption says: “Kindes Haare im Paket. Y.U”, which means child’s hair in package, signed with the initials of Yvonne Useldinger. After her deportation to Ravensbrück concentration camp she wasn’t able to see her daughter Fernande which in the meantime was raised by her grandmother. This hair was probably sent to her in a package Yvonne received from her mother. Apart from a picture this was the only thing that gave her an emotional connection to her daughter. On the top left side we can see a safety pin holding an orange and red flower as well as a small white dog. Both items are made out of a toothbrush. The caption says: “Zahnbürste” which means toothbrush. Yvonne Useldinger loved art and tried to make art out of everything she possibly could. The deep signification behind these two details is unknown. They might be related to her personal memories such as her favorite flower or a dog she once owned. On the left bottom side we can see another safety pin holding a golden bracelet. The caption says: “Von einer Oesterreicherin die erschossen wurde”. This bracelet belonged to an Austrian camp mate which got shot. It can be assumed that Useldinger got along well with her and therefore she kept it. All three parts have a strong symbolic meaning. The card titled “Ravensbrück” shows three elements which were assumed to be of a high value for Useldinger. The analysis of the object shows that this card has a high symbolic value. The card contains the hair of her be missed daughter, a souvenir and relict of a shot friend and two self-craved figures that represent her passion for art. It is unknown if she made this card during her stay at Ravensbrück or if she made it during her time in Sweden.

 

Her manuscript and research

Before she was liberated from the concentration camp in April 1945, Yvonne Useldinger kept a diary in which she recorded her thoughts and outlined her life in the camp.[5] The nineteen-page manuscript was first published in 2006 in an annotated edition by Kathrin Meß[6], staff member of the Ravensbrück memorial. Her diary is one of the few objects that survived Ravensbrück.[7]

Following the director of the Musée National de la Résistance Frank Schroeder, this card as well as more material and some art was donated in the 1950’s shortly after the opening of the museum by Yvonne Useldinger herself.

 

[1] Land: Meß, Kathrin: … als fiele ein Sonnenschein in meine einsame Zelle, „Heute lebst du noch“, URL: http://www.land.lu/page/article/427/1427/FRE/index.html

[2] Autorenlexikon, Yvonne Useldinger,

URL: https://www.autorenlexikon.lu/page/author/386/3862/DEU/index.html

[3] Forum 259, Yvonne Useldinger – Eine Luxemburgerin im Frauen-KZ Ravensbrück, p.49-52
URL: https://www.forum.lu/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/5844_259_Meß.pdf

[4] Land: Meß, Kathrin: … als fiele ein Sonnenschein in meine einsame Zelle, „Heute lebst du noch“, URL: http://www.land.lu/page/article/427/1427/FRE/index.html

[5] Forum 259, Yvonne Useldinger – Eine Luxemburgerin im Frauen-KZ Ravensbrück, p.52
URL: https://www.forum.lu/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/5844_259_Meß.pdf

[6] Kathrin Meß: … als fiele ein Sonnenschein in meine einsame Zelle. Das Tagebuch der Luxemburgerin Yvonne Useldinger aus dem Frauen-KZ Ravensbrück. Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2008. 

[7] Land: Meß, Kathrin: … als fiele ein Sonnenschein in meine einsame Zelle, „Heute lebst du noch“, URL: http://www.land.lu/page/article/427/1427/FRE/index.html

Prosthetic leg

by Bob Rommelfanger

In order to understand the circumstances behind the construction of this object you first need to have a gander at the life of Néckel Spielmann. The following information was mostly pulled from his diary which was later partly released to the public. Born on the 15th of January 1920 in Brattert, he finished primary school and started an apprenticeship as a baker, a job which he exercised in Ettelbrück until 1940. At this point he joined the Luxemburgish “Fräiwëllegekompanie” on the first of February. When the German Army invaded Luxembourg on the 10th of May 1940, all Luxembourgish army personnel was transferred to Weimar Germany for a retraining before joining the German police. In January of 1942 part of his company was located in Laak Yugoslavia. Here, after fights against partisans where multiple Luxembourgish policemen died, he and his comrades refused further orders. The sources are actually diverging from one another on this point, some more implausible ones actually point to Néckel Spielmann already having refused his police service in Weimar. Another source claims he and his fellow Luxembourgish men, when in Laak, refused to take the oath on the Führer, for which they were sent to prison.

On the 2nd of January 1942 Néckel Spielmann and 26 Luxembourgish comrades of his were brought to different prisons. From Krainburg, to Graz, then Vienna, followed by Buchenwald on the 13th of June 1942. Here he carried out various works, such as clearing out the Buchenwald forest or working as a mechanic. On the 22nd of August 1944 the members of the “Fräiwëllegekompanie” were offered a dismissal upon entering the Wehrmacht. Upon declining they were supposed to be shot, however orders never made it from Berlin having probably been lost in transit.

On the 24th of August allied bombers ravaged the Buchenwald concentration camp, it was then that Néckel Spielmann was badly injured on his right knee. After some time, he was finally found by fellow inmates who moved him away on an improvised stretcher. A Luxembourgish friend of his that had befriended a French doctor inside the camp brought Néckel past other injured people straight to the operating room. Over the following ten days his wound began to fester and caused him high levels of pain. During these hard times, his Luxemburgish friends took care of him and his wound. Starting to show signs of Tetanus, his friends called the doctor to treat him, who refused, as he saw no hope. Néckels friends, not giving up on him however are said to have threatened their fellow inmate and doctor with death if he did not treat their friend. His condition stabilizing itself, his leg had to be amputated, which happened on the 11th of September. In need of a blood transfusion, a total of fifteen Luxembourgish inmates volunteered their blood, of which one was picked. Over the following days and weeks with the help of his friends he started getting stronger and healthier again.

Two of his comrades, Jhemp Schmit and Gust Schaffner, both mechanics decided to build him a prosthetic leg. They used smuggled pieces of aluminum as well as the remains of a dead inmates’ prosthetic to build Néckel his very own prosthetic leg. All of this in an environment where the slightest of mistakes could cost you your life. His first steps were made under the cheers of his Luxembourgish friends.

Néckel used his prosthetic till after the war until he got a new one whilst recuperating for a few months at the Zitha-hospital in Luxembourg city. The prosthetic was donated to the “Musée national de la résistance” during the fifties. After the war Néckel Friedmann rejoined the Luxembourgish army until his retirement and was part of the “Amicale Buchenwald” until his early death in 1979.

The story of this object shows not only the refusal of Néckel Spielmann and his fellow men of the “Fräiwëllegekompanie” to follow orders under threat of losing their freedom but also how their strong cohesion and friendship managed to save his life whilst inside of the concentration camp Buchenwald.  

Winterhilfswerk collection can

Written by Gilles Lanners

About the Winterhilfswerk

This object was chosen because it symbolizes the forced participation of the Luxembourgish population in national-socialist charity, an important mainstay of the propaganda efforts.[1] The Winterhilfswerk (WHW) thus played an essential role in the national socialist ideology because it represented the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the society. It was founded in 1931, as a result to the economic decline following the crisis in 1929. After Hitler seized power, he incorporated the WHW in the national socialist structure. Thus, the WHW was an essential element in the national solidarity, which Hitler often addressed in his speeches.[2] Moreover, the creation of the WHW was directly linked to the Führer-Auftrag “Keiner soll hunger, keiner soll frieren.”[3] What is interesting to note is that, contrary to how the Reich Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, tried to present it later on, the WHW as an organ of welfare and safety of the population had already been active under the Republic of Weimar, and thus was not an invention of the national socialists.[4]

The can rattlers

The so-called can rattlers, who walked around with the cans and collected money, made sure that no one forgot to pay his part for the wellbeing of the population. This particular can was donated to the museum by the municipality of Schifflange. In an interview with the Musée de la Résistance, the Schifflange native Camille Robert explained that his family was forced to make donations to the WHW. He stated that it was very well traced which family payed how much and that, in case a family had not payed enough according to its social status, they were called to account and had to pay the missing amount of money. In some cases, the fact that someone was not able to pay his part to the WHW even led to this person losing his job.[5] Therefore, it can be stated that the social dimension of the Winter Relief was rather limited.

In his book Into the Darkness, Dr. Lothrop Stoddard, an American historian (and white supremacist) wrote down the following episode in relation to the WHW, after a visit to Germany in 1939:

Once a fortnight, every city, town, and village in the Reich seethes with brown-shirted Storm Troopers carrying red-painted canisters. These are the Winter-Help collection-boxes. The Brown-Shirts go everywhere. You cannot sit in a restaurant or beer-hall but what, sooner or later, a pair of them will work through the place, rattling their canisters ostentatiously in the faces of customers. And I never saw a German formally refuse to drop in his mite, even though the contribution might have been less than the equivalent of one American cent.[6]


[1] Tennstedt, Florian, Wohltat und Interesse. Das Winterhilfswerk des Deutschen Volkes: Die Weimarer Vorgeschichte und ihre Instrumentalisierung durch das NS-Regime, in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 13/2 (1987), 157.

[2] See for example: Führer-Reden zum Winterhilfswerk 1933-1936, Berlin 1937.

[3] Nobody shall suffer famine, nobody shall freeze.

[4] Tennstedt, Wohltat und Interesse,157.  

[5] Shirer, William L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, New York, 1959, 234.

[6] Stoddard, Lothrop, Into the Darkness, accessible online via Gutenberg Project: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300731.txt

Concentration camp uniform

by Sarah Mirti

The Luxembourg resistance movement

The picture shows a typical uniform worn by concentration camp prisoners during World War II. This one was worn by the Luxembourgish resistance fighter Jéng Kayser. He was part of the Luxembourgish “Alweraje” resistance movement set up in 1941 by Albert Wingert. In August 1942, about 100 members of Luxembourg resistance organisations, including Kayser, were arrested by the Gestapo and send to concentration camps.[1] Kayser was first deported to Hinzert, then transferred to Natzweiler-Struthof and finally to Dachau, where he was detained until his liberation in May 1945.[2] 

Historical information and memories conveyed by the concentration camp uniform

Jéng Kayser’s uniform is typical of the uniforms worn by concentration camp prisoners. In European visual cultures, stripes have long been associated with a loss of freedom, and their pejorative meaning goes back hundreds of years. The stripes had a humiliating function and served to brand all prisoners as criminals. They were also intended to prevent the prisoners from escaping – the fabric of the uniform had stripes printed on both sides.[3]

The uniform is relatively heavy and the tissue is rather stiff. The material of the uniform is most likely cotton drill.[4]

The uniform has a red triangle with the letter L. Badges in different shapes and colours were used to identify prisoners. The red triangle indicated prisoners that were incarcerated for political reasons. The letter “L” stands for Luxembourg.[5]

The uniform has an identification number, “110824”. The fact that Jéng Kayser was given an identification number indicates that he was fit to perform work. In Dachau, prisoners that were not fit for work could be sent as “Invalidentransport” to the death facility at Hartheim Castle in Austria.[6]

The uniform has a pocket on the front side, which is unusual. Generally, the uniforms of concentration camp prisoners did not include pockets. We know from survivor’s testimonies that having pockets was very important. It made it possible to hide a piece of bread, a spoon, or anything small and useful. Hand-stitched secret pockets on the reverse side of the jackets were sometimes added, but machine-stitched pockets on the face of the jacket were probably added in a sewing workshop as a favour to “high ranking” prisoners.[7]

Pictures from Dachau prisoners shows uniforms without pockets:

www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/prisoner-forced-to-stand-as-punishment

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/dachau-color-photographs

Survival and advancement at Natzweiler-Struthof

In Natzweiler-Struthof, most prisoners worked in the quarry, extracting stone or gravel. From the end of 1942 on, they were assigned to repair aircraft engines for the German Air Force.[8] Jéng Kayser’s first employment in Natzweiler was on the Terrassen, probably an area for stone extraction. At a later stage, because of his profession as a machinist and his general craftsmanship, he was assigned to work in a hall where aircraft engines from shot-down aircraft were disassembled so their parts could be reused. One day, the car of the camp commander broke down. Jéng Kayser was asked by the SS supervisor to produce the broken clutch part on a lathe, which he successfully managed to do. From that day on, the situation of the inmates in the hall where Kayser worked improved, also because Kayser manufactured floor lamps for the SS supervisor on a lathe, which the SS supervisor traded for food for his family in Germany.[9]

Transfer to Dachau before the liberation

In early September 1944, as the Allied armies were advancing, the Nazis decided to evacuate the principal camp of Natzweiler-Struthof and most of the prisoners including Kayser were transferred to Dachau.[10] Towards the end of the war, uniforms for prisoners were scarce or generally not available.[11] The uniform Kayser wore until his liberation is probably the uniform he was given during his time at Natzweiler. Considering the work that had to be performed at Natzweiler, extracting stones or working on aircraft engines, the Kayser’s uniform is in very good shape, with little to no wear and no stains from engine oil or other substances. The favourable status that Kayser had gained at Natzweiler probably explains the good quality of his uniform and the fact that he had the privilege of having a pocket. He was probably given permission to wash his uniform or received a regular exchange uniform, which was very rare.[12]

The Dachau concentration camp had under its authority a vast network of 140 sub-camps producing armaments, predominantly in southern Bavaria.[13] It is likely that Jéng Kayser had to perform forced work in the six months he was detained in Dachau. The uniform that he most likely brought from Natzweiler or the new uniform he received (a more unlikely scenario) remained in good condition. He probably had an occupation that did not involve exposure to industrial oil or result in wear and tear of his uniform.

 Tribute

Jéng Frank’s uniform is a testimony to his courage and determination as a survivor of three concentration camps. The donation of his uniform to the museum underlines his desire to preserve the memory of the terrifying events related to the Nazi regime and its concentration camps.

See related images 

[1] Limpac, Marc, Kayser, Wir glauben an die Demokratie. Albert Wingert, Resistenzler, Editions d’Lëtzebuerger Land, Luxembourg 2004, p. 122.

[2] Bosseler, Nicolas, Steichen, Raymond, Livre d’Or. De la Résistance Luxembourgeoise de 1940-1945, Esch-sur-Alzette 1952, p. 58 ff.

[3] Fenyvesi, Lizou, Reading Prisoner Uniforms: The Concentration Camp Prisoner Uniform as a Primary Source for Historical Research (11 October 2006), in: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1340&context=tsaconf (retrieved: 23 June 2020).

[4] Hammermann, Gabriele, Pilzweger-Steiner, KZ-Gedenkstätten Dachau. Ein Rundgang in leichter Sprache, Taschenbuch 2018, p. 71 ff.

[5] Berben, Paul, Jewish Virtual Library. A Project of Aice (20 January 2020), in: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/dachau-prisoner-badges (retrieved: June 23,2020).

[6] KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau. Stiftung Bayerische Gedenkstätten (15 May 2014), in: https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/en/historical-site/dachau-concentration-camp-1933-1945/ (retrieved: 22 June 2020).

[7] The Wiener Holocaust Library. The Holocaust Explained (2017), in: https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-camps/ss-concentration-camp-system/uniform-and-clothing/ (retrieved: 23 June 2020)

[8] Struthof, The everyday life of the deportees (2019), in: http://www.struthof.fr/en/the-kl-natzweiler/the-deportees-of-kl-na/they-everyday-life-of-the-deportees/ (retrieved: 22 June 2020).

[9] Limpac, Marc, Kayser, Wir glauben an die Demokratie. Albert Wingert, Resistenzler, Editions d’Lëtzebuerger Land, Luxembourg 2004, p. 133.

[10] Limpac, Marc, Kayser, Wir glauben an die Demokratie. Albert Wingert, Resistenzler, Editions d’Lëtzebuerger Land, Luxembourg 2004, p. 143 ff.

[11] The Wiener Holocaust Library. The Holocaust Explained (2017), in: https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-camps/ss-concentration-camp-system/uniform-and-clothing/ (retrieved: 23 June 2020)

[12] G. Saidel, Rochelle, KZ-Häftlingskleidung (26 March 2013), in: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/KZ-H%C3%A4ftlingskleidung (retrieved: 23 June 2020).

[13] KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau. Stiftung Bayerische Gedenkstätten (15 May 2014), in: https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/en/historical-site/dachau-concentration-camp-1933-1945/ (retrieved: 23 June 2020).

Air ride siren

Written by Kim Meyers

Historical background and context

Situated on top of the parish hall of Dudelange, one major air raid siren, in the type of our depictured one, served as a defense system for the city against attacks by air. Sirens are commonly known and have managed to keep their part in Luxembourgish everyday life up to these days. In fact, each first Monday of the month, at 12 o’clock, the sirens are tested for their functionality. Even though, Luxembourg would not need their functionality primarily to defend against falling bombs, they find their use as a fire alarm.  These sirens are equipped with an electric engine and can be engaged by the push of a button.

The siren which we can find in the Museum of the Forcibly Recruited, is not such a model. In fact, it is a very small, portable one. It was fabricated by the German company Elektror, still in existence today and specialized in electric engines and industrial ventilation systems, in the 1940’s. the company was known for their sirens, forced to produce for the German war machinery, they launched several models, varying in their sizes and their application. Luckily the depictured siren has still a completely intact plate on its side indicating the model and even serial number. The model is “HSM 7”, standing for Hand-Sirene-Mobil (in English: manually powered mobile siren). As available information about such a specific object are moderately rare, I could only find while my research, that the HSM 7 was the middle one in size of three mobile sirens made by Elektror. The serial number is: 456508, manufactured in Esslingen am Necklar.

 

History of this exemplar

As Mr. Norbert Sadler, a member of the Museum of the Forcibly Recruited and an eyewitness of the Second World War could vividly remember, this air raid siren was used by German soldiers, who were stationed in the fields and woods of the South of Luxembourg. They were primarily used to extend the range of the bigger models, fixed on the top of the cities and villages.  

In fact, the sirens we can still hear regularly in Luxembourg, permanently installed in different places, are similar in their functioning to the ones, used in Second World War. Usually placed on top of a higher building, they have the power to overfloat with their sound entire cities in order to warn its inhabitants. However, the people working in the fields or woods for example, were out of their reach, wherefore manually powered sirens were needed. By these small, mobile sirens, more people were reachable and could be warned by the deadly loads of the allied troops who were liberating Luxembourg from the German occupation. Another advantage was surely the mobility. As soldiers rarely stay in one place for a longer duration, they needed to move their protection gear with them. The HSM7 model is a particular light one, which can be transported over a further distance without any problem.

As the name of the Luxembourgish soldier, who was forcibly recruited for the German Reichsmacht and brought this wonderful piece of military and personal history to the museum, is unknown today, we can only surmise that he must have lived in Dudelange or its surroundings, as he deposited it directly at the museum. As mentioned, he was serving for Nazi Germany and managed to take this siren off the battle fields to store it at his home. In the late 1950’s, he decided to let it be accessible for the public and brought it to the exhibition of the museum.

Paradox as it seems, it is easily and hardly imaginable what pain and strong feelings this man must have felt at the sight of this small siren. While its service, it has not only saved the lives of many soldiers, but ultimately also announced death, terror and fear. Nowadays, it is a difficult task for people who have never witnessed this kind of feelings, to empathize let alone to understand the symbolic and personal value of this object.

The south of Luxembourg came under a special target of English and allied bombers as German canons and troops were installed here.[1] The most dense and efficient transport connections are also to be found in the strongly industrialized South of Luxembourg. This is another reason why the allied forces had a special target put on it, as the lines of communication and transport of the Germans, connecting the Reich with its western front should be disturbed.[2] More than 339,8 tons of bombs were dropped by the allied forces over the main train station in Luxembourg-city alone during Second World War.[3] These shocking numbers show enlighten which importance an effective defense system against bombardments by air had. The small siren HSM7, played its key role in this system.

As the example of this small siren was able to show, objects, which often are missed out by public interest or even historical research, can have intriguing and fascinating stories to tell. As mentioned before, this HSM7, in its simplicity and unspectacular appearance had a great emotional and symbolic value for many people of its time.  Therefore, the Museum of the Forcibly Recruited in Dudelange plays a main role in its preservation and remembrance.


[1]  Administration Communale de Pétange, Letzebuerg am Zweeten Weltkrich, 2020, p.171

[2] Administration Communale de Pétange, Letzebuerg am Zweeten Weltkrich, 2020, p.172

[3] Melchers, Emile T.,Über die Bombardierung des Bahnhofs Luxemburg in zwei Weltkriegen in Bombenangriffe .172

Soup Tureen from a Lebensborn orphanage

Wrtitten by Jeff Dondelinger

Porcelain for the Master Race:

Upon hearing the term Nazi, people usually think about concentration and extermination camps. Barely alive humans, lifeless shells, that have gone through immeasurable suffering come to mind. The other side of the medal are Lebensborn homes. Here people seemingly lived a life of luxury. Champagne, clothes, pelts and jewellery were a common sight.[1] But beware, all that glitters is not gold. A shiny facade often hides a dark secret.  Bofferding was no different; luxurious yet ghastly. Situated in a castle, the home had pompous furniture and luxury bathtubs.[2] The classicist style castle was built in 1830 and belonged to Marcel Noppeney, a francophile Author. After the invasion of Luxembourg, Noppeney was sent to the concentration camp of Dachau and his belongings were confiscated. The castle was added in June 1942 to the Lebensborn files as a donation. Max Sollmann, the chief executive of the Lebensborn e.V., confirmed during the Nuremberg trials, that the Lebensborn in Luxembourg was directly linked to the Lebensborn e.V. and classified as a children’s home, not a maternity home.[3]

 

What exactly was the Lebensborn Moselland used for?

The common belief, that Lebensborn homes were breeding stations for aryan children is a misconception.[4] One use of the home was the caretaking of children with ‘good’ blood, that got abducted in Poland. To Germanize the kids, they were sent to Germany or occupied territories. The first ‘guests’ of the Lebensborn in Bofferding were abducted polish children. Another use of the institution was the shelter of German children from bombs. On the 17th of August 1943 a group of children from Munich arrived in Bofferding. On the 31st January 1944 the Lebensborn Moselland was housing 22 children but no mothers. Three nurses took care of the children.[5]

 

What was life like in the Lebensborn?

Three principles lead the education of the children in the homes: order, regularity and strictness. The new-born babies were guarded in a separate maternity. A strict planning organized the day. They got nourished five times and bathed once per day accordingly to the timetable. More physical contact was not allowed, as it would have weakened the children according to the Nazi ideology. The planning even regulated when the children had to go to the toilet, where they had to sit until they were done. The education was draconic but physical punishment was not allowed.[6]

Only a few hints give us a specific insight into the Lebensborn Moselland. A letter from the 18th September 1943 requested several items for the Luxembourgish Lebensborn: A radio, a vacuum cleaner, a chaiselongue, six infant baskets, several strollers, a baby scale, a changing table, ten room thermometers, clothes for babies, paintings of German fairy tales, awning fabric and toys for older children. Another letter from the 5th May 1943 tells us, that the Lebensborn Moselland had beehives in its garden to make honey.[7]

 

A personal story[8]

Barbara was born in February 1938 in Poland. Her mother died during the German invasion and Barbara was taken care of by her grandmother. In 1942 an order arrived to bring Barbara to an inspection. The Nazi officials were satisfied with the examination and brought Barbara to a Lebensborn home. Barbara had blond hair, which was her demise. Her sister who had dark hair was not abducted. The grandmother was only able to visit Barbara once, later the same year. Barbara was named Bärbel by then and only spoke German. Barbara remembers that she was forbidden to speak polish. In her memories the kids in the Lebensborn didn’t speak to each other and never laughed.

In September 1942 a German teacher and his wife adopted Barbara. The following years were the happiest of my life; Barbara said about the time among her foster parents. After the war, in 1948, Barbara’s grandmother made a request to find her granddaughter. In March Barbara was taken alongside 10 other children to a village in south Germany where she was forced to learn English. In June she was sent to a children’s home in Poland before being taken care of by an aunt in July. Barbara was 10 years old and didn’t speak any polish. She was mocked by her peers and didn’t know who she was; Barbara or Bärbel? After two years she was sent to her grandmother before being sent to another aunt. Nobody wanted to take care of her, so she decided to go back to the children’s home.

In 1958 she received a letter from her foster parents. All those years, her polish family hid the letters from her. In 1966 she finally received a visa to visit her foster family. She was welcomed with open arms…[9]

Around 18 000 children lived in Lebensborn homes during the Nazi period. A lot of them with similar stories to Barbara.[10]

 

The End

On the 9th of September 1944 the staff of the Lebensborn Moselland received an order to evacuate the castle and bring all the belongings to the train station in Luxembourg city. The train was overpacked, therefore they were told to evacuate to Trier via horse carriage. The order was disregarded, and the belongings left at the train station, among them the soup tureen…[11] Thus the story ends, just like the children at the Lebensborn, the soup tureen was a tool: both left behind the moment they were of no further use.

 

This is the end. The beginning of life to me.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, letzte Worte, 9. April 1945

 

[1] Lebensborn Bofferdingen, in: d’Unio’n. Quotidien de la Résistance 4/32+33 (01.02.1947), S. 4.

[2] Lebensborn Moselland, in: kugener.com, URL: https://www.kugener.com/de/humanmedizin-fr/geburtshilfe/52-artikel/1945-lebensborn-moselland.html (Stand 18/06/2020).

[3] Krantz, Luxemburgs Kinder, S. 757-785.

[4] Schmitz-Köster, Dorothee, Vankann, Tristan, Lebenslang Lebensborn. Die Wunschkinder der SS und was aus ihnen wurde, Piper Verlag GmbH, München (2012), Vorwort.

[5] Krantz, Luxemburgs Kinder, S. 756-793.

[6] Schmitz-Köster, Lebenslang, Ideale Eltern – ideale Kinder.

[7] Krantz, Luxemburgs Kinder, S. 777-784.

[8] Barbara was not one of the children of the Lebensborn Moselland but I wanted to show a personal story of a child that grew up in a Lebensborn.

[9] Schmitz-Köster, Lebenslang, Eingedeutscht oder: Ich konnte mich nicht wiederfinden.

[10] Schmitz-Köster, Lebenslang, Vorwort.

[11] Krantz, Luxemburgs Kinder, S. 764.

Standing torture

Written by Damien Schmit

Jean Daligault
Father Jean Daligault, was a priest born in Caen on June 8th 1899. His craftsman talent, his passion to travel and foreign languages, his preaching talent and his pastor’s skills already made him an atypical priest. But above all, Jean Daligault was a passionate painter, and had a passion for manufacturing sculptures.
When World War II began and France had been occupied a few months later, Daligault was 40 years old. He was a vicar in Villerville and refused the law of the Germans. He founded with
his friends in Caen and Paris the resistance network “Armée volontaire”. On August 31st 1941 Father Jean Daligault had been arrested by the Gestapo. Then began the most thrilling period of his life. He was first taken to Paris, to the prison of Le Cherche-Midi and interrogated by the Abwehr. As he simulated madness, he was transferred to the Sainte-Anne hospital for some time. From June 1942, the Germans gave no more news of Daligault to his brother René. This is a sign that he was now classified as “Nacht und Nebel”. Daligault was doomed to be transfered to Germany, as part of the “NN” procedure, the aim of which was to obscure the fate of the resistance fighters who risked being erected as martyrs by the population of occupied Western Europe. It was on 10th October 1942 that he arrived in Hinzert. All testimonies of survivors agree:
Daligault did not behave like an ordinary prisoner. Like many others, he lost twenty to thirty pounds in a few months because of continual mistreatment, hunger, cold, work, illness (he probably got tuberculosis). But he refused the tactics of survival in anonymity adopted by most of his comrades.
He was shot in his head in Dachau on April 28, 1945, the day before the liberation of the camp.

 

Lucien Wercollier
Lucien Wercollier was born in Luxembourg on July 26th 1908, where he died as well on April 24th 2002. He is considered one of the most important sculptors of the second half of the 20th century. He is best known for his monumental bronze and marble sculptures.
From 1924 to 1927 he was a pupil at the Ecole d’Artisans de l’Etat de Luxembourg, where he learned how to carve wood and stone and how to modelise plaster objects.

From 1927 to 1933, he attended the Académie royale des beaux-arts de Bruxelles (1927-1931) and the Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris (1931-1933). In 1933 Lucien Wercollier returned to Luxembourg, where he became a teacher of artistic education, at the school where he had done his secondary studies, and where he resumed lessons with his father, who had retired.
After Germany’s occupation of Luxembourg in 1940, Lucien Wercollier refused to join the Kulturkammer of the Nazi regime, an organization whose aim was the political and ideological embedment of all artistic activity. This refusal made him lose the right to present his works to the public.
On September 1st 1942, following his participation in the strike movement against the forced recruitment of four Luxembourg age classes (1920-1924) into the German army, Lucien Wercollier was arrested and his wife and his two children were deported to a camp in Silesia. After two weeks in Luxembourg-Grund prison (from September 4th to 19th 1942), Wercollier was transferred to the Hinzert and later the Lublin concentration camps. In 1943, he joined his wife and his two children in the deportation camp in Silesia.
In June 1945, after the Liberation, Wercollier returned with his family to Luxembourg, where he again became a teacher at the École des artisans. Lucien Wercollier died in Luxembourg on April 24, 2002 at the age of 93. He was buried in the Notre-Dame cemetery in Luxembourg.

Concentration camp Hinzert
The concentration camp Hinzert is located approximately 25km from Trier. Prisoners have been mistreated by the SS. Instead of being called by their names, the prisoners had an individual
number. Foreign prisoners had problems to understand and to pronounce their numbers at the beginning, which was a reason why they were brutally beaten and punished. Hinzert was a so called “Lauflager”, which means, that everything had to be done in double quick. Furthermore, the alimentation was unsufficient. The daily ration of food consisted of 300-500g bread and half a liter of tea or coffee at the morning and at the evening and a soup at lunch time.
Apart from reports from contemporary witnesses and interviews, testimonials by artists, like little statues or drawings give us information about the everyday live in Hinzert. Two of them were French priest Jean Daligault and Luxembourgish sculptor Lucien Wercollier. By manufacturing wooden statues, which showed the everyday life of the camp, Daligault took enormous risks.
Daligault was starving even more than other prisoners in Hinzert. The inmates of Stube 7 kept a piece the size of dices from their bread rations, so Daligault could get something to eat.
Because his teeth had already been knocked out when he was interrogated in France, he had to mix the bread with water to be able to eat it. Lucien Wercollier, who, as a Luxembourgish prisoner, was still able to receive parcels from relatives, had another prisoner through Daligault who had access to the French barrack from his Christmas package in 1942. In return for the package, Daligault carved a wooden sculpture depicting two prisoners who had to stand
outdoors, back to back, tied to the ankles. This frequently used method of torture in Hinzert is called standing torture (Standfolter). This wooden sculpture is the object whose history is being told with this text. The dimensons are 10,8 x 6,2 x 2,2cm. Wercollier was able to hide this sculpture and save it from captivity. Wercollier later formed a copy of the statue made of iron. Since 2016 the statue is at the Musée National de la Résistance in Esch-Alzette.

 

Camp spoon

Written by Max Ribeiro

Who is Fjodor Bitschechwost?

Fjodor Bitschechwost (born in 1915), was a soviet prisoner of war, who got transferred to one of the few ARBED labor camps[1]. When Fjodor landed in Differdingen he only weighted 45 kg at 180 cm Body height. In the course of the war, soviet forced laborers and prisoners of war became more and more in touch with the local Luxemburgish population. When the Americans landed in Normandy in June 1944, optimism and hope began to raise in the Luxemburgish population. On the other hand side, the Soviet slave laborers also became more concerned when, in late summer, the occupying forces seized their troops and transported the prisoners out of Luxembourg.[2]

Picture taken from the article: Ganschow, Inna: „Lachen hat ja keinen Akzent“, in: Luxemburger Wort (4.05.2017), S. 20.

 

The Advance of the Russian forces

With the continuing advance of the Soviet red army, the camps in Luxembourg were about to be transferred to Germany. It was at this stage when “Jean Deibener” who had worked with Fjodor Bitschechwost knew, he had to act and rescue his Soviet friend before he was being deported back to Trier, Germany. Fjodor was hiding in one of the dressing rooms until his friend Deibener arrived, and equipped him with new clothes, and a false identity to pass the guards at the gates. Everything went fine until they sat in the tramway, where a group of German police officers entered. Jean saved the situation by telling Fjodor to just laugh while he made up a sort of joke. Fjodor didn’t really get the joke, but the fact that he laughed with Deibener, who was speaking in Luxemburgish saved the situation, and that is why we can conclude “Lachen hat ja keinen Akzent”[3].

 

Bitschechwost’s Spoon – More than a gift?

So how does the chosen object, “Bitschechwost’s spoon” fit into this personal story? Pierre, the son of Jean of Deibener who got in contact with Fjodor, while the soviet prisoner was hiding with another Luxemburgish recruit seemed to like the Soviet Lieutenant. But after a while and for safety reasons Fjodor had to move to another Luxemburgish family: the Flammang’s. Before leaving, Bitschechwost gifted Pierre his most expensive possession. His only spoon.[4] Tableware and cutlery were essential for the survival in these camps because the malnourished prisoners had to be ready to eat at any moment that the locals, despite bans, gave them.[5] 

But is the story already over? Not yet.

 

The Repatriation – The Luxemburgish government as a deliberately helper?

After the defeat of the Germans and the end of the Second World War, a wave of repatriation of the soviet workers and prisoners in Luxembourg started to take place. The first 2800 soviet citizens were transported from their camps in Differdingen, Esch, Schleifmühle, Hollenfels, and Ansemburg over Paris and the black sea back to the Soviet Union.[6] But some Soviet citizens had settled down in Luxembourg, created a family, and had started a new life. Nevertheless, in the attempt by the Luxemburgish government to improve their relationship with the Soviet Union, and by their wish to bring back their Luxemburgish Soldiers (= later famously designed with the term “Ons Jongen”) who were kept Prisoners in the Soviet Union a wave of “repatriation” started to happen.[7] In February 1946, René Blum the Luxemburgish ambassador in Moscow was asked by the Soviet authorities to put pressure on the remaining 100 soviets living in Luxembourg, who hadn’t turned themselves over to the Soviet repatriation officer “Potapow”.[8] It is important to note, that local authorities, and especially the Luxemburgish government did approve the use of force by the soviet agents, and were by this approval jointly responsible for the crimes done to the soviet citizens.

 

The Continuation of Bitschechwost’s Story

But what really happened to Fjodor, after the rescue and help by the Deibener’s and the Flammang’s?

Bitschechwost became later the right hand of the soviet Officer Potapow charged with the process of repatriation and was involved in the act of searching and collecting soviet citizens in Luxembourg, which occurred sometimes even by applying force.[9] He participated in this action mainly to save himself from persecution. For the Soviet Union working in an enemy’s armaments factory, which included ARBED, was seen as collaboration.[10] In addition, the soviet law defined the capture by the enemy as a capital crime, and of which someone could be sentenced to an educational camp, prison or labour camp and could even lead to an execution.[11]

 

Soviet forced laborers in Luxembourg

Ostarbeiter/Zwangsarbeiter

The historical context of the chosen objects is primarily linked to the “Ostarbeiter/Zwangsarbeiter”. The term defines those people taken from their homes during the Nazi invasion of Russia, Poland, France and forced into labor to boost the German war-economy which was on the point to collapse in the middle of the war in 1942. On the 20th February in 1942 Heinrich Himmler gave the declaration on the recruitment and use of Workers from the East, the so-called “Ostarbeiter-Erlasse”. For over 2 million “Ostarbeiter” this meant exploitation, exclusion, and humiliation.[12]

The group of “Ostarbeiter” was composed primarily out of Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, and Russians. The Eastern workers came to Luxembourg in November 1942 and were mainly employed in the steelworks and smelters as auxiliary and construction workers.[13] In May 1943 the Ministry of foreign affairs of the Luxemburgish regime, which was located in London notified Moscow, that 4000 soviet citizens had been brought to Luxembourg by the German occupation force to work Luxemburgish industries and agriculture.[14]

 

Concluding Remarks

To conclude we can say, that this “simple” spoon brought us a very deep personal story of the soviet forced labourer Fjodor Bitschechwost, his connection to Luxembourg, and his rescue by Jean Deibener, as well as the overall historical context attached to the story.

 

[1] These camps can be linked to Erving Goffman’s approach to “Total Institutions”. In Goffman’s “Asylums”, he defines a “Total institution” having a total character, which “is symbolized by the barrier to social intercourse with the outside and to departures that is often built right into the physical plant, such as locked doors, high walls, barbed wire, cliffs, water, forests, or moors.” (Goffman: Asylums, S. 4.); According to Goffman, the main aim of these types of institutions is to replace the “old” people with a “new”, obedient and unwilling one.

[2] Ganschow: 100 Jahre Russen in Luxemburg, S. 208.

[3] Translation: « Laughter doesn’t show an accent »; citation taken from: Ganschow: „Lachen hat ja keinen Akzent“, S. 20.

[4] Ganschow: 100 Jahre Russen in Luxemburg, S. 195.

[5] Ganschow: „Lachen hat ja keinen Akzent“, S. 20.

[6] Ganschow: „Alles Mögliche“, S. 61.

[7] Ebd., S. 61.

[8] Ganschow: „Alles Mögliche“, S. 62.

[9] Ganschow: 100 Jahre Russen in Luxemburg, S. 229.

[10] Ebd., S.229.

[11] Ebd., S. 229f.

[12] Klingenböck, Gerda / Pagenstecher, Cord: 20. Februar 1942. Die „Ostarbeiter“ – Erlasse, online unter URL: https://www.bpb.de/mediathek/227595/20-februar-1942-die-ostarbeiter-erlasse.

[13] Ganschow: „Lachen hat ja keinen Akzent“, S. 20.

[14] Ganschow : 100 Jahre Russen in Luxemburg, S. 157.


Crystal radio

Written by Mélanie Jung

The pictures above show the crystal radio (Detektorempfänger) that can be found among the exhibits at the Musée des enrôlés de force (Museum of Forced Conscripts) in Dudelange. It is a very modest and simple item, its exterior being made simply from pieces of wood. According to the museum, this radio was used during the Second World War in a bunker close to the village of Kaundorf in north-western Luxembourg. In this bunker, Luxembourgers who refused to enlist in the German Army hid from the wrath of the Nazis. With the crystal radio, the young men were able to listen to British radio broadcasts from the BBC. The item was later donated by a certain Nic Peters to the museum and has been part of its collection ever since.

Crystal radios in the early days

The crystal radio was invented at the beginning of the 20th century when the concept of radio broadcasting was still new. At the time, it was the simplest and easiest way of receiving a radio connection. More modern and sophisticated devices, much more similar to the radios we are now used to, soon came to dominate the market. But crystal radios had a fresh impetus once the Second World War was over, as the economy was so bad that many people could only afford a crystal radio and not a more complex radio set. During the war, crystal radios were popular as well. Since they did not need an outside electricity supply to function, they were extremely practical and could easily be used in bunkers, just like the one from the museum in Dudelange. Furthermore, crystal radios were easy to build, and even civilians could make their own with only a few components – something that was clearly highly useful during wartime.

Kaundorf bunker

In the above-mentioned bunker close to Kaundorf, four Luxembourgers who refused to join the German Army hid from Whit Sunday 1944 until the liberation of Luxembourg by the Allied forces. Previously, they had been in hiding in the Nickel-Jans family home.[1] However, there was not just one bunker in the vicinity of Kaundorf: All in all, there were five, built by Luxembourgish resistance groups during the occupation to hide men wishing to avoid German military service. One of these bunkers, named “an der Runschelt”, was restored in 1987. There now stands a memorial plaque in honour of all the people who helped Luxembourgers avoiding forced conscription to hide from the Nazis.[2] The bunker can still be visited nowadays. For the men in hiding, a crystal radio must have been a huge blessing in those troubled times. As the device did not need an external power source, it could easily be used in their bunker, which was located in a forest. The fact that one could only listen to the radio with headphones was actually an advantage for the young Luxembourgers, since it did not make any noise and consequently did not draw attention to their bunker, thus helping to save their lives. In any case, since they only used the radio at night, the chances of someone roaming around the forest were slim.

The use of crystal radios during the Second World War

Crystal radios played an important role in everyday life for many Luxembourgers during the Second World War. This was especially the case because the Germans confiscated all regular radio devices at the beginning of the Nazi occupation as part of their efforts to prevent the population from listening to enemy radio stations (Feindsender) such as the BBC. A limited number of people were given a Volksempfänger radio receiver by the Nazis. This device was wired in such a way that it could only receive nearby stations, all of which were German propaganda radio stations. It was impossible to listen to the BBC or other non-German radio stations with a Volksempfänger. This is why many people went looking for their old crystal radios instead, or even built one themselves to be able to receive stations such as the BBC. However, it was strictly forbidden to listen to enemy radio stations and listeners were severely punished for violations. Listening to such stations could result in a prison sentence, and spreading news from an enemy radio station was punishable by death. Still, this did not stop most Luxembourgers. Many accepted the risks in order to hear British coverage of the course of the war instead of the German propaganda. Moreover, many Luxembourgers were also longing to hear the voice of Grand Duchess Charlotte, who regularly spoke to her people through the BBC.

For Luxembourgers who went into hiding to avoid Germany military conscription, a crystal radio was most certainly even more significant than it was for other people in Luxembourg. They were living completely isolated in the forest and could only receive news through the crystal radio. It prevented them from being entirely in the dark and informed them about what was going on in the world. The devices must have been a source of hope for the men as well. They had refused military service in the Wehrmacht, which made them traitors in the eyes of the Nazis, and they were thus wanted by the Germans. Their only hope was a German defeat by the Allied forces, which would allow them to leave the bunker and continue with their lives. Thanks to the crystal radio the men were able to keep up with the course of the war and hear about the Allies’ progress against Nazi Germany. This must have given them hope. Without the device they would not have been able to listen to the latest news of the war from the BBC and their lives would undoubtedly have been even more terrible and miserable than they already were.

See related images

[1] Visit Luxembourg. “Bunker Kaundorf”. Visit Luxembourg. 2020.  https://www.visitluxembourg.com/en/place/misc/bunker-kaundorf (Accessed: 24.05.2020)

[2] Op. cit.

Iron hook

Written by Alex Lepesant

The object

At first glance, this iron hook weighing approximately 3kg might seem like nothing more than a relic of Luxembourg’s industrial history. However, this particular hook is not to be found in a museum dedicated to the Luxembourg steel industry but in the Musée national de la résistance.[1] This museum holds a broad variety of objects that tell the story of Luxembourg’s resistance during the Second World War. Recently, the hook was part of the museum’s temporary exhibition De Streik vun 1942. One might wonder how this hook ended up not only as part of the exhibition about the events of 1942, but as one of the major symbols of Luxembourg resistance. To answer that question, we have to take a deeper look at the strike itself, the reasons behind it and its ramifications.

The strike

On 30 August 1942, the Gauleiter Gustav Simon (the regional Nazi Party representative with responsibility for Luxembourg) announced the policy of forced conscription in front of an estimated 9,000 frenzied supporters. The information about those plans had already been intercepted a few days earlier by some members of the resistance in Wiltz.[2] They secretly organised for flyers calling for a general strike to be printed and sent back to Wiltz for distribution. In the early hours of 31 August 1942 the first planned protest movements took place all around the country. In Wiltz, the workers at a leather factory started off by refusing to enter their workplace. Large parts of the municipal administration and many tradesmen, business owners and teachers joined their cause. The immediate reaction of the German authorities was a strict ultimatum: If after a few hours the participants of the strike refused to resume their work, they would be killed. Especially stubborn and suspicious strikers were arrested on the same day and often interrogated under torture.

Uprising in Schifflange

A very similar course of events happened in some places in Luxembourg City and in the south of the country, where the majority of industrial sites were located. This was also the case at the ARBED[3] smelting works in Schifflange. The news of the events in Wiltz sparked rumours of a possible strike. About a dozen workers prepared the signal for the strike. Hans Adam was selected to trigger the steam pressure siren at exactly 6pm. In order to keep the siren going permanently he decided to attach the heavy hook to it. We can assume that the hook was the ideal tool and most importantly it was present at the time as a vital piece of equipment for lifting all sorts of heavy materials at the smelting works. How the hook was preserved after the incident and whether the hook we have in our museum is the actual hook used by Hans Adam is not known – but that doesn’t lessen the symbolic meaning.

The aftermath of the strike

Hans Adam triggered the siren at 6pm and escaped through the sewers. The smelting works came to a standstill and the workers who were supposed to stay until 10pm went home. At that point the severe consequences of the strike were still unknown. Very soon they turned out to be brutal. Gustav Simon, aware of the anti-Nazi sentiment behind the strikes, decided to declare a state of emergency and impose martial law in Luxembourg on 2 September 1942. Hundreds of people were arrested and interrogated in the aftermath of the strike. Those whom the Nazis identified as leaders of the strike were sentenced to death. Twenty out of twenty-one death sentences were carried out in Hinzert.[4] Hans Adam, however, was sentenced on 10 September, one day after the withdrawal of martial law. He was probably questioned arbitrarily, like many of the workers. He was therefore tried by a Sondergericht[5] and sentenced to death after admitting (following hours of brutal interrogation) that he triggered the siren. He was beheaded in Cologne on 11 September. The widow and children of Hans Adam and many others were deported to the eastern parts of the German Reich.

Legacy

By his actions, Hans Adam became a symbol of the Luxembourg resistance. The hook that he used is now inseparable from his story, so it has come to be a symbolic representation for a variety of things. First and foremost, it represents the tragic fate of Hans Adam and his family. But it is also a strong symbol of working-class resistance in Luxembourg in general and more specifically of the strike in Schifflange. It is embedded in the broad narrative of Luxembourgish historiography of the Second World War, which often emphasises the martyr role of Luxembourgers during the occupation.[6]

See related images

[1] National museum in Esch-sur-Alzette dedicated to the resistance movement during the Second World War.

[2] Small town in the north of Luxembourg – despite being in a predominantly rural region it was heavily destroyed during the war.

[3] Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange (Luxembourg steel company)

[4] Hinzert was a concentration camp near Trier.

[5] A “special court” that existed outside the ordinary legal system and was used to quickly eliminate any form of opposition.

[6] Majerus Benoît, Besetzte Vergangenheiten. Erinnerungskulturen des Zweiten Weltkrieges in Luxemburg – eine historiographische Baustelle, in: Hémecht, Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte, p. 23-43, 2012.

 

Selfmade Red Army Boots

Written by Yuriy Khrushchev

To prepare this material, I talked to Olga Yurievna Popova, director of the Museum of Local History in Bondar District of Tambov Region. The exhibit to be discussed is a boot made by Olga Yurievna’s grandfather, Gerasimov Ivan Prokopyevich. Ivan Prokopyevich, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, was drafted into the army in 1941. At the very beginning of the war, the advanced units were not always fully equipped, and in the conditions of continuous battles, adjusted for weather and landscape, uniforms quickly deteriorated and became unusable. This was especially the case with soldiers’ shoes. Therefore, the civilian profession of Ivan Prokopyevich was very convenient – before the war, he was a master of shoe making, sewing model shoes and was a sought after professional. Until 1943, Ivan Prokopyevich tirelessly made shoes for soldiers and officers of combat units, and then he himself got to the front line. He served in artillery as a battery charger. He participated in the liberation of Poland, where he met the end of the war. He was awarded the medal “For bravery”: in battle, despite the massive shelling of the enemy clearly and courageously performed the task, as a result of which his department suppressed the enemy’s machine-gun point. He also holds the medal “For the victory over Germany”.

Having demobilized, Ivan Prokopyevich returned to his native village and continued doing his favorite thing – making shoes. He passed the secrets of his skill to his son, who decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, and also to make and fix boots for his fellow villagers.

To the Picture Gallery

The concentration camp clothes of Henri Vanstok

Written by Tom Theis

The featured pictures show the three parts that made up the clothing of a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp: shirt (made of fabric, blue and white stripes, 80x50cm), trousers (made of fabric, blue and white stripes, 94x38cm) and jacket (made of fabric, blue and white stripes, 67x44cm). The items shown here belonged to Henri Vanstok (Weinstock) from Luxembourg, who was of Jewish-Polish descent and was detained as a forced labourer at Auschwitz from 1942 to 1945. The prisoners received these clothes upon arrival at the camp and were forced to wear them all the time. As their only possession, the uniform is a symbol of the prisoners’ loss of identity.

The pictured concentration camp clothes (shirt, trousers and jacket) belonged to Henri Vanstok, who was born into a Jewish family in Poland in 1910. His family moved to Luxembourg in the interwar period, and he settled there and started his own family. In 1939 his daughter was born. As a businessman, Vanstok often travelled to Brussels. It was there that he learned about the proclamation of anti-Jewish laws in Luxembourg in 1940. On 22 July 1942, Vanstok was imprisoned during a raid in the Belgian capital. From the Fort of Breendonk he was deported to Auschwitz, where he was held as a forced labourer from 1942 to 1945. Vanstok himself wrote: “Upon our arrival they [the inmates] told us: “Here you work or you go through the chimney.””[1]

As the front approached the concentration camp, Vanstok was relocated with the other prisoners during a death march to Buchenwald and then by the “death train” to Dachau, where he was finally liberated on 28 April 1945. Vanstok described this experience years later: “Those who couldn’t keep up were shot like dogs […]” and “No one will ever be able to describe what we went through on this journey.”[2]

After the war, Vanstok rejoined his family – who had managed to stay hidden – in Brussels, and they returned together to Luxembourg.

Strong symbolism

Henri Vanstok brought this uniform back to Luxembourg. But why?

In the camps the prisoners were subjected to a form of standardisation through their uniform. Upon their arrival, the prisoners received these clothes and were forced to wear them all the time. They were not only deprived of their freedom and all their possessions, but they also lost their individuality – what distinguishes every person and makes them special. The prisoners were robbed of their personality and their identity was reduced to a number – their only means of identification. Perhaps Vanstok developed a strong attachment to his clothing – after all it was his only possession in the camp, the only thing that still really belonged to him. These clothes were what defined him for years.

The prisoner’s camp number and a triangular-shaped piece of coloured cloth were stitched on the uniform and served as a means of identification. The triangle denoted the prisoner’s “crime” (e.g. political prisoner, homosexual, etc.). Jews wore two yellow triangles which looked like the Star of David. The uniform itself was rarely cleaned or replaced.[3] Since Vanstok’s appears to be comparatively clean and undamaged, and since the identification marks are missing, one might wonder if this was really the uniform he wore in the camp. It is possible that he received a new one before his departure. Nevertheless, this doesn’t make it any less symbolic. The fact that Vanstock kept his uniform might show that he was well aware of the symbolism associated with the uniform. He might have kept it to show that he had lived through a horrendous ordeal and survived, that he was one of the survivors who had endured so much suffering. Maybe he kept the clothes to honour his fellow inmates who had not survived – people who died in that uniform. But it’s also possible that he kept it as a memento, a reminder of a terrible time when various people were robbed of everything and lived through a fate worse than death. The garment is a message to us in the present and to future generations. It exposes the horrors of the past and warns us never to inflict such a fate on anyone again.

In 2016 Henri Vanstok’s daughter Gitty donated her father’s uniform to the Musée national de la Résistance in Esch-sur-Alzette.

Luxembourg and its Jewish population

In the 1930s, immigration of Jews fleeing the policies of the new antisemitic German government – about 1,400 anti-Jewish laws were enacted from 1933 to 1939 – shot up. Within a decade, the Jewish population in Luxembourg almost doubled, notwithstanding numerous expulsions and refusals of asylum applications by the government. Parallel to this rise in migration, even before the German occupation, there was a significant rise in antisemitic tendencies among the Luxembourg population. On 10 May 1940, the day of the German invasion, approximately 3,900 Jews were living in Luxembourg, about 1,000 of whom were of Luxembourg nationality. Following the establishment of the civil administration under Gauleiter Gustav Simon, the social life of the Jewish population declined gradually. Simon’s aim was to declare the country “free of Jews” as fast as possible. On 5 September 1940, the Nuremberg Laws were introduced in Luxembourg. Several anti-Jewish laws followed in the period up to summer 1941. By October 1942, Jews were no longer authorised to emigrate to or from Luxembourg. The same month, deportations began. Many were murdered in gas chambers, but many also died because of the inhumane treatment and conditions to which they were subjected. Several died as a result of illness, weakness, deprivation or abuse, either during transportation or in the camps. Of the 3,900 Jews who lived in Luxembourg in 1940, more than a third were murdered. In 2015, the historian Vincent Artuso concluded that the Luxembourgish authorities participated in this process “with diligence, if not with zeal”.[4]

In numbers[5]

The Jewish population in Luxembourg:

In 1930:

2,242 (0.7% of the total population)

In 1935:

3,144 (1.1% of the total population; only a quarter had Luxembourgish citizenship)

In 1940:

3,907 (of which 1,384 (35.4%) subsequently died as a result of antisemitic persecution)

Number of Jewish people whose asylum applications were refused in 1935:

651 (more than 50%)

See related images

[1] Extract from Henri Vanstok’s “Ma déportation” (1985), taken from: Collection Madame Gitty Vanstok, Musée national de la Résistance.

[2] Extract from Henri Vanstok’s “Ma déportation” (1985), taken from: Collection Madame Gitty Vanstok, Musée national de la Résistance.

[3] Compare: Rawson, Andrew, Auschwitz. The Nazi Solution, Barnsley 2015, p. 93-5.

[4] Moyse, Laurent, Between Shade and Darkness. Le sort des Juifs du Luxembourg de 1940 à 1945 / Das Schicksal der Juden Luxemburgs von 1940 bis 1945, Luxembourg 42016, p. 97.

[5] Compare: Moyse, Between Shade and Darkness, p. 16-26; Wagener, Renée, Der Umgang mit der Shoah im Nachkriegs-Luxemburg, in: Franz, Norbert [et al.] (ed.), Identitätsbildung und Partizipation im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Luxemburg im europäischen Kontext, 2016 Berlin, p. 219-46, p. 220 ff.

See also

https://www.ushmm.org/ (consulted on: 21.06.2020).

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/death-marches-1 (consulted on: 21.06.2020).

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-camp-system?series=21822 (consulted on: 21.06.2020).

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz (consulted on: 21.06.2020).

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/concentration-camp-system-in-depth (consulted on: 21.06.2020).