Magdeburg

Members of the Boys were slave labourers in the Magdeburg labour camp, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

Buchenwald concentration camp was operated by Nazi Germany. The camp had 139 subcamps.

The Boys were teenage and child-Holocaust survivors, who were brought to the UK after the war for rest and rehabilitation.

History

The Magdeburg camp was located in Magdeburg, the capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt in central Germany.

The camp was run by Brabag (Braunkohle Benzin AG), who worked closely with the Nazi regime. 

Brabag & the Boys

Brabag (Braunkohle-Benzin AG) produced synthetic fuel from lignite, commonly known as brown coal. It was a private company and was crucial to the Nazi war effort.

The company unsuccessfully lobbied to use concentration camp prisoners as slave labourers until in May 1944, Allied squadrons bombed and damaged the Brabag factories, just as the SS was simultaneously deporting Hungarian Jews.

In 1944–1945, Brabag then used more than 13,100 concentration camp prisoners as slave labourers. Members of the Boys endured hard labour at plants in Rehmsdorf-Tröglitz, Magdeburg, Schwarzheide and Berga/ Elster.

The firm and its remaining assets were dissolved at the end of the war.

Structure

The camp was built between Heinrichsberger Strasse and Köbelitzer Strasse. It consisted of four barracks, a large tent and a building with a kitchen and infirmary, in which housed mainly Hungarian Jews, of which Isaac Brandstein was one.

Dissolution & Liberation

The camp was dissolved and the prisoners sent on a death march to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The factory was then seized by the US Army in April 1945.

Aftermath

Magdeburg was handed over to the Red Army in July 1945 and the hydrogenation plant was immediately repaired on the orders of the Soviet Military Administration but in November 1946, it was dismantled and relocated to the Soviet Union.

After the war, the firm and its remaining assets were dissolved. Brabag denied any responsibility for the prisoners and rejected all claims for compensation by former prisoners.