Svatava | |
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![]() Centre of Svatava | |
Coordinates: 50°11′32″N12°37′31″E / 50.19222°N 12.62528°E | |
Country | ![]() |
Region | Karlovy Vary |
District | Sokolov |
First mentioned | 1391 |
Area | |
• Total | 11.59 km2 (4.47 sq mi) |
Elevation | 407 m (1,335 ft) |
Population (2023-01-01) [1] | |
• Total | 1,644 |
• Density | 140/km2 (370/sq mi) |
Time zone | UTC+1 (CET) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC+2 (CEST) |
Postal code | 357 03 |
Website | www |
Svatava (German : Zwodau) is a market town in Sokolov District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 1,600 inhabitants.
The oldest known mention of the town comes from a document of King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia from 1391.
During World War II, Svatava was occupied by Germany. In 1943, the occupiers established a slave labour camp, which in September 1944 became a subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp. [2] 1,350 women of various nationalities were imprisoned there. [2] In April 1945, over 1,000 women reached the subcamp following death marches from other subcamps. [2] The surviving prisoners were liberated by American troops on 7 May 1945. [2]
Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Unlike other concentration camps, it was located in a remote area, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria, adjacent to the town of Flossenbürg and near the German border with Czechoslovakia. The camp's initial purpose was to exploit the forced labor of prisoners for the production of granite for Nazi architecture. In 1943, the bulk of prisoners switched to producing Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter planes and other armaments for Germany's war effort. Although originally intended for "criminal" and "asocial" prisoners, after Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, the camp's numbers swelled with political prisoners from outside Germany. It also developed an extensive subcamp system that eventually outgrew the main camp.
Aufseherin was the position title for a female guard in Nazi concentration camps. Of the 50,000 guards who served in the concentration camps, approximately 5,000 were women. In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück. The year after, the Nazis began conscripting women because of a shortage of male guards. In the context of these camps, the German position title of Aufseherin translates to (female) "overseer" or "attendant". Later female guards were dispersed to Bolzano (1944–1945), Kaiserwald-Riga (1943–44), Mauthausen, Stutthof (1942–1945), Vaivara (1943–1944), Vught (1943–1944), and at Nazi concentration camps, subcamps, work camps, detention camps and other posts.
Litoměřice is a town in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 23,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument reservation.
Plauen is, with around 65,000 inhabitants, the fifth-largest city of Saxony, Germany after Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Zwickau, the second-largest city of the Vogtland after Gera, as well as the largest city in the Saxon Vogtland. The city lies on the river White Elster, in the Central Vogtlandian Hill Country. Plauen is the southwesternmost city of a string of cities sitting in the densely populated foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains, stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast. It is the capital of the Vogtland District. Plauen borders Thuringia to the north, and it is also situated near the Saxon border with Bavaria (Franconia) and the Czech Republic (Bohemia).
Ruth Elfriede Hildner was a guard at several Nazi concentration camps during World War II.
As a Nazi concentration camp for forced labor, Helmbrechts concentration camp was a women's subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp founded near Helmbrechts near Hof, Germany in the summer of 1944. The first prisoners who came to the camp were political prisoners from the Ravensbrück camp in northern Germany. Later Jewish prisoners were brought.
Kraslice is a town in Sokolov District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 6,600 inhabitants. It was a large and important town until World War II. It is known for the manufacture of musical instruments.
Nossen is a town in the district of Meissen, in Saxony, Germany. It is located 80 km southeast of Leipzig. The town is dominated by a large Renaissance castle. Nossen is best known for its proximity to a motorway junction where the A14 merges onto the A4.
Helmbrechts is a town in the district of Hof, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the southern edge of the Franconian Forest, 20 km southwest of Hof.
Chrastava is a town in Liberec District in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 6,300 inhabitants.
Ostrov is a town in Karlovy Vary District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 16,000 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone.
Holýšov is a town in Plzeň-South District in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 5,500 inhabitants.
Porschdorf is a former municipality in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district, in Saxony, in eastern Germany. With effect from 1 January 2012, it has been incorporated into the town of Bad Schandau.
Freiberg was a subcamp of Flossenbürg concentration camp located in Freiberg, Saxony.
The Svatava is a river in the Czech Republic and Germany. It is a left tributary of the Ohře.
Neurohlau was a subcamp of Flossenbürg concentration camp, mainly for women prisoners of several European nationalities including Czech, Soviet, Yugoslavian, Belgian, Polish, and German. It was located on the edge of the municipality Neurohlau in the historical territory of Sudetenland. The Germans founded the camp in the autumn of 1942 and closed it in April 1945. Its main purpose was providing workers for the nearby Bohemia porcelain factory. At least 41 prisoners died in the camp ; about 500 died during the death march out in April 1945; an unknown number died after their deportation back to the mother camps ; and some others were burnt in the camp in Karlovy Vary. After World War II, the camp served as a collecting camp for prisoners of war before their removal to Germany.
The Holocaust in the Sudetenland resulted in the flight, dispossession, deportation and ultimately death of many of the 24,505 Jews living in the Reichsgau Sudetenland, an administrative region of Nazi Germany established from former Czechoslovak territory annexed after the October 1938 Munich Agreement. Due to harassment and violence, including during Kristallnacht, ninety percent of the Jews had already left the Sudetenland by mid-1939. The remaining Jews were subject to property confiscation and eventually deportation. During the later years of the war, tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews were forced laborers in a network of concentration camps in the Sudetenland.
Leitmeritz was the largest subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp, operated by Nazi Germany in Leitmeritz, Reichsgau Sudetenland. Established on 24 March 1944 as part of an effort to disperse and increase war production, its prisoners were forced to work in the caverns Richard I and II, producing Maybach HL230 tank engines for Auto Union and preparing the second site for intended production of tungsten and molybdenum wire and sheet metal by Osram. Of the 18,000 prisoners who passed through the camp, about 4,500 died due to disease, malnutrition, and accidents caused by the disregard for safety by the SS staff who administered the camp. In the last weeks of the war, the camp became a hub for death marches. The camp operated until 8 May 1945, when it was dissolved by the German surrender.