KZ-Friedhof Schömberg / Dautmergen

Cemetery description

The honorary cemetery in Schömberg, located by the road between Schömberg and Dautmergen, was opened in October 1946. It is the final resting place for over 1,770 prisoners of the Natzweiler concentration camp – komando Schömberg, Dautmergen and Dormettingen.
The concentration camps were run by the Wüste company, which mined oil from the local oil shales. The Schömberg camp operated from December 1943 until April 1945. A great number of prisoners died there as a result of critical living and working conditions. They were buried in collective graves in ‘Schönhager Loch’. After the war, in August 1945, exhumation of the dead was carried out under the surveillance of the French military administration, in which German prisoners of war and civilians were made to participate.
The Dautmergen concentration camp operated between August 1944 and April 1945. More than 2,000 prisoners were kept there in inhumane living conditions. They laboured in the local oil shale mines. The rate of death among them was very high on account of harsh living and working conditions. The bodies of the deceased were buried in pits approximately from 300 to 400 metres away from the camp. In late-August 1945, the exhumation of the corpses occurred by designated 80 war criminals from the local internment camps and 75 former members of the NSDAP.
The remains of the prisoners of those camps were moved to the newly established honorary cemetery by the road between Schömberg and Dautmergen. Among the more than 1,770 victims of the Dautmergen, Dormettingen and Schömberg concentration camps buried in the cemetery, over 530 are Poles and Polish Jews. However, the actual number of those who died or were killed in the camps is higher than is implied by the official data. The reason is that many sick or dying prisoners had been moved to other camps.
In 2008, a concrete monument commemorating the victims was erected in the cemetery. It is in the form a cuboid with glass memorial plaques with the victims’ personal data inscribed upon them. There are also information boards bearing information about the history of the camp, the victims and the memorial sites to be found in the area.

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