[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Sonderzug XXVII and Soldau Lager Bluecher

[Pernille Natascha Sidorenco]

Hi Paul,

You are right, that is indeed very interesting!

I wonder if Vera's address is indeed Lager Blücher, or has another name.
The exact address as it is written in the EWZ files (yes, I have them) is:
Aufenhaltsort: Soldau Lg. Blücher
(Lg. Scharnhorst Haus Berlin Zimmer 20)

Which makes me wonder if Vera's address is in fact Blücher, or has an
additional name written like above?
If Vera's address was not Blücher but something else, would suggest that
Blücher might be the name for the overall Lager for the Volksdeutsche (as
opposed to the prisoners in the workcamp - which would most likely have been
separated from the Volksdeutche and hence have another name). If that is the
case, then Lager Blücher would consist of several smaller Lagers (entities),
and each entity would consist of several houses;

Haus Berlin was situated in Lager Scharnhorst
Haus Köln was situated in Lager ??
Unknown house in Lager Gneisenau

It could be really interesting to see how many different Lagers and Houses
we could find.

I wonder how big Lager Blücher really was. With 3 different sub-lagers, at
least two of them having named houses, suggests that each lager may have had
several houses. 

I asked my father to dig deep in his memory. He only has vague notions (he
was 8 years old at the time), so this is only a suggestion of what it might
have been:
The only memory he does have is having to cross a square of some sort in
order to get to the hairdresser. He seems to think that the square was dirt
ground and not very large. He thinks he remembers several buildings and air
being between buildings. If he is to give a suggestion, he thinks they were
low buildings, which he logically concludes must be barracks.

Could it be that each sub-Lager in reality was a cluster of barracks - each
given a Haus name - and that these clusters were lined up in the same area? 

I think the presence of a hairdresser may be a clue. Was Lager Blücher that
large that each sub-Lager had their own hairdresser? Or could it be that
there would be one main building to the whole Lager Blücher (perhaps the
soldier barracks that there is a picture of on the link you sent on a
previous mail), and that the barracks would have been erected around it,
thus forming a sort of square?

You ask how long my family stayed in Soldau. They arrived dec. 18, 1943. My
grandmother left in January 1944 and my father and his Babuschka stayed
there until appr. march 1944 to join my grandmother in Prague.

I have a question for you: Do you know how your relatives came to Soldau? By
train, or?

Natascha
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Rakow [mailto:paul.edward.luther.rakow at desy.de] 
Sent: 6. december 2013 21:30
To: Ger-Poland-Volhynia
Cc: n at tascha.dk; Vera Miller
Subject: Re: Sonderzug XXVII and Soldau Lager Bluecher 


   Hello Natascha and Vera,

       The addresses you gave were interesting:

   Natascha wrote:

> On a note  would anybody know specifics about Soldau Lager Bl??cher?
> My father's "address" was
> Lg. Scharnhorst, Haus Berlin, Zimmer 20

   and Vera wrote:

> My two great-grandparents, son and a daughter were at Soldau-Lag. 
> Bluecher, Haus Koeln, Zim. 3.

       My relatives were in Soldau, Lager Gneisenau. 
(but I don't know the house and room).

      So, we have a Lager Bluecher, a Lager Scharnhorst and
  a Lager Gneisenau, all named after generals who fought against
  Napoleon. I wonder how many other camps or sub-camps there
  were, and if they all had the names of generals from the
  Napoleonic Wars (but I bet there was not a Lager Wellington).

      Do either of you know how long your families were in
  Soldau, and how they left?  From EWZ files I know my relations
  arrived in January 1944, and were still in Soldau in
  September 1944.  The Red Army must have reached Soldau in
  January 1945, I assume our relatives had left before then.

                  Paul Rakow

  PS Natascha - do you know about EWZ files? If you haven't
  seen the files on your family, you should ask here for an
  explanation of what they are, and how to get copies of the
  files on particular families. It's very likely there would
  be a file on your father.