On the evening of Easter Sunday, the Niederorschel subcamp was in a state of hectic activity. The SS detachment officer announced that the camp would be cleared of its 600 inmates the following day, 2 April 1945. That night, the Polish Jew Hersch Frajmann fled and, like several others before him. found shelter in Johannes Drössler’s barn.

Johannes Drössler, 55 years of age and a former member of the Social Democratic Party, worked for the Mechanische Weberei company as a master fitter. The Junkers company had set up a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp there in September 1944. Drössler came in contact with inmates daily. Initially he helped them regularly by bringing them food. In the period from shortly before the camp’s dissolution until the arrival of the Americans, he hid escapees in his barn. He had drawn a map showing them how to get there, and his family and several neighbours helped provide for them.

(Sabine Stein)

Reference: Wolfgang Grosse, Aus dem Umkreis der Kamine: Überlebende eines Aussenlagers berichten, Duderstadt 2009.