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46-564: The oldest Slavic settlements in present-day Brzeg Dolny date back to the early Middle Ages . In the 10th century the area became part of the emerging Polish state under its first ruler Mieszko I of Poland . Brzeg Dolny was first mentioned under the Old Polish name Brzege in a 1353 deed as a part of the Duchy of Wrocław , then within the Bohemian (Czech) Crown Lands . The Warzyń district

92-664: A spoonful of molasses . Sometimes "hard workers" called zulaga would be rewarded with a piece of blood sausage or raw horsemeat sausage, jam and margarine . Prisoners also received 1 cup of Knorr soup per week. During the Gross-Rosen initial period of operation as a formal subcamp of Sachsenhausen , the following two SS Lagerführer officers served as the camp commandants, the SS-Untersturmführer Anton Thumann , and SS-Untersturmführer Georg Güßregen . From May 1941 until liberation,

138-643: A territory rather than a population, is a matter of scholarly debate. The early Slavic expansion reached Central Europe in the 7th century, and the West Slavic dialects diverged from common Slavic over the following centuries. The West Slavic tribes settled on the eastern fringes of the Carolingian Empire , along the Limes Saxoniae . Prior to the Magyar invasion of Pannonia in the 890s,

184-518: Is a large (67 hectare) Park Miejski formerly part of the palace complex. The palace faces the southern side of the park, to which it connects via a short walkway ( Al. Pałacowa ) leading directly to the largest of the three ponds found within the park. On the park's west side, at Aleje Jerozolimskie (one of the town's main streets), stands the Chapel of St. Hedwig, just north of which is the Convent of

230-684: Is older, mentioned as a village in a 1261 document of Duke Henry III the White when the region was still part of medieval Piast -ruled Poland . There was a ferry crossing the Oder River in Brzeg Dolny. In 1660, it was bought by the Austrian chancellor Baron George Abraham von Dyhrn (1620–1671) of the Dyhrn family . In 1663, it was officially renamed from its Polish name to Dyhernfurth , after

276-661: The Bavarian Geographer made a list of West Slavic tribes who lived in the areas of modern-day Poland , Czech Republic , Germany and Denmark : Gross-Rosen concentration camp Gross-Rosen was a network of Nazi concentration camps built and operated by Nazi Germany during World War II . The main camp was located in the German village of Gross-Rosen, now the modern-day Rogoźnica in Lower Silesian Voivodeship , Poland, directly on

322-734: The Grün 3 program, a plant for the manufacture of the nerve agent tabun was established in Dyhernfurth, producing the nerve agent under the codename Trilon-83 . Run by the Anorgana GmbH , a branch of IG Farben , the plant began production in 1942. The Germans utilized the forced labour of prisoners of Nazi concentration camps to produce the chemical weapons. Two subcamps of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp – Dyhernfurth I and Dyhernfurth II – were established for this purpose. While

368-523: The Hebrew alphabet . The Dyhrns had built a palace for their residence, which stayed in their possession until the early 1780s, when Count Wilhelm von Dyhrn (1749–1813) sold it to the minister of Silesia Karl Georg von Hoym (1739-1807), who had married Baroness Antoinette Louise von Dyhrn und Schönau (1745–1820). The new owners subsequently modernized the Baroque palace and the adjoining park according to

414-590: The Pawiak prison in Warsaw ; others had been arrested within the territory controlled by the Reich or had been transported from Kraków and Radom . Brieg's camp kitchen was run by Czech prisoners. The three daily meals included 1 pint of mehlzupa (a soup made from water and meal ), 150 grams of bread, 1 quart of soup made with rutabaga , beets , cabbage , kale or sometimes nettles , 1 pint of black "coffee" and

460-596: The common Slavic group around the 7th century, and established independent polities in Central Europe by the 8th to 9th centuries. The West Slavic languages diversified into their historically attested forms over the 10th to 14th centuries. Today, groups which speak West Slavic languages include the Poles , Czechs , Slovaks , Silesians , Kashubians , and Sorbs . From the ninth century onwards, most West Slavs converted to Roman Catholicism , thus coming under

506-812: The Dachau and Sachsenhausen camps, and later from Buchenwald . During the camp's existence, the Jewish inmate population came mainly from Poland and Hungary ; others were from Belgium , France , Netherlands , Greece , Yugoslavia , Slovakia , and Italy . Following the unsuccessful Polish Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the Germans deported 3,000 Poles from the Dulag 121 camp in Pruszków , where they were initially imprisoned, to Gross-Rosen. Those Poles were mainly people of 20 to 40 years of age. At its peak activity in 1944,

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552-438: The Dyhernfurth I inmates were forced to produce the gas and fill bombs and shells with it, the prisoners of the second camp were primarily forced to work on enlarging the plant. The prisoners of the first camp were mostly Poles , whereas the second camp held mostly Jews, Poles and Russians. The plant initially produced shells and aerial bombs using a 95:5 mix of tabun and chlorobenzene , designated "Variant A" before switching in

598-451: The Dyhrn family, and was granted town privileges by Emperor Leopold I of Habsburg . The baron made efforts to expand the new town, opening a Catholic school for boys and building a chapel under the patronage of St. Hedwig. The year 1668 saw the construction of a wooden pipe to draw water directly from the river into town. Jews also settled in Brzeg Dolny in the 17th century. Their arrival

644-488: The Germans who tested tabun on prisoners, whereas in the second camp due to wretched food, ubiquitous violence and abysmal conditions, which led to frequent diseases. Several prisoners were executed after unsuccessful escape attempts. In January 1945, the prisoners were sent on a death march towards Środa Śląska , with over 200 prisoners shot by the Germans only on the first day of the march. The Soviets, however, did not capture any tabun at Dyhernfurth. Although they occupied

690-517: The Gross-Rosen complex had up to 100 subcamps , located in eastern Germany and German-occupied Czechoslovakia and Poland. In its final stage, the population of the Gross-Rosen camps accounted for 11% of the total inmates in Nazi concentration camps at that time. A total of 125,000 inmates of various nationalities passed through the complex during its existence, of whom an estimated 40,000 died on site, on death marches and in evacuation transports. The camp

736-594: The KHS complex, which features a hotel and a variety of athletic facilities, including swimming pools and tennis courts. Through the town - between Osiedle Warzyń and Osiedle Fabryczne - runs a railway, with a (PKP) train station located on the eastern side of the park toward the south and Stary Brzeg . Brzeg Dolny has three Roman Catholic parishes: the Parish of Our Lady of the Scapular ( Parafia Matki Bożej Szkaplerznej ),

782-626: The Nazi concentration camp system. KZ Gross-Rosen was set up in the summer of 1940 as a satellite camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from Oranienburg. Initially, the slave labour was carried out in a huge stone quarry owned by the SS-Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH (SS German Earth and Stone Works). In the fall of 1940 the use of labour in Upper Silesia was taken over by the new Organization Schmelt formed on

828-515: The Parish of Christ the King ( Parafia Chrystusa Króla ), and the Parish of Our Lady Queen of Poland ( Parafia Matki Bożej Królowej Polski ). In addition to two historic churches and chapels, there are two modern parish churches in the town. See twin towns of Gmina Brzeg Dolny . West Slavs The West Slavs are Slavic peoples who speak the West Slavic languages . They separated from

874-525: The Sisters of Charity of St. Charles Borromeo. Extending north from the convent (to which it is connected) is the town hospital; north of it, in turn, and still along Aleje Jerozolimskie is a large clinic ( Przychodnia Rejonowo-Specjalistyczna ). The town has two additional clinics (in Osiedle Warzyń and Osiedle Fabryczne ) and a medical center (in Osiedle Warzyń ). In Osiedle Warzyń can be found

920-463: The West Slavic polity of Great Moravia spanned much of Central Europe between what is now Eastern Germany and Western Romania. In the high medieval period, the West Slavic tribes were again pushed to the east by the incipient German Ostsiedlung , decisively so following the Wendish Crusade in the 11th century. The early Slavic expansion began in the 5th century, and by the 6th century

966-453: The area of the factory, a German raid was organized by Generalmajor Max Sachsenheimer . A German unit with roughly the strength of a battalion crossed the Oder River early on February 5, 1945, seized the factory, and deployed an anti-tank screen. On that day, the Germans destroyed documentation and evidence of the camp's atrocities and pumped tabun into the Oder River, while the screening force resisted two small-scale Soviet counter-attacks. In

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1012-487: The companies that benefited from the slave labour of the concentration camp inmates were German electronics manufacturers such as Blaupunkt , Siemens , as well as Krupp , IG Farben , and Daimler-Benz , among others. Some prisoners who were not able to work but not yet dying were sent to the Dachau concentration camp in so-called invalid transports. The largest population of inmates, however, were Jews , initially from

1058-530: The complex functions as a cultural center and the seat of municipal government. A new bridge over the Oder river was built in 2013. Brzeg Dolny is divided into three main residential neighbourhoods: Stary Brzeg (the Old Brzeg Dolny) by the bank of the Oder, Osiedle Warzyń to the west, and Osiedle Fabryczne to the north-east. The Rokita Chemical Plant stretches east of the town. In the center of Brzeg Dolny

1104-475: The complex grew, the majority of inmates were put to work in the new Nazi enterprises attached to these subcamps. In October 1941 the SS transferred about 3,000 Soviet POWs to Gross-Rosen for execution by shooting. Gross-Rosen was known for its brutal treatment of the so-called Nacht und Nebel prisoners vanishing without a trace from targeted communities. Most died in the granite quarry. The brutal treatment of

1150-655: The cultural influence of the Latin Church , adopting the Latin alphabet , and tending to be more closely integrated into cultural and intellectual developments in western Europe than the East Slavs , who converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity and adopted the Cyrillic alphabet . Linguistically, the West Slavic group can be divided into three subgroups: Lechitic , including Polish , Silesian , Kashubian , and

1196-652: The domination of the Holy Roman Empire after the Wendish Crusade in the Middle Ages and had been strongly assimilated by Germans at the end of the 19th century. The Polabian language survived until the beginning of the 19th century in what is now the German state of Lower Saxony . Various attempts have been made to group the West Slavs into subgroups according to various criteria, including geography, historical tribes, and linguistics. In 845

1242-513: The evening of February 5, the German force pulled back behind the Oder River. Subsequently, the Soviet government had the plant dismantled and taken back to Russia. In January 1945, as the Soviets launched their massive offensive into eastern Germany, Count Thassilo von Saurma-Hoym, a descendant of Karl Georg von Hoym, left the Dyhernfurth palace along with his family and fled westward. In February,

1288-785: The extinct Polabian and Pomeranian languages ; Sorbian in the region of Lusatia ; and Czecho–Slovak in the Czech lands . In the Early Middle Ages , the name " Wends " (probably derived from the Roman-era Veneti ) may have applied to Slavic peoples. However, sources such as the Chronicle of Fredegar and Paul the Deacon are neither clear nor consistent in their ethnographic terminology, and whether "Wends" or "Veneti" refer to Slavic people, pre-Slavic people, or to

1334-644: The female Jewish prisoners worked had been " Aryanized " in 1939 by a Vienna -based company called Vereinigte Textilwerke K. H. Barthel & Co. The prisoners also worked in factories operated by the companies Aloys Haase and J. A. Kluge und Etrich. By 18 March 1944 Gabersdorf had become a subcamp of Gross-Rosen. One subcamp of Gross-Rosen was the Brünnlitz labor camp , situated in the Czechoslovakian town of Brněnec , where Jews rescued by Oskar Schindler were interned. The Brieg subcamp, located near

1380-931: The following West Slav tribes in the 11th century from "the coastlands and hinterland from the aby of Kiel to the Vistula, including the islands of Fehmarn, Poel, Rügen, Usedom and Wollin", namely the Wagrians , Obodrites (or Abotrites), the Polabians , the Liutizians or Wilzians, the Rugians or Rani, the Sorbs, the Lusatians, the Poles, and the Pomeranians (later divided into Pomerelians and Cassubians). They came under

1426-402: The following officials served as commandants of a fully independent concentration camp at Gross-Rosen: On 12 August 1948, the trial of three Gross Rosen camp officials, Johannes Hassebroek, Helmut Eschner and Eduard Drazdauskas, began before a Soviet Military Court. On 7 October 1948, all were found guilty of war crimes. Eschner and Drazdauskas were sentenced to life imprisonment and Hassebroek

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1472-748: The groups that would become the West, East , and South Slavic groups had probably become geographically separated. One of the distinguishing features of the West Slavic tribes was manifested in the structure of the Pagan sanctuaries of the closed (long) type, while the East Slavic sanctuaries had a round (most often open) shape ( see also : Peryn ). Early modern historiographers such as Penzel (1777) and Palacky (1827) have claimed Samo's Empire to be first independent Slavic state in history by taking Fredegar's Wendish account at face value. Curta (1997) argued that

1518-486: The latter half of the war to "Variant B," an 80:20 mix of tabun and chlorobenzene designed to make the mixture disperse more easily. Large scale manufacturing of the agent resulted in problems with the product's degradation over time and only around 12,500 tons of material were manufactured before the plant was overrun by the advancing Soviet forces. There were numerous deaths, in the first camp often due to tabun poisoning, either during forced labor or caused deliberately by

1564-459: The orders of Heinrich Himmler . It was named after its leader SS-Oberführer Albrecht Schmelt. The company was put in charge of employment from the camps with Jews intended to work for food only. The Gross-Rosen location close to occupied Poland was of considerable advantage. Prisoners were put to work in the construction of a system of subcamps for expellees from the annexed territories . Gross Rosen became an independent camp on 1 May 1941. As

1610-536: The palace was set on fire, probably by Soviet soldiers. When the town was handed over to Poland, its German population was expelled, in accordance to the Potsdam Agreement . It was repopulated by Poles , expelled from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union , particularly from Stanisławów and Sniatyn . After the war the original Polish name Brzeg was restored, and the adjective Dolny

1656-479: The plans of Carl Gotthard Langhans . Langhans also directed the construction of a large neo-classical pavilion perpendicular to the central structure, which became known as the “Little Palace.” Following these changes, the grand complex remained much the same until 1849, when it passed into the hands of Tony von Lazareff. She had it refashioned to resemble a Renaissance château overlooking the Loire. The river bank garden

1702-575: The political and Jewish prisoners was not only in the hands of guards and German criminal prisoners brought in by the SS , but to a lesser extent also fuelled by the German administration of the stone quarry responsible for starvation rations and denial of medical help. In 1942, for political prisoners, the average survival time-span was less than two months. Due to a change of policy in August 1942, prisoners were likely to survive longer because they were needed as slave workers in German war industries. Among

1748-466: The printing house published its last book. After it formally closed in 1840, the Jewish community rapidly diminished as printers went elsewhere for work; by 1885 there were only 35 Jews left in the town. In 1927 the synagogue was transformed into a fire station, in 1936 the last burial was performed at the Jewish cemetery, and in November 1938, the cemetery was demolished. During World War II, as part of

1794-508: The rail-line between the towns of Jawor (Jauer) and Strzegom (Striegau). Its prisoners were mostly Jews , Poles and Soviet citizens. At its peak activity in 1944, the Gross-Rosen complex had up to 100 subcamps located in eastern Germany and in German-occupied Czechoslovakia and Poland . The population of all Gross-Rosen camps at that time accounted for 11% of the total number of inmates incarcerated in

1840-651: The text is not as straightforward: according to Fredegar, Wends were a gens , Sclavini merely a genus , and there was no "Slavic" gens . He further states that " Wends occur particularly in political contexts: the Wends, not the Slavs, made Samo their king." Other such alleged early West Slavic states include the Principality of Moravia (8th century–833), the Principality of Nitra (8th century–833), and Great Moravia (833–c. 907). Christiansen (1997) identified

1886-485: The village of Pampitz , had originally been the location of a Jewish forced labor camp until August 1944, when the Jewish prisoners were replaced by the first transport of prisoners from the Gross-Rosen main camp. The camp was mostly staffed by soldiers from the Luftwaffe and a few SS members. Most of the prisoners were Polish, with smaller numbers of Russian and Czech prisoners. Most of the Poles had been evacuated from

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1932-508: Was added to distinguish it from the more populous town of Brzeg . Considerable effort was required to adapt the contaminated and badly damaged factory buildings to production. It was not until 1946 that the plant started producing Sodium hypochlorite . The new plant was named Rokita in June 1947. The historic palace was rebuilt in the 1950s, albeit with its shape altered. The adjoining pavilion has, however, managed to survive unchanged. Today,

1978-564: Was also given Renaissance character. In 1742, after the First Silesian War , the duchy became part of Prussia and remained in Prusso-German possession until 1945. In 1860, the first sisters of Charity of St. Charles Borromeo came to Dyhernfurth. In close proximity to the Chapel of St. Hedwig, the nuns established a small convent and a hospital, which would eventually expand into the town hospital of present day. In 1834

2024-549: Was connected to the printing house of Shabbatai Bass ; the press personnel consisted of Polish and Czech Jews from Prague , Kraków and Wodzisław . By 1694 the number of the printing house personnel consisted of 48 people in 13 Jewish families. From 1772 onward Bass’ printing house published the Dyhernfurther Privilegierte Zeitung , which was written in the German language but printed using

2070-565: Was liberated on 14 February 1945 by the Red Army . A total of over 500 female camp guards were trained and served in the Gross-Rosen complex. Female SS staffed the women's subcamps of Brünnlitz , Graeben, Gruenberg , Gruschwitz Neusalz, Hundsfeld, Kratzau II , Oberaltstadt, Reichenbach , and Schlesiersee Schanzenbau. The Gabersdorf labour camp had been part of a network of forced labor camps for Jewish prisoners that had operated under Organization Schmelt since 1941. The spinning mill where

2116-460: Was sentenced to death, but this was later commuted also to life imprisonment. The most far-reaching expansion of the Gross-Rosen system of labour camps took place in 1944 due to accelerated demand for support behind the advancing front. The character and purpose of new camps shifted toward defense infrastructure. In some cities, as in Wrocław (Breslau) camps were established in every other district. It

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