Langenstein-Zwieberge Concentration Camp

Holocaust · Forced Laborers · Prisoners · Saxony-Anhalt · Germany

by Peter Landé

Langenstein-Zwieberge, a sub-camp of Buchenwald and located near Halberstadt in the Harz Mountains, was established in April 1944 . Between 5,000 and 7,000 forced laborers, comprising Jews and non-Jews with 17 nationalities, were sent there, often from Buchenwald . They were sent to construct a tunnel for the production of Junker aircraft and V-2 rockets . The death rate at the camp was very high, with perhaps one third of the prisoners perishing before US troops liberated the camp on April 11, 1945 . 6,159 names have been identified and collected in this database.

The records for this camp are unusual since, due to a shortage of paper, prisoner records were kept on the inside of cigarette cartons . (The originals of these cartons/records are still held at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland, and the cigarette brands can often be seen through the paper, even in the film version) . The records give name, date of birth and arrival, nationality (and whether Jewish), prisoner number, and profession . If a prisoner died this date is also noted .In some cases a prisoner was transferred back to Buchenwald or to another sub-camp, but, due to poor legibility, this information has not been included .

The fields for this database are as follows:

Note

Occupations: Occupations have been entered from the source documents in German .To assist the researcher with translations of the German occupation entries, please see the JewishGen Info File

Nationalities: Nationality and other abbreviations can be found within the table at jewishgen.org

While this collection was never sent to the International Tracing Service (ITS), further information on many of the prisoners, particularly survivors, is contained in ITS records, which may be accessed at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem or the ITS itself  .Persons seeking copies of individual "cards" may contact Peter Landé, a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, at plande@ushmm.org .Freija Lindholm, a JewishGen volunteer, compiled the list and Peter Landé proofread it.

In addition, thanks to JewishGen Inc. for providing the website and database expertise to make this database accessible.  Special thanks to Warren Blatt and Michael Tobias for their continued contributions to Jewish genealogy.  Particular thanks to Nolan Altman, coordinator of Holocaust files.

Nolan Altman
Coordinator - Holocaust Database
January 2010

This database is searchable via JewishGen's Holocaust Database.