Kemna concentration camp () was one of the early Nazi concentration camps, created by the Third Reich to incarcerate their political opponents (ostensibly in protective custody) after the Nazi Party first seized power in 1933. The camp was established in a former factory on the Wupper river in the Kemna neighborhood of the Barmen quarter of Wuppertal. It was run by the SA group in Düsseldorf.
The purpose of the early concentration camps was to repress and terrorize opponents of the new regime, primarily communists, but also socialists, dissenting Christians, and trade unionists. Unlike later concentration camps, the prisoners and the guards at Kemna were from the same cities and in many cases, knew each other and were already enemies from the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and subsequent political battles of the 1920s. Torture was practiced and the screams of the men were audible to people living and working nearby, and severely injured men were taken to nearby hospitals, all causing word of the camp's misdeeds to spread quickly. There was a major release of prisoners in October 1933; those released were forced to sign a document promising to keep secret all they had seen and experienced at the camp, and were threatened with re-arrest if they disobeyed. The Nazis wanted the public to become familiar with the term "concentration camp" and regard it with dread, but worried that the excesses at Kemna and the other early concentration camps would turn public opinion against them and thwart their plans. As a result, the camp was closed in January 1934, just six months after it opened. After the SA lost political influence, reports of torture led to an investigation and eventually to hearings and the perpetrators given a warning. No crimes were prosecuted.
After the war, the Kemna Trial became the first major German trial regarding a concentration camp. Nonetheless, the camp was afterward largely forgotten, with no research into its past and for decades, only two sources supplying most of the information known about the camp. In 1983, a monument honoring the prisoners who suffered there was installed across the street from the former concentration camp; the builders of the monument were forbidden by the owner of the property from erecting any memorial on the site itself.
History After the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933, and the subsequent Reichstag Fire Decree suspended most civil liberties, the Nazis moved quickly to debilitate their political enemies. They conducted mass arrests of some 10,000 of their political opponents within just a few days, intending not just to confine, but also to weaken them physically and mentally through terror. The sudden surge of thousands of new prisoners created a critical shortage of places to confine them. Interior Minister of Prussia Hermann Göring began to look for regional locations in cities for short-term, temporary means to house the newly arrested. Between March and May 1933, prisoners in the Bergisches Land were housed by the dozens in schools, SA barracks, cellars and other locations; prisons moved their women to other locations to make more room for the new prisoners. These were all in residential areas, however, and the torture already being practiced caused unrest in the community, prompting the SA to seek a new, larger location on the outskirts of town. They found a suitable location, an empty factory in Wuppertal, the owner of which, on a promise by the local district government to purchase the property later, agreed to allow the SA to use rent-free in the short term.
Kemna became one of the first concentration camps in Germany, and existed from July 5, 1933 to January 19, 1934. It was run by the Düsseldorf SA and Wuppertal police chief (Polizeipräsident) Willi Veller and backed by the Düsseldorf district government. The first commandant, SA Sturmführer Hugo Neuhoff, was soon replaced by Alfred Hilgers, who, at the same time was the SA Standarte 258 of the Koburg Protective Custody camp in Mettmann. In a space expected to hold 200-300 prisoners, the SA guards confined up to 1,100 prisoners in unsanitary, overcrowded conditions in a former textile factory on Beyenburger Straße, directly on the banks of the Wupper. Torture and arbitrary violence were daily events. To maintain order and help run the institution, the SA established a hierarchy within the prisoner population, choosing some to work as prisoner functionaries and by establishing some of the large holding cells in the building as preferable to others. There was a major release of prisoners in October 1933, but for many, Kemna was just the first place of confinement on the way to other concentration camps.
In the evening and particularly at night, the screams of prisoners were heard at a bar from the camp, as well as by people who lived across the Wupper. On the weekend, family members and friends of those incarcerated, as well as others, who were merely curious, took walks in the neighboring woods, from where the camp was clearly visible. Articles appeared in the local press, referring obliquely to "enhanced interrogations" and explaining the need for a firm hand to deal with the type of prisoners held there. Locals began warning each other with the saying, "Watch yourself, or you'll end up in Kemna!" With rumors about the camp spreading, the Nazis emptied and closed the camp just six months after it opened, fearing the risk to their image at home and abroad. Although the Third Reich wanted the public to become familiar with the term "concentration camp" (in German, Konzentrationslager) and understand its implications enough to dread it, it was concerned about the consequences of public awareness of the practice of torture at Kemna and the other early concentration camps.
The prisoners were brought to Emslandlager, forced to sing, as they marched out of Kemna, "Forward, march to Emsland, Camp Kemna is closed—happy is he who forgets". The German word for happy, "glücklich", also means "lucky" or "fortunate".
The camp
Buildings and grounds Kemna concentration camp is located in the Barmen quarter of Wuppertal on at Beyenburger Straße 146. The camp was sometimes referred to as "Konzentrationslager Wuppertal-Barmen", the name printed as the return address on postcards sent by prisoners, but is primarily known as "KZ Kemna", KZ being the German abbreviation for "concentration camp".
The main building was a four-story former factory at number 146.German references describe the building as "three-story" because the ground floor is not counted as a story. Also on the grounds were a house at number 142, a boiler unit and some smaller buildings. A chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire surrounded the property, replacing a barbed wire barrier that was originally erected. On the ground floor of the main building were the kitchen, laundry room and a registration room where all new prisoners were recorded. Above that, on the second floor, were the quarters for the commandant and room three, which initially provided quarters for the guard staff and, during that time, was where most of the torture took place. The third floor was divided into two rooms where the prisoners were housed, rooms four and five. All the windows in these rooms were painted black, both inside and out, preventing prisoners from looking out and passersby from looking in, and causing the rooms to be dark, even during the day. Nonetheless, these rooms were considered the best; they were outfitted with beds, tables and benches in the summer of 1933, and were not as close to the torture area. The attic floor contained a clothing storeroom, an orderly room and prisoner quarters for Nazis placed in "protective custody". Special cells for harsh punishment were the freight elevator and cubicles under the stairs, where prisoners were forced to crouch for hours.
Rooms one and two, also prisoner housing, were in two one-story buildings closer to the river and where until October 1933, the prisoners had no beds and slept directly on the ground, with just a bit of straw underneath them. Room one led to the "bunker", a concrete former coke storage room adjacent to the boiler unit, and the infirmary. The heating equipment was non-functional; a battlefield forge stood in the unit. The bunker was , with one small opening and an iron door leading to room one. New prisoners lived there for days, even weeks. As many as 50 men at a time were forced to live there in stifling air and heat; one witness said, "The exhaled breath of those locked up was so great that water condensed and ran under the door, as if poured from a bucket."
Room two led to the toilets and contained a small room where food was served and a 17-man crew peeled potatoes for the kitchen. In late September 1933, in preparation for a large transport of 200 men, the guards' quarters and the infirmary were moved into the house, which had previously been empty. Afterward, the former infirmary became the main torture room and a new infirmary was set up in a walled-off section of room two. Of the prisoner housing, room one was considered the worst because there was an increased likelihood of attracting the attention of a passing SA man, an occurrence that could lead to immediate abuse. Most feared by the prisoners, however, were the torture rooms; the bunker, the freight elevator and the cubicles, where inmates were denied even the normal camp standards of meals, washing, toilets and the infirmary.
In addition to these, a wing was added to the main building with the prisoners forced to provide the labor. The new wing had guards' quarters, plus individual cells and a sound-insulated interrogation room. The SA began using the new wing in December 1933 just before the camp was closed.
The prisoners The total number of prisoners is estimated to have been between 2,500 and 5,000. The number is difficult to ascertain because camp records were destroyed and there is little other information from which a precise number can be deduced. Of the total number of prisoners, 646 people have been identified by name.
Those imprisoned were primarily those swept up in mass arrests of political opponents from the Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) and the Social Democrats (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD) from the Bergisches Land, also certain unaligned Christians, and unionists. Jews who were there were imprisoned for their political views, not because they were Jews, although the SA's anti-semitism resulted in worse treatment if one even appeared to be Jewish. There were also transports and others arrested individually from the area, including nearby cities such as Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Krefeld and Essen. While the guards in other concentration camps were from various parts of Germany, prisoners and guards at Kemna were all from the same area and often knew each other personally. Some prisoners were prominent in their areas or in the region and were considered "trophy prisoners" and subjected to especially harsh treatment and vengeful torment. These "big shots", as the SA called them, included Heinrich Hirtsiefer, a former Prussian Vice Minister President, Wilhelm Bökenkrüger, a former director of the Wuppertal employment office, and Georg Petersdorff, the secretary of the Düsseldorf and Cologne Reichsbanner Gaue. Despite the beatings and torture, of those prisoners who were released, most resumed their anti-Nazi activities.
Torture and torment