Jewish Mass Grave at Bělá nad Svitavou

Buried in this mass grave in Bělá nad Svitavou (Bielau in German) are 46 Jews from transports that arrived in 1945 at Arbeitslager Brünnlitz, a labour camp that replaced Oskar Schindler's factory in Kraków in 1944.

The first transport arrived on 29 January 1945 from Golleschau labour camp, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. Some prisoners had frozen to death during the journey, but survivors were also in bad shape. There were 81 survivors in total, but 10 of them still perished during the months of February and March, despite the good care of Oskar and his his wife Emilie. A second transport arrived five days later, this time from the small forced labour camp Landskron. It involved only six prisoners, two of whom died within a month. The dead from both transports were buried outside the Bielau cemetery.

The bodies were transferred to this mass grave in the cemetery in 1946. It was marked with a small monument. In 1995, the location of the grave was renovated and a memorial plaque was installed on the cemetery wall.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar
• Photos: Koos Winkelman