San Sabba - HolocaustResearchProject.org
San Sabba
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The large complex of buildings making up the rice husking factory constructed in 1913 in San Sabba on the outskirts of Trieste was first used by the Nazis as a temporary prison camp for the detention of Italian servicemen captured after the 8 September 1943.
It was designated Stalag 339 but in late October 1943 it was converted into a Polizeihaftlager (Police detention camp) to be used as a transit camp for deportees bound for Germany and Poland, for the storage of confiscated property and for the internment and execution of hostages, partisans, political prisoners and Jews.
The first room on the left in the underground entry passage was known as the “death cell.” In the “death cell” were kept internees transported from prisons or captured in round-ups and earmarked for execution and cremation within a short time, and indeed according to eye-witness accounts new arrivals in the “death cell” often found themselves sharing the cell with the bodies awaiting cremation.
On the left side of the ground floor of the three- storey building housing the dressmaking and shoe-making shops where prisoners worked and quarters for the SS officers and other ranks were seventeen mini-cells which could house six inmates in each cell.
These cells were set aside mainly for partisans, political prisoners and Jews scheduled for execution in the space of a few days or sometimes weeks. The first two cells were used for torture or the collection of property confiscated from the prisoners.
The articles found there included thousands of identity cards taken from prisoners, deportees and individuals sent for forced labour, these were found by Yugoslav troops.
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The next building four storeys high, was made up of large rooms used for the detention of Jews, other civilian prisoners and prisoners-of –war mostly destined for deportation to the Reich – men, women, children and babies were transported to concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Dachau and Mauthausen, where most perished.
In the inner courtyard, opposite the cells was the building housing the oven in which bodies were cremated, the oven, built below ground level was reached by means of a stair. An underground passage joined the oven to the chimney stack.
After using the existing rice-drying facility from January to March 1944, the Germans converted it into a crematorium capable of incinerating a large number of bodies. The plan was drawn up by Erwin Lambert, who was the Aktion Reinhard construction expert, who had built gas chambers at the Sobibor and Treblinka death camps, and euthanasia killing centres in the Reich.
Read the full article here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/sansabba.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
