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Background

Głuszyca is a small town in the Sowie Mountains and was the site of a massive secret underground complex. Until 1945, the city was part of Low Silesia, Germany with the name Wüstegiersdorf. The camp bore the German name Wüstegiersdorf and was a part of the Riese Complex.

The purpose of the complex is debatable. One theory is that it was designed by Hitler to replace his compound at Wolfsschanze. Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair), was the code name for Hitler's World War II Eastern Front military headquarters, one of several Führer Headquarters located in various parts of Europe. It was the location of the 20-Jul-1944 plot against Hitler's life. Hitler was afraid that his current headquarters were not safe enough and wanted a new facility to be a bomb safe underground city capable of housing 20,000 people. The other theory suggests that the facility was to be used as a manufacturing facility for a new German Wunderwaffen (Wonder Weapon).

The Głuszyca site was near the Gross-Rosen Concentration camp, a subcamp of Sachsenhausen. Gross-Rosen was a subcamp of Sachsenhausen for only one year. It became an independent concentration camp in May 1941. The Wüstegiersdorf subcamp, formed in May 1944, was a subcamp of Gross-Rosen. Many of the forced laborers that worked at the Głuszyca complex came from the Gross-Rosen camp.

This collection lists Jews who returned to the town after World War II and were residents there sometime between 1946 and 1950. Some names were crossed out on the original source document, which does not mean death, but rather that they left the town. This collection is of particular interest because many of these people were erroneously listed as having perishing during the Holocaust.

Database

This database includes 615 Jews who returned to Głuszyca after the war. The fields for this database are as follows:

• Surname
• Given Name
• Date of Birth
• Place of Birth
• Last Residence
• Father's Name
• Mother's Name
• Occupation (See note below)
• Głuszyca Address
• Comments

Acknowledgments

The information contained in this database was indexed from the files available at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Source: EE3762). Edward Mitelsbach, a JewishGen volunteer, compiled the list.

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
June 2009

Searching the Database

This database is searchable via JewishGen's Holocaust Database.

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Last Update: 14 June 2009 by MFK