Wolfsberg-Riese (Gross-Rosen) Laborers

Holocaust · Forced Laborers · Prisoners · Europe (multiple)

by Peter Landé

Wolfsberg-Riese, sometimes simply called Riese, was one of a number of Gross Rosen sub-camps.  It was located near Wlodarz in southern Poland, formerly Czechoslovakia.  About 5,000 Jewish male prisoners, largely from Western Poland, were brought there for construction work.  Conditions were horrible and many died there.  Near the end of the war, survivors were shipped westward and it is sometimes possible to determine their ultimate fate (death or survival).  See Wikipedia for a more complete description of this camp: (en.wikipedia.org).

This 2,960 name collection includes name, date of birth and profession. (For example, Elias Berkovits born 19-Apr-1912, student).  In some cases, the work designation, or “Function”, is also given, e.g. a student was employed as an electrician.  Religion, place of birth and ultimate fate are not given, but, using other sources of information, it has been possible to determine that most of the prisoners were Jews who had been sent to Gross-Rosen from western Poland or Auschwitz.

Further information on some individuals is available on the Gross-Rosen website https://tinyurl.com/yd6l6uyq, as well as on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Holocaust and Survivors website (https://tinyurl.com/ycqn5svz).

This database includes 2,960 records of Wolfsberg-Riese forced laborers.  The fields for this database are as follows:

Note A: For English translations of German occupations, please see JewishGen’s InfoFile: “German Occupation Definitions – English Translations”.

The information contained in this database was indexed from the files available from the International Tracing Service file (#1.1.11.1/0001/).  This information was compiled by the following volunteers: Allan Jankie, Gert Rogers, Norman Katz, Miranda Flint, Charles Goldenzon, Pierre Hahn and Erica Wiesel.  Further questions may be sent to plande@ushmm.org.

In addition, thanks to JewishGen Inc. for providing the website and database expertise to make this database accessible.  Special thanks to Avram Groll, Warren Blatt and Michael Tobias for their continued contributions to Jewish genealogy.  Particular thanks to Nolan Altman, Vice President of Data Acquisition and Coordinator of JewishGen’s Holocaust Database files.

Nolan Altman
Coordinator - JewishGen Holocaust Database
January, 2018

This database is searchable via JewishGen's Holocaust Database.