Tormersdorf, Germany

The NSDAP and the regional government of Lower Silesia established the first transit camp in Tormersdorf (today in Saxony, Germany) for those Jews of the district who had been evicted from their homes by the Nazi authorities. This place of temporary internment prior to the Jews’ deportation to extermination camps in the East and to the Theresienstadt ghetto consisted of several buildings owned by an evangelical society in Tormersdorf, north of Görlitz. It was previously used as a Jewish institution for mentally ill boys and men. Its founders named it “Zoar”. This Hebrew name was changed to “Martinshoff” by the Nazis who officially designated the site as a “Housing Commune” (Wohngemeinschaft). Transports to the camp began in June 1941 with the evacuation of the Beate-Gutmann old-age home in Breslau. Other residents of Breslau, Görlitz, Glogau and other cities and towns of Lower Silesia followed. According to the estimate of a local pastor who worked at Tormersdorf, in 1942 the camp housed about 700 inmates. The camp was administered by the Gestapo, two deacons of the evangelical society, and a “Jewish elder” named Saul from Breslau. Some of the inmates engaged in forced labour. Although forcibly interned, the inmates had to pay a maintenance fee of 125 Reichmarks per month. The camp buildings were in poor state, and the camp inmates had no access to running water or to proper sanitation facilities. Contact with the local population was forbidden, but the inmates were allowed to send mail and receive visits from relatives. An unknown number of detainees died in the camp. Deportations from Tormersdorf to the extermination camps and the Theresienstadt ghetto began on July 27 1942, and continued until September 1943, at which point the camp was liquidated.