RARE ORIGINAL 1939 DEATH CERTIFICATE
FROM AN INMATE AT
KONZENTRATIONSLAGER mauthausen
(Mauthausen concentration camp)
Mauthausen was classified as a so called "category three camp", the fiercest category and for the prisoners it meant "Rückkehr unerwünscht" (return not desired) and "Vernichtung durch Arbeit" (extermination by work)!
|
This very rare item documents the death of inmate Ignatz Merkt, a former gardener who officially died because all his vitally important organs stopped working. This was identified by the "Lagerarzt" (camp doctor) of Maut-hausen concentration camp. In reality many of the inmates were worked to death in the granite quarry while receiving only short rations of food.
The inmate was only 30 years old when he died in the camp on October 13, 1939. "Leichenschauschein" (the bold title at the top of this document) means death certificate. In most cases the SS "doctor" wrote heart failure on it, no matter what the real cause for the death was. Another official version was "killed during an attempt to escape".
The document is signed with an ORIGINAL signature (not a rubber stamp) from a SS-Obersturmführer
The main entrance gate of KL Mauthausen |
Offered for sale is a
RARE ORIGINAL 1939 DEATH CERTIFICATE FROM AN INMATE AT KONZENTRATIONSLAGER mauthausen (Mauthausen concentration camp) Mauthausen was classified as a so called "category three camp", the fiercest category and for the prisoners it meant "Rückkehr unerwünscht" (return not desired) and "Vernichtung durch Arbeit" (extermination by work)! The Konzentrationslager Mauthausen was established in August 1938 nearby the city of Linz (Austria), shortly after Austria had become a part of the from then on named Greater German Reich. It is estimated that approx. 150,000 inmates lost their lives in the main camp, one of the 49 sub-camps and/or in the granite quarry, called "Wiener Graben". On August 8, 1938 Himmler ordered a couple of hundred prisoners from the Dachau camp to be transported to the little town of Mauthausen just outside Linz to build a new camp in order to supply slave labor for the "Wiener Graben" stone quarry. In the "Wiener Graben" the prisoners were divided into two groups; one that hacked into the granite and the other group that carried the slabs up the 186 steep steps to the top of the quarry. Until 1939, most of the prisoners were put to work building the camp and the living quarters for the SS. The main camp of Mauthausen consisted of 32 barracks surrounded by electrified barbed wire, high stone walls, and watch towers. An immense number of prisoners were transfered into the camp so that Lagerkommandant (camp commander) SS-Standartenführer Franz Ziereis ordered that the nearby fields were to be ringed with barbed wire. Kept in there were mostly Hungarian Jews and Russian soldiers who were kept in the open, all year around. KL Mauthausen was liberated on May 5, 1945 by the US 11th Armour Division.
the courtyard inside the camp where the roll calls took place
Mauthausen as it looks today |
THIS RARE ORIGINAL 1939
DEATH CERTIFICATE FROM AN INMATE AT
KONZENTRATIONSLAGER mauthausen
IS OFFERED FOR SALE
INCL. SHIPPING TO ANY ADDRESS IN THE UNITED STATES
olive-drab is a division of Warneke, Inc. P.O.Box 2844, Rapid City, SD 57709-2844 USA
All photos and descriptions are Copyright © 2007 by Warneke, Inc. and no part of this web site may be reproduced in any form without our prior written permission . Violations of the copyright will be pursued to the full extent of the law.