Gardelegen massacre

The Gardelegen massacre was a massacre perpetrated by the German local population with minor direction from the SS during World War II. On April 13, 1945, on the Isenschnibbe estate near the northern German town of Gardelegen, the troops forced over 1,000 slave laborers who were part of a transport train evacuated from the Mittelbau-Dora and Hannover-Stöcken concentration camps into a large barn, which was then set on fire.

1,016 prisoners, of which the largest number were Poles, were burned alive or shot trying to escape. The crime was discovered two days later by Company F, 2nd Battalion, 405th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 102nd Infantry Division, when the U.S. Army occupied the area. Eleven prisoners were found alive – seven Poles, three Russians and a Frenchman. The testimonies of survivors were collected and published by Melchior Wańkowicz in 1969, in the book From Stołpców to Cairo. Gardelegen became a part of the newly established German Democratic Republic in 1947 and is now in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

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