Camp Hallein.....PartII

[Jack's Son]

This thread picks-up our discussion where the other thread leaves off. It contains more of an explanation of what had been done so far to research this model

CAMP HALLEIN

From one person's history of his grandfather's WWII service:

"Hallein was the site of a work camp annex to the Dachau concentration camp but when my grandfather's regiment 242nd liberated it, the US Army used it as a prisoner camp. My grandfather spent much of his time overseas guarding prisoners in Hallein once the war ended. Hallein is a town in the Austrian state of Salzburg. Hallein was the site of a work camp annex to the Dachau concentration camp but when my grandfather's regiment 242nd liberated it, the US Army used it as a prisoner camp. My grandfather spent much of his time overseas guarding prisoners in Hallein once the war ended."


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The Hallein camp was first a Nazi slave labor camp, then held Germans taken prisoner by Americans at the end of the war and then served as the Beth Israel camp for Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs) until 1956 (and even as a DP camp was described as "An absolutely indescribable hellhole").

The commonly used description of Hallein as "a work camp annex to the Dachau concentration camp" appears to have been used first in the book The Girl from Sighet by Hindi Rothbart, P'nenah Goldstein, the story of a DP family that went through Hallein.

Hallein as a Nazi labor camp does get some mention in various books including Against all hope: resistance in the Nazi concentration camps, 1938-1945. It and other books include some version of the story of one particular Hallein inmate:

"Josef "Sepp" Plieseis (December 20, 1913 - 21 October 1966) was an Austrian resistance fighter against the Nazi regime.

Plieseis was born in Bad Ischl and became a young member of the Socialist movement. He volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War, where he was wounded twice. He was arrested in France and incarcerated in concentration camps in Gurs, St. Cyprienne, und Argiles before returning to his home in Salzkammergut. He was arrested at the border by the Nazi authorities and sent to Linz, then Dachau, and finally to Dachau's annex in Hallein.

He managed to escape from this camp and hid in the forests and mountains of his native area. He helped organize resistance activities based on his experience that persisted until the Nazi surrender and American occupation in 1945."

While Hallein was called a "work annex" to Dachau, a more proper term would be forced or slave labor camp. It was one of 95 "subcamps" associated with the Dacahu concentration camp complex and Hallein itself appears on lists of Nazi concentration camps.

We do know that the Hallein salt caves were used by the Nazis to store records of Himmler's "medical experiments" on concentration camp inmates and to store thousands of artworks looted under Goering. It could be imagined that the inmates of the Hallein camp worked in those caves.

Swiss members of the Waffen SS were sent to Hallein for special training as part of a Nazi plan to set up an SS police corps for the takeover of Switzerland (from The Swiss and the Nazis - by Stephen P. Halbrook).

Interestingly, some residents of Hallein in modern times have tried to say that there was no Nazi labor in their town during WWII.

While Hallein is a bit of an historical footnote compared to such infamous concentration camps as Dachau, there are few artifacts from it and the literally thousands of other labor camps that operated in Germany and Nazi-occupied lands and, as such, a scale model of the Hallein camp is a part of world history and especially Holocaust history. The camp's post-war use as a DP camp further adds to the importance of the Hallein camp model.

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Sjef,Our thinking runs in the same direction. Bob and I have been ALL over the web, and hit every site. The link on the German WIKI site that you provided is new and will be explored for more helpful clues. We have come to the same conclusion as you have as far as the presentation of the model as a momento to the outgoing commander, but what about WHO made the model, slave labor or freed prisoners? Was the model made during the war for the Nazi commandant, or was it made after the war as a presentation piece??

Beast, I have contacted the Simon Wiesenthal Center, as well as the Holocaust Museum in Los Angles, the the Nation Holocaust Museum in D.C.. NONE of these parties were interested.

Dave, Thank you for your research......this is what we have on Fred G. Fimbres..........

This is in all-certainty the Fred Fimbres from the Camp Hallein.

Fred G Fimbres enlisted in the Army in 1942 after having had three years of college and a background in law enforcement. This would have made him a good candidate for a commission and duty at a camp such as Hallein.

U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946
about Fred G Fimbres
Name: Fred G Fimbres
Birth Year: 1917
Race: White, Citizen (White)
Nativity State or Country: Arizona
State of Residence: California
County or City: Los Angeles
Enlistment Date: 3 Oct 1942
Enlistment State: California
Enlistment City: Los Angeles
Education: 3 years of college
Civil Occupation: Sheriffs and bailiffs

After the war he returned to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department where he eventually became Chief of Detectives and later Chief of the Administration Division.

In in 1956 he wrote an assessment of the Guatemalan National Police for the U.S. State Department.

He was born 7 Feb 1917 and died 20 May 2003 in Montrose CA in Los Angeles County.


This is a link to the video Bob created for the Camp Model.....

 

[Jack's Son]

After attempts were made to find an interest party, I then contacted a large Synagogue in San Diego County. The Rabbi there was THRILLED to see it, and asked if I would let them keep it for research and as a teaching aid for their Junior high and Senior high school classes.

It now is on loan to the Temple Association for display and education.

[Jack's Son]

This is the link to the first part of this topic....... http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/ind...=142341&hl=

[cutiger83]

After attempts were made to find an interest party, I then contacted a large Synagogue in San Diego County. The Rabbi there was THRILLED to see it, and asked if I would let them keep it for research and as a teaching aid for their Junior high and Senior high school classes.

It now is on loan to the Temple Association for display and education.

 

Very interesting model! I would think this piece would have great historical significance. I am very surprised that the Holocaust museums turned down your offer. It is great that you were able to loan it to the Temple Association. :thumbsup:

 

....Kat

[Jack's Son]

Another question that we had to try to overcome is, why was the Constantina Wire used in the model?

If the model was built AFTER the war, when the camp was used for displaced people, there would be no use of the wire! HOWEVER, if the model were built DURING the war, it would make sense.....hence, one could argue that the model was made for the camp Commandant.

[Sabrejet]

Do you really think so JS? DPs weren't technically "prisoners" of course, but to the Allied authorities they represented a major headache. Half of Europe was on the move either headed east or west. They had to establish some semblance of order whilst these DPs were processed...after all, many potential war criminals hid amongst them, so I don't necessarily think that all barbed wire would have been torn down from the camps as soon as the shooting stopped. :think:

[Dave]

I tend to agree with Sabre on this one...I have concertina wire outside my office window as I type this. It's not because I'm trying to keep something in...but I'm trying to keep people OUT (so as not to pilfer the trucks and tools in my laydown yard!) The occupation era was a period of time that people have all but forgotten. The "average" person believes that once the belligerent sides stopped shooting, flowers started blooming, everyone went into the construction business, and everything was hunky-dory (unfortunately, this was the presiding thought that we as the US had went we attacked Iraq in 2003...it's scary we were so naive...)

 

In reality, after the Germans surrendered on May 8/9 (depending on who you ask) Europe was an absolute MESS. The utility infrastructure had been destroyed, houses and farms were in shambles, there were several million POWs and ethnic Germans, many of whom had no love for the Allies, and to make matters worse, millions of displaced persons...hundreds of thousands of whom were in need of immediate major medical attention due to injuries, disease, or starvation. It was everything the "victorious" Allies could do to get their arms around the situation and stop much of Europe from delving into mass chaos.

 

Into this mess steps people like Captain Fimbres. He's an infantry officer, but with civilian experience on a big-city sheriffs department. He probably had experience in the transport and storage of prisoners back in Los Angeles (they had plenty, even then) and so he was tapped to become the commandant of a former labor camp. However, instead of repressing it's population, his job was to make sure that the following happened:

 

1. The DP population maintained discipline, decorum, and were prevented from rioting, escaping, etc.

 

2. The DP population of the camp was clothed, fed, and all medical attention was given (which was better treatment than the people OUTSIDE the camp were receiving)

 

3. The DP population was administratively sorted, to include the determination of original (and future) destination, surviving family members, government oversight paperwork (passports, visas, ID cards, etc.) and so on.

 

This work was extremely important and was just as difficult to accomplish. Many of these people had no place to return to and they couldn't remain where they were. Families were completely destroyed, people were stateless...and those were the ones willing to state their personal status...dealing with POWs was even more problematic.

 

So if you could imagine doing all of this with having no gates, no fences, no guards...it was already difficult to do, and that would have made it absolutely impossible to do. People would have been walking out of the camp at all times, day or night, and people would have been walking into the camp for food, clothing, and so on...it would have been like trying to contain water in one's hand...an impossibility. So, they maintained the fences and concertina wire...not to keep the people in, but to try and minimize the massive management problem he faced.

 

Personally, I think this was a nice souvenir made up in the camp during the post-war period for the good Captain. I do not think it was made up for the original camp "owners". While that's entirely possible, I believe the former is much more probable and was likely the scenario from which this evolved.

 

Dave

[Jack's Son]

My argument would have been that the Americam Army was so horrified at the sight of the concentration camps, that the natural thought would be to remove outward sides of captivity.

However your arguments are very compelling.

[Dave]

My argument would have been that the Americam Army was so horrified at the sight of the concentration camps, that the natural thought would be to remove outward sides of captivity.

However your arguments are very compelling.

 

JS, that's a good and admirable thought, but it wasn't feasible at the time. There are several good books that cover that very dark period of the early occupation years, to include parts of "Yankee, RN", "After the Reich", "Crimes and Mercies", and so on. A close friend of mine, whose father was a German aircraft designer captured by the Soviets and never seen again (he later worked as the Public Affairs Officer for the US Secretary of the Navy) has likewise told me many first-hand stories of the bleak occupation years that corroborate the information in these books. It gives one a lot of respect for the US soldiers left behind on occupation duty, particularly the members of the Constabulary Corps.

 

This is one of the most interesting periods in history to me...and it has been largely forgotten...even by those who lived through it and simply wish to leave the scars of that period in the past.

 

Dave

[Jack's Son]

Dave,

You would have been an excellent source of knowledge to have tapped, to have helped developed this research 18 months ago. We would have had a tremendous leg-up on the direction we could have taken.

 

Thank you for sharing your insight now, it makes me wish I had asked you for your opinion before this! I had no why of knowing.