Web design and content by the 8th-grade students of Bernard Zell
A student's guide to the novel inspired by hidden history.
Overview:
The Nazis employed a vast forced labour force throughout their areas of control. Forced labour was employed in both the public and private sectors. Notable companies that used forced labour included Siemens, I.G Farben (Bayer), Volkswagen, Daimler (Mercedes) Benz, Krupp, Thyssen, Bosch, and BMW. The workforce was made up of criminals, “undesirables” (i.e., Jews, Roma, Homosexuals), and political enemies.
Forced Labour was first used in 1933, with the opening of several labour camps, which used political and intellectual enemies, criminals, and asocials in their workforce. These camps were meant to “educate” and discipline. In 1937, labour shortages in Nazi Germany began causing a problem for the Nazi regime. To make up for the labour shortages, SS leadership proposed using concentration camp prisoners and “undesirables” for forced labour. In the time period between 1936 and 1940, three major forced labour camps were created near major industrial centres: Sachsenhausen (1936) near brickworks, Mauthausen (1938) near a stone quarry, and Gross-Rosen (1940) also near a stone quarry. One of Nazi Germany’s most significant labour camps was Dora-Mittelbau. This massive labour camp was more of a network of labour camps built throughout the Harz Mountains. Dora-Mittelbau was the site of one of Nazi Germany’s most infamous forced labour projects, the production of the V-2 Rockets.
From 1941 to 1942, the prisoner population began dwindling, which led the SS to use Soviet POWs. Between 1942 and 1944, three million Soviet POWs are deployed into Germany, Austria, and Bohemia-Moravia to be used for forced labour. By 1944, there we at least 7.5 million (non-German) forced labourers registered in Germany.
The conditions in these Labour camps were terrible. An example would be in Mauthausen, where the SS forced prisoners to run up 186 steps out of the stone quarry carrying massive boulders until they dropped, and then denied them the food, rest, or medicine necessary to recover.
Vocab List:
-
Forced Labour: Working without any real choice and without compensation (a wage or payment for their work).
-
Public Sector: An organization within and in service to the government.
-
Private Sector: An organization that is not apart of the government.
-
Labour/Concentration Camp: Camps used by Nazi Germany to dehumanize the Jews and other undesirables, as well as prisoners, political enemies, and POW’s, through forced labour.
Connection To Train:
In the novel Train, Alex’s father is a forced labourer at Siemens. Alex is also employed in what seems to be an unknown brewery that may have used forced labour. Many of the Jews in Berlin were also employed (by force) by companies where they worked as forced labourers. At the end of the novel it is also mentioned that Alex will be punished with hard labour as a result of his homosexuality.
Photos:
Links:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/german-firms-that-used-slave-labour-during-nazi-era
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007326
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005322
https://www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/bibliographies/labour-camps.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od3IYMHRxRc
