Jewish forced laborers from the Klettendorf labor camp shovel snow in preparation for the construction of the new autobahn between Breslau and Berlin.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 06104

Overview

Caption: Jewish forced laborers from the Klettendorf labor camp shovel snow in preparation for the construction of the new autobahn between Breslau and Berlin.

Jacob Hennenberg stands in front at the right.

The photograph was taken by a German guard who sent it to Jacob's sister in the Chrzarnow ghetto.
Date: 1942
Locale: Klettendorf, [Lower Silesia] Germany
Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jacob Hennenberg

Photo Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Provenance: Jacob Hennenberg

Source Record ID: Collections: 1992.56

Keyword: AUTOBAHN CONCENTRATION CAMPS FORCED LABOR/BRIGADES JEWS (POLISH) LABOR CAMPS TRUCKS WINTER SCENES
Photo Designation: LABOR CAMPS/MINOR CAMPS -- Germany -- Klettendorf

Biography: Jacob Hennenberg was born in 1924 in Oswiecim, Poland. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he and his father fled eastward, but soon returned to Osweicim. In March 1941, following an order for Jews to leave town, Jacob and his father went to Chrzanow, where the Jewish community assigned them a room. On May 9, 1941, during a deportation action, soldiers came to their apartment to take Jacob's father. When Jacob pleaded to go in his stead, they agreed. Jacob was sent to the Bavarian village of Wiesau and imprisoned in the RAB Reichsautobahn lager (later the Zwangarbeitslager Wiesau), where the inmates were tasked to work on autobahn construction. He was sent to a number of other towns to work on sections of the highway before being sent to Klettendorf, where he remained until 1943. From Klettendorf Jacob was sent to camps in Freiberg and Waldenberg. He was finally liberated on May 9, 1945.