Alfred Trzebinski
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| Alfred Trzebinski | |
|---|---|
| 29 August 1902 – 8 October 1946 | |
| Place of birth | Jutroschin |
| Place of death | Hamelin |
| Allegiance | Nazi Germany |
| Service/branch | SS |
| Rank | Stubaf (Sturmbannführer) |
| Commands held | SS Medical Corps in concentration camps |
| Other work | Executed for the medical atrocities and murders of children he committed in concentration camps |
Alfred Trzebinski (29 August 1902 – 8 October 1946) was an SS-physician at the Auschwitz, Majdanek and Neuengamme concentration camps in Nazi Germany. He was sentenced to death and executed for his involvement in war crimes committed at the Neuengamme subcamps.
Contents |
[edit] Life
Trzebinski was born in Jutroschin near Posen (now Poznań). After his study and graduation he was a physician in Saxony. Trzebinski was member of the Nazi Party and SS. SS-Stubaf Dr. Trzebinski was camp physician (German: Lagerarzt) at the Auschwitz concentration camp from July 1941 until October 1941, and from October 1941 until September 1943 at the Majdanek camp. He was then transferred to the Neuengamme camp. At Neuengamme camp he was the supervisor for SS-physician Kurt Heißmeyer. Heißmeier had done medical experiments on Soviet prisoners of war and children. Trzebinski was liable for the medical care of the inmates of the Neuengamme camp and all its subcamps. Of 100,000 inmates at least 42,900 died from 1938 til 1945.[1]
[edit] Homicide of children
Trzebinski was involved in the murder of 20 children at the subcamp Bullenhuser Damm, a former school partly destroyed during the bombing of Hamburg in World War II. Heißmeyer had ordered 20 Jewish children (10 boys and 10 girls) from the Auschwitz camp to continue his experiments. His purpose had been to inject tuberculosis bacteria and to excise the axillary lymph nodes. On the night of 20 April 1945 Trzebinski injected morphine into the children and they were hanged in the boiler room of the Bullenhuser Damm school. That same night 28 adults died as well, mostly Soviet prisoners of war.[2]
[edit] Trial and death
At the end of the Second World War, Trzebinski was able to escape. On 1 February 1946 he was arrested—after working for the British forces in the POW camp Neumünster—because of the persistency of Anton Walter Freud, a grandchild of Sigmund Freud. Trzebinski was sentenced to death during the "Curiohaus processes" in Rotherbaum in March 1946, also for his complicity in the homicide of the children.[2] At his trial he confessed[3] freely and frankly saying "If I had acted as a hero the children might have died a little later, but their fate could no longer be averted" and admitted "you cannot execute children, you can only murder them" but they were "only" Jews.[4] Treblinzki was executed by hanging on 8 October 1946[2][5] in Hamelin.
[edit] References
- ^ "Geschichte". Memorial site Neuengamme. http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/index.php?id=9. Retrieved on 2008-10-12. (German)
- ^ a b c "Die Kinder vom Bullenhuser Damm". Hamburger Abendblatt. 2005-04-20. http://www.abendblatt.de/daten/2005/04/20/423690.html?s=2. Retrieved on 2008-10-11. (German)
- ^ Neumann, Klaus (2000), Shifting memories: the Nazi past in the new Germany. Social history, popular culture, and politics in Germany, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, ISBN 9780472111473
- ^ Langer, Lawrence L (1996), Admitting the Holocaust: collected essays, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 67, ISBN 0195106482
- ^ "Axis History Factbook: Neuengamme Trial". http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=360. Retrieved on 2008-10-11.
- This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the German Wikipedia. (This version.)
