[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Sonderzug XXVII and Soldau Lager Bluecher

[Vera Miller]

Hi Natascha,
I have relooked at my records and my baby mom, her parents, aunt, uncle and grandparents were all at Soldau. I am very lucky to have an exact address on my grand uncle's EWZ file.
I have no idea when my family left Soldau. I know they went to Lodz and then went to Bavaria for several years. If the American government didn't lose my grandparents' Alien Case files, I would know more about how they traveled through Europe during the war.
Vera

> From: n at tascha.dk
> To: paul.edward.luther.rakow at desy.de; ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
> CC: equalityforall at hotmail.com
> Subject: RE: Sonderzug XXVII and Soldau Lager Bluecher 
> Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2013 23:44:12 +0100
> 
> Hi Paul,
> 
> You are right, that is indeed very interesting!
> 
> I wonder if Vera's address is indeed Lager Blücher, or has another name.
> The exact address as it is written in the EWZ files (yes, I have them) is:
> Aufenhaltsort: Soldau Lg. Blücher
> (Lg. Scharnhorst Haus Berlin Zimmer 20)
> 
> Which makes me wonder if Vera's address is in fact Blücher, or has an
> additional name written like above?
> If Vera's address was not Blücher but something else, would suggest that
> Blücher might be the name for the overall Lager for the Volksdeutsche (as
> opposed to the prisoners in the workcamp - which would most likely have been
> separated from the Volksdeutche and hence have another name). If that is the
> case, then Lager Blücher would consist of several smaller Lagers (entities),
> and each entity would consist of several houses;
> 
> Haus Berlin was situated in Lager Scharnhorst
> Haus Köln was situated in Lager ??
> Unknown house in Lager Gneisenau
> 
> It could be really interesting to see how many different Lagers and Houses
> we could find.
> 
> I wonder how big Lager Blücher really was. With 3 different sub-lagers, at
> least two of them having named houses, suggests that each lager may have had
> several houses. 
> 
> I asked my father to dig deep in his memory. He only has vague notions (he
> was 8 years old at the time), so this is only a suggestion of what it might
> have been:
> The only memory he does have is having to cross a square of some sort in
> order to get to the hairdresser. He seems to think that the square was dirt
> ground and not very large. He thinks he remembers several buildings and air
> being between buildings. If he is to give a suggestion, he thinks they were
> low buildings, which he logically concludes must be barracks.
> 
> Could it be that each sub-Lager in reality was a cluster of barracks - each
> given a Haus name - and that these clusters were lined up in the same area? 
> 
> I think the presence of a hairdresser may be a clue. Was Lager Blücher that
> large that each sub-Lager had their own hairdresser? Or could it be that
> there would be one main building to the whole Lager Blücher (perhaps the
> soldier barracks that there is a picture of on the link you sent on a
> previous mail), and that the barracks would have been erected around it,
> thus forming a sort of square?
> 
> You ask how long my family stayed in Soldau. They arrived dec. 18, 1943. My
> grandmother left in January 1944 and my father and his Babuschka stayed
> there until appr. march 1944 to join my grandmother in Prague.
> 
> I have a question for you: Do you know how your relatives came to Soldau? By
> train, or?
> 
> Natascha
>  
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Rakow [mailto:paul.edward.luther.rakow at desy.de] 
> Sent: 6. december 2013 21:30
> To: Ger-Poland-Volhynia
> Cc: n at tascha.dk; Vera Miller
> Subject: Re: Sonderzug XXVII and Soldau Lager Bluecher 
> 
> 
>    Hello Natascha and Vera,
> 
>        The addresses you gave were interesting:
> 
>    Natascha wrote:
> 
> > On a note  would anybody know specifics about Soldau Lager Bl??cher?
> > My father's "address" was
> > Lg. Scharnhorst, Haus Berlin, Zimmer 20
> 
>    and Vera wrote:
> 
> > My two great-grandparents, son and a daughter were at Soldau-Lag. 
> > Bluecher, Haus Koeln, Zim. 3.
> 
>        My relatives were in Soldau, Lager Gneisenau. 
> (but I don't know the house and room).
> 
>       So, we have a Lager Bluecher, a Lager Scharnhorst and
>   a Lager Gneisenau, all named after generals who fought against
>   Napoleon. I wonder how many other camps or sub-camps there
>   were, and if they all had the names of generals from the
>   Napoleonic Wars (but I bet there was not a Lager Wellington).
> 
>       Do either of you know how long your families were in
>   Soldau, and how they left?  From EWZ files I know my relations
>   arrived in January 1944, and were still in Soldau in
>   September 1944.  The Red Army must have reached Soldau in
>   January 1945, I assume our relatives had left before then.
> 
>                   Paul Rakow
> 
>   PS Natascha - do you know about EWZ files? If you haven't
>   seen the files on your family, you should ask here for an
>   explanation of what they are, and how to get copies of the
>   files on particular families. It's very likely there would
>   be a file on your father.
> 
>