The camp's location, as with other KLs, was chosen due to the proximity of the granite stone quarry, owned by the DEST (Deutsche Erd und Steinwerke GmbH) company (German Earth and Stone Works), where many thousands of inmates were forced to work in the most horrendous conditions imaginable. Limited medical care, gruelling twelve hour shifts and barbaric slave masters all led to the high death toll among the workers. Of the 125,000 prisoners who passed through the camp during its existence, approximately 40,000 perished, many of whom died due to the harshness of the forced labour. During the year 1942, when the camp was under the command of SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Arthur Rodl, the average survival time for political prisoners at the camp was less than two months, a horrifying statistic made real by the level of hatred poured onto both them, and the many Jewish inmates, by the SS. Much of the work undertaken by the prisoners involved the construction and development of many of the subcamps of KL-Gross-Rosen, of which there were in the region of one hundred, mostly around the border areas and Sudetenland.
The museum authorities are currently attempting to raise funds, in order to construct and develop a walkway and grand memorial site within the quarry area.
Regards,
Carl
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