Flossenbürg Concentration Camp

lossenbürg was not what most people think of a typical concentration camp in that only a few Jews were held prisoner in the camp until 1944. Up until that point, Flossenbürg had been a camp for political prisoners, criminals, and "asocial" individuals. After August 1944, thousands of Jews arrived in Flossenbürg from Eastern Europe where the Soviet Army was pushing back Nazi troops. Prisoners in the camp and sub-camps worked mining granite, making armaments, and producing aircraft parts. Flossenbürg housed members of the failed Valkyrie conspiracy who were executed there in April 1945. This camp was unique because a few of the prisoners incarcerated for criminal activity achieved a kind of “veteran status” where they exerted control through intimidation of the other inmates. In this camp, like the others, cruelty and torture were common, but in Flossenbürg, the prisoners were horrendously cruel to one another in unimaginable ways.