The Nazis said that Johann Frehse died while imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp. In reality, he was killed as part of a secret program that gassed ill and exhausted prisoners.
Johann was initially arrested by the Gestapo for anti-Nazi activities in 1934. When he was arrested for a second time in 1939, he was imprisoned at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and then transferred to Dachau near Munich.
As part of a program called “Operation 14f13,” Johann was eventually brought to Hartheim Castle. Inside its walls, the Nazis had carried out the mass murder of people with disabilities under the Nazi “euthanasia” program. After 1941, “Operation 14f13” used Hartheim's gassing operations to kill camp prisoners like Johann.
Johann’s death certificate never mentioned Hartheim or “Operation 14f13.” Gassings of camp prisoners would continue at Hartheim until December 1944. Thirty thousand people were gassed at Hartheim; of that number, at least 5,500 prisoners were killed there as part of 14f13.
Photo: Lebensspuren Schloss Hartheim less
Comments
Post a Comment