Just down the hill from our residence was a concentration camp. It’s a bit surreal to image this beautiful town with a concentration camp. Little is left to truly understand the horrors that must taken place here.
KZ-Gedenkstätte Leonberg – From spring 1944 to April 1945 is was an outpost of the Natzweiler concentration camp (Alsace) run by the “SS”. It was built to offer fast, cheap human labour to the arms industry. A large part of the prisoners came from the concentration camp Dachau and its outpost, the others from the concentration camps at Ausschwitz, Flossenbürg and Sachsenhausen. The deaths of at least 389 have been proven. Many of the weakened, ill and emaciated men were deported to typical “death camps”, like Vaihingen/Enz, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. Before the French troops arrived and the remaining prisoners could have been freed, the prisoners were sent on “death marches” and “death journeys” to Bavaria. (Information from KZ-Gedenkstätteninitiative Leonberg e.V, https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-leonberg.de/history/)
For additional information please visit https://www.holocaustmatters.org/leonberg-camp-overview/
Names on the metal plates to the left of the tunnel 
