A memorial is to be erected in Freising to commemorate the victims of the “death marches” in April 1945.
History consultant Guido Hoyer makes this request.
Freising
- Guido Hoyer, historian and history consultant in the Freising City Council, wants to have a memorial erected in Freising to commemorate the victims of the “death marches” in April 1945.
As a justification, Hoyer writes: “Shortly before the liberation of Freising by the US Army at the end of April 1945, the Nazi crimes reached a last, horrific climax:
The exact number of victims is still unknown
The death marches of the concentration camps.
To prevent the prisoners from being released, the camps were evacuated as the Allied armies approached.
Because of the innumerable deaths on the way, the evacuation marches are now known as the 'death marches'.
Columns of marches from the Buchenwald, Flossenbürg and Hersbruck concentration camps and the Straubing prison with around 25,000 to 30,000 prisoners passed through the town and district of Freising.
The prisoners were to be transferred to the Dachau concentration camp.
The marches left a trail of death.
Along the way, prisoners died of starvation and exhaustion or were killed and shot by their guards.
Even after the liberation, numerous former prisoners died as a result of imprisonment, hunger and mistreatment.
The exact number of victims of the death marches is still unknown.
Some were buried on the roadside at the site of their death, others transferred to local cemeteries, most of them to Neustift.
The graves, with the exception of a common grave of Wehrmacht and Waffen SS soldiers and two victims from Buchenwald in Tüntenhausen, have been abandoned today, there is no central place of remembrance. "
The concept should be created in an open process
Guido Hoyer therefore proposes the creation of a memorial site in the center of Freising to commemorate these victims of the Nazi regime.
A concept, in particular a proposal for a location and design, should be developed in an open process under his leadership, to which committed citizens are invited, and then submitted to the city council.
Hoyer is “aware that this is a 'voluntary service' and that the legal supervisory authority is calling for this voluntary service to be reduced.
Therefore, financed through donations if the budget situation, according to the legal supervision of the city are not allowed to put this sign of remembrance. "
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