Concentration Camp Gross-Rosen

Gross-Rosen, located in Silesia between Görlitz and Breslau (Wrocław) opened August 2, 1940, initially as a Sachsenhausen sub-camp, mainly to receive prisoners from the occupied and annexed territories. Together with Mauthausen, Gross-Rosen was among the harshest of all the camps. Lagerstufe 1, the most lenient level, was the designation for Dachau and Sachsenhausen. Lagerstufe 2, the intermediate level, included Flossenbürg, Buchenwald, and Neuengamme. Gross-Rosen was classified Lagerstufe 3, the most severe. On May 1, 1941, Gross-Rosen became an independently operated camp, mainly for Jews; about 30 percent of the inmates were women, almost all of them Jews. It later became a holding and transit camp for Jews destined for death camps to the East, and finally was closed and evacuated on February 11, 1945.

A June 28, 1942, formular lettercard from German Jewish prisoner Heinz Israel Katz to his non-Jewish son in Berlin.