Gross-Rosen Museum in Rogoźnica

Groß-Rosen was the site of a former German Nazi concentration camp, established in the summer of 1940 near the present-day village of Rogoźnica in Lower Silesia. Today a museum devoted to the memory of the victims operates here.

Establishment of the camp

The camp was set up in the summer of 1940 on the grounds of a former landed estate near what is known today as Rogoźnica. The first hundred prisoners, including 98 Poles, were brought there on 2 August 1940. From the outset, prisoners worked extracting granite in a nearby quarry. In May 1941 the camp gained administrative independence, ceasing to be a subcamp of another camp.

Network of subcamps

By 1944, Groß-Rosen headed a network of over a hundred labour subcamps, scattered across Silesia and the territory of what was then Czechoslovakia and Germany. About 125,000 prisoners passed through the entire complex, including Poles, Jews, Soviet citizens and French resistance fighters. Around 40,000 people died in the camp and its subcamps.

Liberation and evacuation

The main camp was liberated by the Red Army on 14 February 1945. Earlier, in February 1945, the Germans had carried out an evacuation of prisoners deeper into the Reich, under conditions that proved fatal for many of them.

A memorial site today

Between 1950 and 1953 a monument to the victims, designed by Adam Procki, was erected on the site of the former camp. The Gross-Rosen Museum was established in 1983, with its seat in Rogoźnica and a research department in Wałbrzych. The former quarry, where prisoners worked, was opened to visitors in 2005.

Permanent and temporary exhibitions are now housed in the building of the former SS casino. The museum offers a virtual tour and audio guides, and for people with limited mobility, an electric vehicle rental service. Educational programmes on the history of the Holocaust are run there. The museum also has an archive with a database of people who died in the camp, testimonies of survivors and audiovisual materials, located in Wałbrzych at ulica Szarych Szeregów 9.

Nearby

In the area it is also worth visiting the Regional Museum in Jawor and the Chamber of Tradition of the Strzegom Land in Strzegom, and, for those interested in religious architecture, the Basilica of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Strzegom.

Practical information

• Village: Rogoźnica, Świdnica County, on national road 374 between Strzegom and Legnica
• The exhibitions are open daily; it is worth checking the visiting hours on the museum's official website before your visit
• Rogoźnica can be reached by train or bus, with a station and a stop in the village
• The visit covers the grounds of the former camp, the former quarry and the exhibitions in the building of the former SS casino; audio guides and a virtual online tour are available