In June 1944, the concentration camp complex Kaufering was built in the area of Landsberg am Lech, consisting of eleven outposts of the Dachau concentration camp. Exploiting the labour force of predominantly Jewish forced laborers, and under the supervision of the Todt Organisation (cover name Ringeltaube), three semi-subterranean bomb-proof bunkers for German aircraft production were to be built here.
According to current knowledge, within ten months approximately 23,000 concentration camp prisoners were deported to the Kaufering concentration camp complex. 6,500 identified inmates did not survive the camp. They lie buried in mass graves near Kaufering and Landsberg. This number does not include the concentration camp prisoners „transferred“ to Auschwitz-Birkenau or other concentration camps and subsequently murdered there. Nor does it include the victims of the death march.
Today, with the exception of a few remains, almost all traces of the concentration camp complex Kaufering have disappeared. Only the former concentration camp Kaufering VII (southeast of the town of Landsberg, at Erpftinger street) still preserves some architectural and ground monuments.
The following are listed in the Bavarian List of Monuments, as
a) architectural monument: “Former outpost Kaufering VII of the Dachau concentration camp, parts of the former camp on a quadrangular clearing in the forest; earthen huts, three still intact and several collapsed bricked pits with concrete clay tube archs, as well as excavations for 55 further earth huts; former supply buildings, foundation remains; fencing, remains of the former barbed wire fence; former buildings of the concentration camp guards, foundation remains outside the fence on the dirt road to the street Erpfing-Landsberg (1944)” and
b) ground monument: „Underground parts of the outpost Kaufering VII of the Dachau concentration camp (1944-1945)“.
Thanks to decades of civic engagement, part of the former concentration camp Kaufering VII has been restored to a dignified state, secured for future generations and converted into a European Holocaust memorial. The monuments on the former concentration camp Kaufering VII have in the meantime been evaluated as buildings of national importance. They “contribute to shape the cultural heritage of the Federal Republic of Germany”..
At the memorial site, ten commemorative stones donated by European heads of state in memory of the deported and murdered Jews from their home countries serve as a reminder of the victims of the Kaufering concentration camp complex. Each one of these stones describes in a very individual way the meaning of the memory of the loss of the Jewish part of the respective nation.
Impressions at the memorial site
