Czech Students in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

On the night of November 20, 1939, the Gestapo deported 1,140 students from Prague and other Czech cities to Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

After the collapse of Czechoslovakia, large demonstrations took place in Prague on October 28, 1939, the day the republic was founded, during which a student was shot dead. The students protested again at his funeral. The Gestapo then had nine students executed in Prague and closed all Czech universities.

One of the students arrested was 21-year-old Ladislav Bém [Böhm] from Bartovice. He had been studying mechanical and electrical engineering at the Technical University in Prague since the winter semester of 1938.

The students were housed in three adjacent barracks. At the beginning, they were tortured by the SS with hours of standing orders in the washrooms. After a quarantine period due to scarlet fever, they had to perform forced labor in various detachments from April 1940. Most of the students were gradually released by the spring of 1943 – including Ladislav Bém [Böhm] on January 27, 1942. 21 students did not survive imprisonment in the concentration camp, including three Jewish students from Brno.

The arrest of the Czechoslovakian students also caused an international sensation. It led to November 17 being declared International Students' Day in 1941.

Student identity card of Ladislav Bém [Böhm], 29.10.1938, Sachsenhausen Memorial Collection, inventory no. 11.00016

Release certificate from Sachsenhausen concentration camp for Ladislav Bém [Böhm], 27.01.1942, Sachsenhausen Memorial Collection, inventory no. 11.00019