Prisoner's jacket - Left alone in the cowshed
The memorial recently received this prisoner's jacket as a gift from Eckhard Zowe from Beetz, a district of Kremmen. The jacket was left behind by a prisoner at the end of April 1945 on the farm of the Zowe family in Beetz.
Otto Zowe, the father of Eckhard Zowe, was 18 years old at that time. He remembered later that people had told him early on that "The concentration camp is on the way". In the afternoon, a large concentration camp troop stopped at the farm. SS men confiscated two barns and quartered a hundred prisoners there each. Zowe further recalled that the prisoners were only lightly clothed and did not carry blankets. His father, the farmer, had distributed potatoes to the prisoners.
Among the men in SS uniform were also prisoners. One of them told his father: "Yesterday I was still wearing prisoner clothing. "This morning I had to put on my SS uniform." He was a block elder from the camp. These prisoners in SS uniform slept in the cowshed, where it was warm. The actual SS men were housed in the farmhouse. Early the next morning the camp continued. "One prisoner's jacket hung on a hook in the cow camp was left behind."
