Krematorium Richard / Crematorium Richard - Litomerice (North Bohemia) - World War II Sites on Waymarking.com

On the west boundary of town Litomerice is located monument one of many German Nazi' atrocities from WWII period - former crematorium built to facilitate the disposal of the bodies from the Richard mines & Litomerice forced labour concentration camp.

During the final phase of World War II, German National Socialist authorities decided to move large parts of their arms production underground to protect it from Allied air raids. From the spring of 1944 on, the Litomerice underground limestone quarry was converted into a production site and a satellite camp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp was established there. Two large undertakings were to be put into action: tank engines were to be assembled in the »Richard I« quarry, while the »Richard II« was to accommodate production for the Berlin-based Osram company.

The first transport of 500 prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp arrived at Litomerice on March 24, 1944. Due to a lack of housing, the prisoners were lodged in the Small Fortress - the Gestapo prison at Theresienstadt - 7 km away from Litomerice. In the summer of 1944, the prisoners constructed a barrack camp in close vicinity of the quarries. A total of 18 000 passed through the Litomerice camp, most of them having arrived from the main camp at Flossenbürg as well as from the Groß-Rosen, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau concentration camps. About half of the prisoners were Poles; other large prisoner groups came from the Soviet Union, Germany, Hungary, France and Yugoslavia. The SS deported about 4 000 Jews to Litomerice, most of them from Poland, but also from Hungary. From February 1945 on, several hundred women also had to conduct forced labour at Litomerice.

The death rate at the camp was very high due to atrocious living conditions and disease epidemics. Arms production frequently came to a halt because of the prisoners' poor health. In April 1945, the SS began dissolving the camp under chaotic circumstances. About 1 200 prisoners were left behind at the camp and liberated by the Red Army during the final days of war.

The crematorium precincts were reconstructed and changed into freely accesible monument dedicated to prisoners and victims of Richard camp after 1990. A spacious artistic sculptural installation called "Memento Mori", by Czech sculptor and painter Jirí Sozanský, was unveiled in the monument in 1992.