In May 1938 Flossenburg was established for the exploitation and operation of a large granite quarry works near Floss. This
concentration camp was classified by Himmler as prisoners who were likely to benefit from education and reform. The first inmates,
German criminals, constructed the initial camp. Then foreigners arrived consisted of Polish, Czech, Russian, and German political
prisoners. The SS packed the prisoners into a few small barracks, 1,500 at a time. The inmates slept in the bunks on dirty straw
sacks. The small stove was the only thing available to cut the biting cold.
Flossenburg was quite small. It started off as a men's camp. On January 7, 1943, the first group of female prisoners arrived.
Although only 54,890 men and 10,000 women were passed there, the mortality rate was very high. Over 14,000 prisoners died for
"common" causes - starvation, exhaustion, and disease. The death rate accelerated with the killing by SS men with phenol injection,
medical experimentation, shooting, and hanging. The crematorium, though working twenty-four hours a day, was too small to
accommodate the death rate. When the number of dead bodies exceeded its capacity, the guards threw the overflow into pits dug into
the hillsides.
Near the end of 1944 the camp became too crowded that four to five men had to crammed into a single bed. Just before the liberation,
the SS began a typical death march of 15,000 prisoners. Those who were too weak to keep up received a bullet in their heads. The
Americans found only 2,000 living inmates in Flossenburg.
As a side story, the townspeople of nearby Floss refused to admit that they know about the conduct of the Nazis. After the American
soldiers dug up 800 bodies, they made the citizens of those towns read a sign that stated the number of bodies killed by the Nazis.
The Americans also forced the citizens to view the disinterred bodies.