St. Ottilien
The St. Ottilien Benedictine monastery was founded in 1884. Following the closure of the monastery in 1941 by the Gestapo, many of the monks were conscripted into war service or forced labour. From then on, the archabbey was used as a Wehrmacht military hospital.
The first concentration camp prisoners arrived at the catholic monastery at the end of April 1945. They were the survivors of an Allied low-level air attack on a train that was to have evacuated them to the Dachau concentration camp. Because of the good medical equipment in the monastery, it became a refuge and hospital for thousands of Jewish displaced persons (DP). The monastery was augmented by a camp, a maternity unit, a dormitory, a kindergarten, a Talmud school, a kosher kitchen and by additional sports and education facilities.
A orchestra of former concentration camp prisoners grew up here and in several DP camps in the American occupation zone over a long period. Dr. Zalman Grinberg, the first medical director of the hospital, became a central figure in Jewish self-government in Bavaria.
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