Gallery- 3 -
FIRST PHASE.
(April 1945 to july 1, 1945)
Junkers Canp Under the Germans.
Junkers Camp waa used by the Germans to house foreign slave workers of many different nationalities working in the Junkers Airplane factory in Bettenhauaen, Kassel. The camp was built before the war for German workers, and in construction, lay-out and equipment it was far superior to the camps generally used for housing slave laborers.
Liberation.
Kassel was liberated by American troops on April 4, 1945. At that time there were about 900 slave laborers in Junkers camp, mostly French and Russians, with a certain number of Hollanders, Belgians from Flanders, Ukrainians and other nationalities, as well as fifty or sixty Germans, mostly Volksdeutsche.
Establishment of Present Camp by Mrs. Anni Shepe.
When the Germans fled before the advancing Americans, many forced laborers from Junkers Camp went with them as the Germans had told them they would be shot, if found there by the Americans. Many of those who remained, left the camp on April 4th and did not return until the following day. On that day the present camp was started when a Mrs. Anni Shepe, an English woman married to a Pole who had worked in the hospital for "Easterners" of Junkers Camp as a nurse and general worker, took over command on her own initiative because of the great confusion which prevailed and the lack of any other leadership. The camp was known from then until many months later as "Anni's Camp".
Mrs. Shepe was appointed an UNRRA Class II Administrative Assistant on 1 November 1945 at Mattenberg Camp, Oberzwehren, Kassel,
and
