Remains of the WW2 Forced-labour Camps
Military production was in the Hrádek area (meaning today’s Czech area) in several factories. The biggest one was Spreewerk in Hrádek. The premises of the original Letenberger Textile Factory in Loučná were being built gradually since 1868. The Cosmanos Company took the premises over. However, the production was ended for almost thirty years during the Great Depression. The Spreewerk company became a tenant during WW2. The factory produced shotguns at that time and the most famous product was P38. Other parts of weapons were produced there as well including parts for cannons and airplanes. Nowadays, ZPA Praga is the owner of the premises.
The workers in Spreewerk were totally deployed and prisoner of many nationalities – Ukrainian, Russians, Polish, French, Belgians, Albanians etc.
The first forced-labour camp was right opposite to the main gate leading to the factory.
Other camps with numbers 2, 3, and 8 were growing gradually since 1942 on the left side of the road leading to German Hartava, just a few hundred meters in front of the state border. In the days when the lignite was mined in Hrádek, there was the shaft Franz in that area. An old drainage gallery is the remains of the old shaft; it was used in the camp as sewer system as well as a collector for bringing drinking water and electricity.
Building new barracks continued in 1943 and 1944. Part of the houses was made of bricks, some of them were wooden ones only with foundation walls. The barracks town also grew on the other side of the road leading to Hartava.
An old adit leading to Nisa remained after the camps. On both sides of the road in the woods, the ruins of dozens of barracks are visible.
