In the afternoon of April 14, 1945, the camp commandant ordered the weak and sick prisoners to meet the other prisoners on the sports field in Niederschlema. He said, they were to be left there and handed over to the approaching Americans. The rest of the prisoners set off for Burkhardtsgrün. About 90 completely exhausted men were left behind under the supervision of the deputy commanding officer Dammast.

He had been ordered to kill them, organize the transport of their bodies, and follow the column the next day. After the first fifteen prisoners were taken to the edge of the nearby forest and shot, the remaining seventy-five prisoners refused to get on the wagon. They were then shot on the spot, on the sports field.

The next morning, members of the Volkssturm, Soviet prisoners of war from Niederschlema, and the local NSDAP leadership gave 83 corpses a makeshift burial in the pit area of the Osterlamstolln. Four or five prisoners crawled out of the pile of corpses during the night. One escaped, but one was caught and killed. The fate of the others remains unknown.

One special story is that of Jerzy Cygowski. He was a prisoner in Mülsen who stayed behind on the sports field in Niederschlema. He was one of the first prisoners driven into the forest to be killed. Incredibly, he survived the shooting despite having multiple bullet holes in his body. He also survived the night and crawled out of the forest. He ended up in the garden of a former Social Democrat, who helped him escape. Other prisoners also survived the shooting and crawled out of the forest overnight, severely wounded. The next morning, an unknown prisoner was found in the garden of another Schlema citizen. However, that citizen took the wounded prisoner to the local NSDAP functionaries. On April 15, 1945, the wounded prisoner was shot and buried with the other murdered prisoners in the Osterlammstolln. (Titzmann 2024)

All of the witnesses at Degner's trial recounted Jerzy Cygowski's story. After the war, they visited him in the hospital in Zwickau. Cygowski did not appear as a witness himself. In court, Władysław Klak expressed regret that Cygowski was unable to testify due to the political situation. With Cygowski's testimony, the Degner case could have been resolved in two minutes (NARA,  S. 86).

Jerzy Cygowski was born 08/01/1925 geboren und died 10/28/1978.

In addition to the seven information boards, we designed another one as part of the Youth History Project (2024-25). The location of the mass shooting, where around 80 people were killed, is now a fenced-in meadow with no commemorative signage. This motivated us to mark the site and make it visible to the public as a crime scene. The plaque was inaugurated in April 2025.

Around 78 concentration camp prisoners were murdered on this former sports field on 14 April 1945. Georg Degner, the commanding officer of the death march, had offered the prisoners who were unable to walk the chance to stay behind at the junction of this path and Alte Lößnitzer Straße, where they would be handed over to the Americans. Around 90 exhausted prisoners lay down on the ground by the rear football goal, which is highlighted in red on the site today. Degner marched on with the main column.

The first fifteen or so prisoners were driven into the forest and shot there. The prisoners on the sports field heard the shots and refused to get on the wagons. They were murdered directly on the sports field, by the back gate. They were made to lie facedown on the ground with their blankets pulled over them. The soldiers accompanying them then shot the prisoners. Any prisoners who were still alive were shot in the neck by Degner's deputy, Oberscharführer Dammast. The Niederschlema Volkssturm stood guard. The next day, the dead were buried in the forest by citizens of Niederschlema. Today, a memorial commemorates the mass grave. The clothes and blankets of the murdered prisoners were burned on the sports field. Days later, the bloodstains of the dead prisoners could still be seen on the Kohlweg.

This terrible crime, in which 83 concentration camp prisoners lost their lives, took place at this unassuming location on 14 April 1945. What was once a sports field intended to bring joy to people instead became the scene of the murder of innocent individuals.