This interview is about Karl Schirdewan. Karl was born in 1907 in Stettin, Germany and was a German Communist activist, remaining active in the illegal Communist Party after the Nazis came to power in 1933. He was arrested in 1934, sentenced to prison for so-called “conspiracy of high treason,” and later placed in protective custody. He spent most of the Nazi era imprisoned in concentration camps, including Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg, until he was liberated by U.S. forces in April 1945 during a forced march. Karl died July 14, 1998 in Potsdam Germany at the age of 91.
Descendants Stuff podcast is produced by Jakob Feisthauer, Kelsey Snook and Nicole Wines – three descendants of Sachsenhausen prisoners and co-creators of the Sachsenhausen Stuff project.
The Descendants Stuff team would like to extend a special thank you to the team at Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum especially Dr. Astrid Ley, and the members of the educational department’s project “What Voice Do We Have?”, as well as the descendant’s collective Voices of the Next Generation.
Our theme music, “Heil, Sachsenhausen!” was written and performed by former Sachsenhausen prisoner Aleksander Kulisiewicz. Thanks to the United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum and the Aleksander Kulisiewicz collection for granting permission for its use.
If you are a Sachsenhausen descendant who would like to share your story, please contact us.