Description

Gelsenkirchen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the Ruhr area. The November 9, 1938 Kristallnacht anti-Jewish riots destroyed Jewish businesses, dwellings, cemeteries, and two synagogues. Gelsenkirchen was a target of strategic bombing during World War II, particularly during the 1943 Battle of the Ruhr and the Oil Campaign. Three quarters of Gelsenkirchen was destroyed. The Gelsenberg concentration-subcamp of KZ Buchenwald was established in 1944 to provide forced labor of about 2000 Hungarian women and girls to produce aviation fuel from coal. About 150 died during September 1944 bombing raids (shelters and protection ditches were forbidden to them). öhmer. The city's population in 1933 was 332 thousand. By 1945 the population was reduced to 160 thousand.

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