Gross - Rosen concentration camp Gross - Rosen Concentration Camp ( ) was a German concentration camp , located in Gross - Rosen , Lower Silesia ( now Rogoźnica , Poland ) . It was located directly on the rail line between Jauer ( now Jawor ) and Striegau ( now Strzegom ) . The camp . It was set up in the summer of 1940 as a satellite camp to Sachsenhausen , and became an independent camp on May 1 , 1941 . Initially , work was carried out in the camp ' s huge stone quarry , owned by the " SS - Deutsche Erd - und Steinwerke GmbH " ( SS German Earth and Stone Works ) . As the complex grew , many inmates were put to work in the construction of the subcamps ' facilities . In October 1941 the SS transferred about 3 , 000 Soviet POWs to Gross - Rosen for execution by shooting . Gross - Rosen was known for its brutal treatment of " NN ( Nacht und Nebel ) " prisoners , especially in the stone quarry . The brutal treatment of the political and Jewish prisoners was not only due to the SS and criminal prisoners , but to a lesser extent also due to German civilians working in the stone quarry . In 1942 , for political prisoners , the mean survival time was less than two months . Due to a change of policy in August 1942 , prisoners were likely to survive longer because they were needed as slave workers in German industries . Among the companies that benefited from the slave labour of the concentration camp inmates were German electronics manufacturers such as Blaupunkt or Siemens . Some prisoners who were not able to work and not yet dying within a few days , were sent to the Dachau concentration camp in so - called invalid transports . One of these , , an inmate from the end of April to mid - August 1942 , wrote an account of his experiences , " Verboden te sterven " ( in Dutch , meaning " Forbidden to Die " ) . The largest population of inmates , however , were Jews , initially from the Dachau and Sachsenhausen camps , and later from Buchenwald . During the camp ' s existence , the Jewish inmate population came mainly from Poland and Hungary ; others were from Belgium , France , Netherlands , Greece , Yugoslavia , Slovakia , and Italy . At its peak activity in 1944 , the Gross - Rosen complex had up to sixty subcamps located in eastern Germany and occupied Poland . In its final stage , the population of the Gross - Rosen camps accounted for 11 % of the total inmates in Nazi concentration camps at that time . A total of 125 , 000 inmates of various nationalities passed through the complex during its existence , of whom an estimated 40 , 000 died on site and in evacuation transports . The camp was captured on February 14 , 1945 , by the Red Army . A total of over 500 female camp guards were trained and served in the Gross Rosen complex . Female SS staffed the women ' s subcamps of Brünnlitz , Graeben , Gruenberg , Gruschwitz Neusalz , Hundsfeld , Kratzau II , Oberalstadt , Reichenbach , and Schlesiersee Schanzenbau . A subcamp of Gross - Rosen situated in the Czechoslovakia n town of Brünnlitz was a location where Jews rescued by Oskar Schindler were interned . Camp commandants . During the Gross - Rosen period as a subcamp of Sachsenhausen the following SS - officers served as " Lagerführer " : As an independent concentration camp from May 1941 , the following were commandants :