Buying freedom from concentration camp in Germany, around 1940 — likelihood?

Posted: April 28th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Camp Sites | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

This is a scenario — one that was described to me, but I am not sure of its veracity — a Jewish couple in their late 30′s owned a very large horse farm in Nazi Germany. By 1940, they had sent their children to America. However, they didn’t make it — they were brought to a concentration camp. They signed over the horse farm to the Nazis, thus buying their freedom, and they came over to the Americas. Could this have happened, or would the Germans just have seized the horse farm? Is it possible the story is a fabrication? Please tell how you might know your information.


6 Comments on “Buying freedom from concentration camp in Germany, around 1940 — likelihood?”

  1. 1 John C said at 6:58 am on April 28th, 2010:

    My wife’s family has a story some thing like that. Again it is early in the war and details are sketchy.

  2. 2 garrisonbight said at 6:58 am on April 28th, 2010:

    Yes, especially early in the war, it would have been possible.

  3. 3 sephienie said at 6:58 am on April 28th, 2010:

    I agree that it would have been possible, very early on only though.

    Germany scapegoated the Jews because of money issues, so they would have been more likely to steal everything the Jews owned and then still killed them to comply with their Aryan race only thing.

    These guys were sick fanatics who ripped gold from the teeth of dead Jews, I don’t think buying your way out would have been an easy task.

  4. 4 $ugar-Pu$$ $ting em said at 6:58 am on April 28th, 2010:

    is there a way to purchase our freedom from the concentration camp that exist today? believe it or not

  5. 5 Ellen M said at 6:58 am on April 28th, 2010:

    I think it’s a fabrication. Jews weren’t allowed to own businesses by 1937/1938; I’d at least imagine a horse farm is a business.

    I do know someone whose family property was returned. The mansion is located in Austria; one son escaped to England but the rest of the family was deported and murdered. Sometime in the late 1940s, the Austrian government contacted the surviving son and the home and surrounding lands were returned to him. This son was my friend’s father.

  6. 6 grishnak said at 6:58 am on April 28th, 2010:

    The Nazis figured they would have plenty of time to "deal with" the Jews so early on in the war yes this could have been possible remember many Germans were not at all sympathetic to the Nazis ideas and resisted them as best they could ( ala schindler)

Leave a Reply