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Frankfurt / Main (dpa / lhe) - Around 30 years ago, an initiative pleaded for the establishment of a memorial to the former Katzbach concentration camp in the Frankfurt Adlerwerke.

According to the city, the Frankfurt magistrate approved the construction of a memorial on Friday.

Now the planning could move into the concept phase, it said.

The subcamp was set up in the summer of 1944 on the factory site in Frankfurt's Gallusviertel.

Prisoners from eight nations were held under inhumane conditions until shortly before the end of the war and were forced to work in armaments production and clearing rubble.

Many of them died as a result of starvation, abuse and the living conditions in the camp, the existence of which was hushed up for years in the post-war period.

Mayor Peter Feldmann (SPD) described the establishment of a memorial as overdue.

"The suffering of the victims and their families must become part of our collective memory," he said.

Ina Hartwig (SPD), Head of the Department of Culture, spoke of a “contribution to the critical appraisal of the darkest chapter in Frankfurt history”.

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Currently, a plaque on the outer wall of the former factory grounds reminds of the former concentration camp sub-camp.

One of the former prisoners who remembered the many victims of the camp here on several occasions was the Pole Andrzej Branecki, who died a year ago at the age of 90 and who was one of the last contemporary witnesses.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210226-99-609571 / 3