Series of drawings "Life at the Dossin barracks". Collection

Dagobert Meyer was born in Köln (Cologne) in 1901 and was an opera singer. After his arrest in Antwerp on 9 September 1942, he was interned at the Dossin barracks. His marriage to an Aryan woman, Lucia Sophie Müller, saved him from deportation. In February or March 1943, camp commander Schmitt appointed Dagobert Meyer as the Jewish chief supervisor of the Dossin barracks. When he was liberated from the camp on 8 May 1943, the Jewish Council explicitly requested that he would continue his work, to which Dagobert agreed with the consent of commandant Frank. Dagobert Meyer was a very authoritarian figure and was corrupted by his power. After liberation, several former Dossin inmates pressed charges against him, but these charges were eventually dropped. He himself testified in favour of two Flemish collaborators who worked at the Dossin barracks.

Upon returning to Köln (Cologne) after the war, Dagobert Meyer donated a folder containing 18 drawings and paintings to the NS-Dokumentationszentrum (EL-DE-Haus) in Köln (Cologne). As the Jewish supervisor at the Dossin barracks, he had kept these pictures, drawn at the Malerstube (painters workshop) in the Dossin barracks, by inmate artists such as Gyorgy Bekeffi, Irene Spicker-Awret, August (Alexandre) Polak and Kopel Simelovitz. The NS-Dokumentationszentrum (EL-DE-Haus) has lent the drawings to Kazerne Dossin for digitization.

NS-Dokumentationszentrum der Stadt Köln (EL-DE-Haus, Cologne)