Landwerk Ahrensdorf, Hunting lodge and architectural monument in Ahrensdorf, Germany.
Landwerk Ahrensdorf is a hunting lodge built in the early 20th century between Ahrensdorf and Löwendorf in the Nuthe-Urstromtal municipality. The main house and its outbuildings, used for hunting and for tending a fallow deer enclosure, stand on agricultural grounds. A memorial stele designed by Manfred Stenzel marks the site.
A Berlin seed merchant named Alfred Metz built this summer residence in the early 1900s and named it after his daughters Berta and Doris. After World War II, the building was later converted into a retirement home until its closure in 2003.
From 1936 to 1941, the site served as a training ground where young members of a Jewish youth movement learned agricultural and communal skills to prepare for resettlement abroad. The daily routines and educational programs reflected the hopes and ideals of that generation.
You can view the grounds from outside, with the memorial stele providing historical context. Additional information about the site's past is available through an exhibition located in the nearby town of Trebbin.
The name Berdotaris combined the names of Alfred Metz's daughters Berta and Doris. Between 1936 and 1941 the lodge housed a Hachschara camp of the Jewish scout federation Makkabi Hazair, where about 200 youths learned farming for life in a kibbutz; the last 48 were deported to Auschwitz.
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