Neuengamme

The Concentration camp ( German Konzentrationslager in , shortened KZ ) of Neuengamme was established the December 13rd 1938, in the south-east of Hamburg on the river Elba, initially like camp external of the camp of Sachsenhausen then transformed into 1940 in Camp of independent work (213 000 m ³) with more than 90 additional external camps. It will be " vidé" of all its population and maximum of traces of the exactions ridges by the S at the end of April 1945, and thus only released the May 4th 1945.

There were 106.000 deportees among whom one counted with release 55.000 dead (either 52%).

The concentration camp

The prisoners were to carry out a forced labor for the production of a brickyard-tilery which was on its ground, and later in the industry of the armament like to the construction of military installations (Friesenwall). Until 1945, 106  000 people of the countries occupied by the Germany, of 28 different nationalities, were off-set and interned in this camp, with inhuman living and working conditions. Approximately 55  000 died about it. That corresponded to the slogan of this camp: “exhaustion by work”. Moreover, the first tests of assassinations of deportees with the gas Zyklon B were carried out in the camp of Neuengamme then continued in the camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau devoted to the extermination of mass.

In Neuengamme Doctor SS Kurt Heißmeyer prevailed which carried out experiments on deportees with the bacillus of the Tuberculose. In the night of the 20 with the April 21st 1945, a few days before the end of the war, in the cellar of the school of Bullenhuser Prejudice, a building which was used as external camp since October 1944, 20 children Jewish, all old of less than 12 years, with their Soviet male nurses and 24 deportees, were hung. With this action, they wanted to camouflage this research on the human one before the fast arrival of the British troops.

After the prisoners of Buchenwald the April 11th 1945, were released by the American army, the S started, the April 18th 1945, to make evacuate the camp of Neuengamme to escape rendering and to prevent the transfer of the deportees to the Alliés. With these Steps of dead the at the end of the war, several thousands of completely exténués prisoners were cut down by the S. The whole of the kommandos depend on the central camp of Neuengamme were released by the britanno-American projection (of which the 82e American airborne division ordered by James Mr. Gavin) the May 4th 1945, the Russian army being still to 10 km. Neuengamme was thus the last concentration camp to be released from the yoke Nazi. The unconditional surrender was signed by the Nazi S with the Alliés the May 7th 1945 with Rheims, and once again with the Russian S the May 8th, 1945 with Berlin.

An occulted world maritime tragedy

Little before the end war, more 7  000 deportees died drowned the May 3rd 1945 with the British bombardment of the Cape Arcona and of two other ships in which one had locked up them. The following day, the May 4th 1945, the British troops penetrated in the camp of Neuengamme, completely empty.

Enumeration of the deportees of 1938 to 1945

Thus among the whole of the people having forwarded with Neuengamme, 52% of enter they died in the whole of the kommandos depend on the camp of Neuengamme between the December 13rd 1938 and the May 4th 1945.

Post-war period

After the war, this camp was used for Allied of camp of internment for members of the S and persons in charge national-Socialists until it was returned to the town of Hamburg in 1948.

The same year, to remember this past, a “teaching institute” was built on the old ground of the camp, but also the “penal establishment of the Vierlande”.

In 1953, former deportees of Neuengamme, made build a first memorial inside the camp In 1965, an official memorial was installed there. A penal establishment for youth was built in 1970 on the sector of this camp Since 1981, one works with the reassignment of this camp to make of it a site of reflection and documentation; one started with the construction of the information center. In 1984, the remainders of the buildings of this camp were placed under the protection of the Historic buildings. Since 1989, it was envisaged to move the penal establishment n° 12, which was carried out in the middle of the year 2003. On the site of old the Tongruben, another penal establishment n° 9 is there still and that it was not envisaged to move.

In 2003, the old place of Call was rebuilt. At the same time, in the stone buildings an exposure is held on Neuengamme and there exists a center of studies.

Kommandos

List of Kommandos de Neuengamme

Guardians S

During the summer 1944, Neuengamme accepted much of off-set come from Auschwitz like some guardians S or Aufseherin. Today several guardians are known by their names. Thus, there was Kaethe Becker, Erna Dickmann, Johanna Freund, Angelika Grass, Kommandofuhrerin Loni Gutzeit (which was also used for Hamburg- Wandsbek and that off-set called “the Dragon of Wandsbek”), Gertrud Heise, Frieda Ignatowitz, Gertrud Moeller which was also useful in the camp external of Boizenburg, Lotte Johanna Radtke, the chief Annemie von der Huelst, Inge Marga and Marggot Weber. Many of these women were dispersed later in female camps external through all the Germany of north. These guardians were affected then in the additional camps of Neuengamme like that of Braunschweig SS-Reitschule, Hamburg Sasel, Hamburg Wandsbek, Helmstedt-Beendorf, Neugraben, Obernheide, Salzwedel and Unterluss. Some were judged for war crimes as Susanne Hille (which was with the head of the guardians with Unterluss) and Anneliese Kohlmann (which was one of the six guardians with Neugraben).

Off-set personalities related to the camp of Neuengamme

Monuments in the sites of the memory of the camp of Neuengamme

On the ground of the commemorative sites, are a great number of monuments of which those which follow:

The space of the memory

The Maison of the memory is a space commemorative of the sites of the camp of Neuengamme.

The building was built in 1981 and in which are integrated an exposure as well as offices for the employees. The House of the memory was initially a house of documentation. In 1995, the place for an exposure was found in old the Walther-Werke.

With the walls of the gallery rollers with the names of the victims hang sorted by date. That is to say approximately 20.000 names and of which the others were not found yet; these are in a particular space with still of many empty rollers under the inscription “We think of the unknown victims”.

In the center of the house two models of the totality of the installations of the camp are: that which after 1945 gives an overall picture and which was arranged by the culprits Nazis in captivity as well as a modern architectural model of the situation in 1995.

In an additional room is preserved in a window the original book which counted deaths of the camp and which is still readable. Close to this window, the sight through the narrow window leads to the lawn, where ashes of deaths used were deposited as manure for the horticultural garden of the camp Some Cyprès gives to this place an atmosphere of cemetery.

International commemorative steles

The international Mémorial is the central monument of the sites of the memory of the camp of Neuengamme.

As of 1953, the president of the International Friendly of Neuengamme, a survivor of the camp of Neuengamme, French Jean Dolidier, made carry out a first column commemorative on the ground of the old horticultural garden of the camp, the Lagergärtnerei; a place on which the S made spread like manure ashes of the combustion of the Crematorium. Around this column commemorative of this time, nothing was modified.

In 1965, another memorial being composed of a stele, a wall of the memory with the nationalities engraved in shelf and the sculpture larger than natural “the dying prisoner” were set up. The sites of the memory were supplemented in 1981 by a house of the documentation which since 1995 immediately became the “House of the memory” beside the international Memorial.

The despair of Meensel-Kiezegem

This monument was set up the August 29th 1998 in remembering the assassinated inhabitants of Meensel-Kiezegem. These innocent victims of the Raid of Meensel-Kiezegem 1st and August 11th 1944 were taken along by Nazis and their collaborators. Small village of Meensel-Kiezegem in Belgium, 61 inhabitants were off-set in the camp of Neuengamme, only 8 as of their returned on their premises.

The monument of the memory of the victims Dutchwomen of Putten

The stone Het drama van Putten was set up in remembering of more than 600 Dutch 15 years old and more, of Putten in the area of Veluwe (Netherlands) which was victims of a Razzia carried out on order of the command of the Wehrmacht, on October 1st 1944.

The October 2nd 1944, they were brought in the camp of Amersfoort (Netherlands) and from there in the camp of Neuengamme. From the 600 only 49 turned over on their premises, the others perished in the camp of Neuengamme or other concentration camps.

In remembering the deportees of the insurrection of Warsaw of 1944

The monument In remembering the deportees of the insurrection of Warsaw of 1944 is on the site of the camp of Neuengamme.

It refers to the Insurrection of Warsaw in 1944, followed a repression on behalf of the Wehrmacht: 10.000 members of the Armia Krajowa were off-set in the German Concentration camps.

Approximately 6.000 of these deportees were transferred in the camp from Neuengamme and its Kommandos.

The total figure of the Polish prisoners of the Neuengamme camp and its external camps rise with approximately 17.000 women, men and children, of which many Jewish and Jews. The total of these victims is estimated at 7.500. The first arrived as of 1940, in 1941/1942 they represented the most nationality.

Monument of the Russian victims

The Monument for the Russian victims of Neuengamme is a monument which belongs to the sites commemorative of the camp of Neuengamme but it is located on the ground of the cemetery of Hamburg - Bergedorf. Most of the Soviet victims of the Neuengamme camp resting in the cemetery of Bergedorf, this is why the initiative was taken to install the memorial there (larger than natural).

Other monuments

  • Monument of the homosexual victims

  • Danske I tysk koncentrationslejr

  • Goods truck

  • Way of the deportees

  • prefabricated House

See too

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