PUBLISHED BY Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial Jean-Dolidier-Weg 75 21039 Hamburg Phone: +49 40 428131-500 [email protected] www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de

EDITED BY Karin Schawe

TRANSLATED BY Georg Felix Harsch

PHOTOS unless otherwise indicated courtesy We would like to thank the Friends of of the Neuengamme Memorial‘s Archive the Neuengamme Memorial association and Michael Kottmeier for their financial support. Maps on pages 29 and 41: © by M. Teßmer, graphische werkstätten This brochure was produced with feldstraße financial support from the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media GRAPHIC DESIGN BY based on a decision by the Bundestag, Annrika Kiefer, Hamburg the German parliament. The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial –

PRINTED BY A Guide to the Site‘s History and the Memorial Druckerei Siepmann GmbH, Hamburg Hamburg, November 2010 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial – A Guide to the Site‘s History and the Memorial The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial – A Guide to the Site's History and the Memorial

Published by the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial Edited by Karin Schawe Contents

6 Preface

10 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945

12 Chronicle of Events, 1938 to 1945 20 The Construction of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp 22 The Prisoners 22 German Prisoners 25 Prisoners from the Occupied Countries 30 The Concentration Camp SS 31 Slave Labour 35 Housing 38 Death 40 The Satellite Camps 42 The End 45 The Victims of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp

46 The Site after 1945

48 Chronicle of Events from 1945 58 The British Internment Camp 59 The Transit Camp 60 The Prisons and the Memorial at the Historical Site of the Concentration Camp

Contents

66 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial

70 The Grounds 93 Archives and Library 70 The House of Commemoration 93 The Archive 72 The Exhibitions 95 The Library 72 Main Exhibition Traces of History 96 The Open Archive 73 Research Exhibition Posted to Neuengamme. The Camp SS 98 Branches 74 Supplementary Exhibition on Slave Labour in 98 The Bullenhuser Damm Memorial Brick Production and the Rose Garden for the 75 Supplementary Exhibition on Slave Labour in Bullenhuser Damm Children Armaments Production 100 The Fuhlsbüttel Memorial (Concentration Camp 76 Supplementary Exhibition Prisons and Memorial and Prison, 1933 to 1945) 76 Travelling Exhibitions on Loan 102 The Poppenbüttel Memorial (The Prefab Building) 77 Special Exhibitions 104 Contact Details 105 Literature 78 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 107 Abbreviations in Photo Credits Memorial's Educational Activities 108 Opening Hours and Guided Tours 79 The Educational Department Contributors 84 The Centre for Historical Studies Map 89 Additional Information on Educational and Academic Services 91 Directions and Meeting Point for Guided Tours 92 Practical Information for Visitors 92 Tours and Educational Services for Visitors with Special Needs 6 7

Preface

Today, the Neuengamme Concentra- In June 1945, the British Military tion Camp Memorial is an important Government established an intern- site of commemoration and learning. ment camp for SS members and It keeps alive the memory of the vic- civilian functionaries of the Nazi state. tims of the SS's regime of terror, and When this camp was disbanded in it offers its visitors a whole range of 1948, the Free and Hanseatic City of approaches to the causes and effects Hamburg took over the site and used of the Nazi reign in Germany. The the larger part of the grounds for two Memorial as it is today is, however, prisons, one of which was in opera- the result of a long history of contro- tion until 2006. This meant that a versy and struggle. major part of the grounds, especially Between 1938 and 1945, the site was the former prisoners' compound, the location of the largest concentra- were not accessible to the public for tion camp in north-western Germany, commemorative purposes. the Neuengamme concentration Under pressure from the survivors, camp. More than 100,000 people the International Monument was from all over Europe were imprisoned erected on the northern edge of the in the main camp and its over 85 satel- historical site in 1965. In 1981, the lite camps. Over 42,900 of the prison- first exhibition was shown in the ers registered at Neuengamme died newly erected Document Building, towards the end of the war and in the and in 1995 a new and larger course of the camp's evacuation. permanent exhibition was opened in The House of Remembrance (ANg)

Expansion of the camp. In 1944, the prisoner huts were partly replaced by solid brick buildings. Photo taken by the SS Laying of the foundation stone for the new prison building, 17 July 1949 (Hamburg prison authority) A West German soldier visiting the Neuengamme Memorial in 1967. Photo by Egon Holzman (ANg) 8 Preface 9

the Walther factory. This former up the large site, providing access to armaments factory was built on the the 15 buildings remaining from the site between 1942 and 1944. The time of the concentration camp, the Document Building was then clay pits, the dock, the sites of the redesigned and became the House of camp's railway station, the detention Remembrance. bunker and the crematorium as well When the first prison was closed in as the commemorative area with the 2003, it finally became possible to House of Remembrance, the expand the Memorial and make it a International Monument and the centre for exhibitions, international other monuments. encounters and learning. In May Thanks to 60 multilingual panels in 2005, this new Memorial opened the grounds, an audio guide system, with newly designed exhibitions. In the Open Archive, the Centre for February 2006, the second prison Historical Studies, the five exhibitions was closed and the era of the site's and its educational activities, the use by the Hamburg prison service Memorial offers a host of approaches finally came to an end. In 2007, two to and different information on the new permanent exhibitions were site's history. opened to the public. This ended the In its new form, the Memorial allows Memorial's redesign process, which for an adequate commemoration of had begun in 2002. the past. After many decades, Hamburg had found an adequate way of dealing with the site. Today, tour paths lead around the 57 hectares which make Detlef Garbe, Director The entrance to the Memorial, the former roll-call square, the Centre for Historical Studies and the sites of the prisoner huts (ANg)

View of the exhibition building from the main en- trance (ANg) Visitors in the exhibition on the concentration camp SS (ANg) On the way to the main exhibition. (AnG) Biographies of prisoners in the main exhibition (ANg) 10 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 11

The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945

Towards the end of 1938, the SS set forced labour orders or racist up a satellite camp of the Sachsen- persecution. hausen concentration camp in a According to the latest research, disused brick factory in the Hamburg more than 80,000 men and 13,500 district of Neuengamme. In the early women were registered as prisoners summer of 1940, the camp was at Neuengamme. Another 5,900 expanded and became an indepen- people were either never entered into dent camp under the direct authority the camp's records or were registered of the Inspectorate of the Concentra- elsewhere. At the Neuengamme main tion Camps. The camp was estab- camp and the over 85 satellite camps, lished to manufacture bricks for which were established all over monumental buildings the Nazis northern Germany from 1942 – but wanted to construct in Hamburg. particularly from 1944 –, prisoners During the war, the Gestapo and the had to perform slave labour for the SS Security Service deported tens German wartime economy in con- of thousands of people from all struction and armaments production. over German-occupied Europe and Their living and working conditions imprisoned them in the Neuengamme were murderous. concentration camp. The reasons for At least 42,900 prisoners died in total these arrests were usually resistance at the Neuengamme main camp, the activities against the German occu- satellite camps or during the evacua- pation forces, non-compliance with tion of the camps. Entrance to the prisoners' compound. Prisoners paving the roll-call square.

Prisoners working by the Dove Elbe river in 1941-42, photo taken by the SS (NIOD) Prisoners building a hut at the SS barracks in 1940, photo taken by the SS (ANG) Watercolour painting entitled “Roll-call Square” by Danish former prisoner Jens Martin Sørensen. The painting was made in 1960 and is based on an earlier sketch. (Frøslevlejrens Museum, Padborg) 12 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 13

Chronicle of Events, 1938 to 1945

3 September 1938 The SS buys a disused brickworks in the Hamburg Around Sept. 1941 The prisoners' compound is finished district of Neuengamme 16 October 1941 Arrival of 1,000 Soviet POWs from Stalag XD at 13 December 1938 The Neuengamme satellite camp is built, 100 Wietzendorf; they are housed in a fenced-off section prisoners from the Sachsenhausen concentration of the camp camp arrive 28 December 1941 The camp is quarantined due to a typhoid epidemic January 1940 SS Reich Leader Heinrich Himmler visits the End of 1941 Around 4,500 prisoners are interned at the camp; satellite camp and orders its expansion 495 deaths are registered by name February to June 1940 Around 1,000 more prisoners arrive from January 1942 Emaciated prisoners are killed by injections Sachsenhausen From spring of 1942 Forced labourers from the Soviet Union are 13 April 1940 The SS and the Hamburg city council sign a imprisoned; Soviet citizens now make up the largest contract for the construction of a new and larger group of prisoners brickworks April to May 1942 Production facilities for the Messap and Jastram 15 April 1940 SS-Hauptsturmführer Martin Weiß becomes armaments companies are set up in the grounds of Commandant of Neuengamme Concentration the Neuengamme camp Camp May 1942 The crematorium is put into operation 4 June 1940 The prisoners are transferred to the newly Late June 1942 348 of the 1,000 Soviet POWs imprisoned in established camp four kilometres to the south and October 1941 are still alive; they are transferred to are given new numbers. Sachsenhausen Neuengamme is mentioned as an independent June / July 1942 220 prisoners are transported to the Bernburg concentration camp for the first time (Saale) “sanatorium”, where they are murdered with End of 1940 Around 2,900 prisoners are held at the camp; poison gas upon arrival 432 deaths are registered in 1940 15 July 1942 A section of the new brickworks is put into operation April 1941 Arrival of 1,002 prisoners from Auschwitz, includ- 28 August 1942 The first satellite camp of Neuengamme is set up at ing many young people; Polish prisoners now an industrial facility; 150 prisoners are transferred to form the largest group of prisoners in the camp the Phrix factory in Wittenberg

Heinrich Himmler visiting the Neuengamme camp, January 1940. Photo taken by the SS (NIOD) Concentration camp prisoners building the new brickworks. Photo taken by the SS (ANg) Prisoners at the Messap work detail. Photo secretly taken by a civilian worker (ANg) 14 Chronicle of Events, 1938 to 1945 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 15

1 September 1942 SS-Sturmbannführer Max Pauly becomes Com- Early 1943 Arms production begins at the Metallwerke mandant of the Neuengamme concentration camp Neuenengamme GmbH factory at the camp, September 1942 All Jewish prisoners are transported to Auschwitz known as the Walther factory, a subsidiary of the 25 September 1942 197 Soviet POWs are murdered with Zyklon B at the armaments company Carl Walther GmbH; camp prison also known as the “bunker” production (fitting and carpentry work) is taken up 13 October 1942 A satellite camp is established at the Reichswerke at the SS-owned Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke Hermann Göring factory in Drütte (Watenstedt- (DAW) factory Salzgitter) March 1943 The Ist SS Construction Brigade work detail, Mid-October 1942 1,000 prisoners are grouped to form the IInd deployed to Alderney for building fortified SS Construction Brigade and transferred to defence systems, is put under the authority of the Bremen and Osnabrück (later to Wllhelms- Neuenengamme camp administration haven for a time and eventually to Hamburg in Spring of 1943 The canal from the Dove Elbe to the brick factory is August 1943) to defuse bombs, recover bodies finished; railway tracks are laid to the camp and clear rubble in bombed-out cities Mid-1943 Around 9,500 prisoners are held at the camp, around November 1942 251 more Soviet POWs are gassed at the “bunker” 5,800 of them at the main camp and 3,700 at the End of 1942 Between 5,000 and 6,000 prisoners are held at the satellite camps camp, 4,000 to 5,000 of them at the main camp 17 July 1943 A satellite camp is established at the Accumulatoren- and 1,474 at the satellite camps; 3,083 deaths are Fabrik AG factory in Hanover-Stöcken registered by name. The monthly death toll rises Late July 1943 Prisoners are deployed on clearance detail after air to over 10 per cent raids on Hamburg October 1943 Prisoners are deployed to the construction of the “Valentin” submarine pen in Bremen-Farge

The “bunker”. Photo taken by the SS (ANg) Prisoners working by the Dove Elbe. In late 1940, the “Elbe detail” became one of the most dreaded work details. Photo taken by the SS, circa 1941 / 42 (NIOD) Prisoners on clearing detail in the destroyed Hammerbrook district of Hamburg, 1943 (StA HH) 16 Chronicle of Events, 1938 to 1945 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 17

End of 1943 Between 12,000 and 13,000 prisoners are held 24 March 1945 The evacuation of the satellite camps begins. at the camp, 7,000 to 8,000 of them in the More than 20,000 prisoners are taken to the main camp and 5,336 in the satellite camps; Bergen-Belsen, Sandbostel and Wöbbelin 3,391 deaths are registered by name “reception camps”, where thousands of them die From spring of 1944 Throughout 1944, around 60 new satellite before the end of the war camps are set up all over northern Germany, 27 March 1945 The Scandinavians' Camp, a camp section for where prisoners are forced to work on clearance Danish and Norwegian prisoners, is set up at the detail after air raids, in factories and on the main camp; to make room for these prisoners, construction of provisional housing and anti-tank more than 4,000 emaciated inmates are trans- trenches ported to satellite camps in Hanover and Salzgitter 8 June 1944 The first satellite camp for women is set up in in late March and early April Hamburg-Wandsbek; over the following months, 29 March 1945 According to a report from the SS garrison 23 more satellite camps for women are set up physician, 6,224 prisoners died in the first quarter July 1944 More than 10,000 Jewish prisoners are taken from of 1945; the camp now holds 40,393 men and Auschwitz or directly from Hungary to the 11,768 women, around 12,000 of them in the Neuengamme main camp and the satellite camps main camp and roughly 40,000 in the satellite to work for the German armaments industry camps; 2,211 SS members work at the main camp Late 1944 Around 49,000 prisoners are held, around 12,000 and the satellite camps in the main camp, around 37,000 in the satellite April 1945 The prisoner numbers assigned to newly camps. Around 10,000 of them are women. 5,692 registered prisoners exceed 80,000 for the men deaths are registered by name and 13,000 for the women 15 March 1945 The transfer to Neuengamme of Danish and 8 April 1945 A train transporting prisoners is bombed in Celle; Norwegian prisoners from all over the German over 800 of the surviving prisoners are later Reich begins massacred

Construction plan of the Walther factory, 1943 (ANg) New brickworks with ramp for tipper wagons. Photo taken by the SS (ANg) Commandant Max Pauly with members of the SS headquarters staff. Photo taken by the SS in 1943 (ANg) 18 Chronicle of Events, 1938 to 1945 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 19

9 April 1945 The transports of Danish and Norwegian 29–30 April 1945 The last 600 to 700 prisoners, who had to clean prisoners to Sweden begin the camp and burn the camp administration files, 13 April 1945 1,016 prisoners from the Mittelbau-Dora concen- are marched off; 368 prisoners are forcibly tration camp and the Hanover-Stöcken satellite recruited into the SS's Dirlewanger special units camp of Neuengamme are burned alive by the SS 2 May 1945 The last SS men leave the Neuengamme concen- in a barn near Gardelegen tration camp with the remaining prisoners; British 14 April 1945 Members of the Ninth US Army liberate 3,000 troops arrive to find the camp empty women in Salzwedel at the only Neuengamme 3 May 1945 Almost 7,000 people die in the aerial attacks by satellite camp that was not evacuated British fighter planes on the Thielbek and Cap 19 April 1945 The order for the evacuation of the main camp is Arcona ships in Lübeck Bay, 6,600 of them are given prisoners. Hamburg surrenders to the Allies 20 April 1945 4,000 Danish and Norwegian prisoners are 10 May 1945 The last Neuengamme prisoners are liberated in evacuated to Sweden on the White Buses by the Flensburg Danish and Swedish Red Cross 20 Jewish children who had been subjected to medical experiments at Neuengamme since December 1944 and several other prisoners, including Soviet POWs, are murdered by hanging at the evacuated Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp in Rothenburgsort, a former school 20-26 April 1945 More than 9,000 prisoners from the main camp are taken to the Lübeck port, where they are loaded onto ships

White Buses from the Danish Red Fire on the Cap Arcona after Cross at the Friedrichsruh base camp it was bombed by British fighter in the Sachsenwald forest (MDF) planes (IWM) 20 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 21

The Construction of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp

In the mid-1930s, Adolf Hitler visited in and the prisoners were housed in context of the “redevelopment” of In June 1940, the prisoners were Hamburg several times and on these the attic of the brickworks above the Hamburg's riverside areas. transferred to the first newly con- occasions developed plans for the kilns. In April 1940, the Free and Hanseatic structed huts south of the brickworks. construction of a string of monumen- The guard squad was made up of City of Hamburg signed a contract Further transports of prisoners arrived tal buildings along the banks of the 40 SS men and a Kommandoführer with Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke at Neuengamme, and at the end of Elbe. In order to carry out this gigan- (work detail leader). The conditions GmbH. The council promised the 1940, around 3,000 prisoners were tic construction project, the authori- of imprisonment in 1938 / 39 differed SS-owned company a loan of one imprisoned in the concentration camp. ties needed, among other things, an considerably from the period begin- million Reich marks for the construc- Their labour was needed for the enormous amount of red clinker ning in 1940. For example, former tion of a larger brickworks and said it ongoing manufacture of bricks at the bricks, which are characteristic of prisoners have described the rations would build a railway connection, old brickworks. In addition, work on northern Germany. during this period as more or less make the Dove Elbe fully navigable the regulation of the Dove Elbe was In the autumn of 1938, the SS-owned sufficient. and construct a canal with a harbour begun, and the canal and the harbour company Deutsche Erd- und Stein- In January 1940, a few months after basin. The SS, in turn, promised to basin were built. Between 1940 and werke GmbH therefore bought an the outbreak of the war, it was decid- “provide prisoners' labour and the 1942, the prisoners had to build the abandoned brickworks situated on ed to expand the Neuengamme camp necessary guard squads free of new brickworks, and from 1942, they the outskirts of the village of Neuen- into a large-scale concentration charge for this endeavour”. In the were deployed to build armaments gamme in the Vierlande area of camp. Following a visit from Heinrich spring of 1940, the Neuengamme factories on the site. The expansion Greater Hamburg. It also bought Himmler to Neuengamme, the SS camp was given the status of an of the camp continued until the end around 50 hectares of land that was entered into negotiations with the independent concentration camp. of the war. suitable for clay extraction and other Hamburg council in January 1940. The SS pushed ahead with the In addition, more than 85 satellite uses. On 12 December 1938, 100 The council was “most interested in construction of the huts, watchtowers camps of Neuengamme were estab- prisoners from the Sachsenhausen expanding the brick factory operated and fence for the camp. Maltreat- lished all over north-western Germany concentration camp arrived on the by prisoners” in order to bring down ment, exhaustion, hunger and from 1942. site to bring the brickworks back into construction costs for the “Führer accidents at work caused the first operation. The grounds were fenced buildings” it wanted to build in the deaths among the prisoners.

Prisoners working at the old brickworks. (ANg) Construction of a watchtower, 1940/41. Photo taken by the SS (ANg) Prisoners building the SS barracks, 1940. Photo taken by the SS (ANg) 22 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 23

The Prisoners

The concentration camps were German Prisoners initially set up to imprison political In total, around 9,200 Germans were Number of prisoners in the Neuengamme concentration camp opponents of the Nazi regime. imprisoned in Neuengamme. 400 of (including satellite camps) However, from 1937, an increasing them were women imprisoned in number of people from other the satellite camps. Prisoners were Country of origin Men Women Total persecuted groups were taken to the assigned to one or more of the fol- Austria 300 0 0 camps, including Jews, Roma and lowing groups based on the reason for Belgium 3,500 150 3,650 Sinti, homosexuals, Jehovah's their imprisonment: Czechoslovakia 800 800 1,600 Denmark 2,400 0 2,400 Witnesses, alleged “anti-social France 11,000 650 11,650 elements” and “criminals”. The SS Prisoners in “preventive detention” Germany 8,800 400 9,200 marked the prisoners according to A little over half of the German Greece 1,200 0 1,200 group by attaching triangles of prisoners at Neuengamme had been Hungary 1,400 5,800 7,200 Italy 1,100 100 1,200 different colours to their prisoner arrested by the police and imprisoned Latvia 3,200 100 3,300 uniforms. in the camp as “criminals”. Their Luxembourg 50 0 50 During the early stages of the arrests were based on the Decree on Netherlands 6,600 250 6,850 Neuengamme concentration camp, Preventive Crime Fighting issued on Norway 2,800 0 2,800 Poland 13,000 2,700 15,700 the majority of the prisoners were 14 December 1937. The SS referred Soviet Union (not including Baltic states) 21,000 2,000 23,000 Germans. As the war progressed, to these prisoners as “professional Spain 750 0 750 men – and from 1944 women – from criminals” and marked them with a Yugoslavia 1,000 250 1,250 all over German-occupied Europe green triangle. Often, petty theft or Other countries 2,100 300 2,400 Prisoners not registered in the were imprisoned in the camp, and fraud convictions were enough for camp files or registered separately 5,800 100 5,900 they quickly became the majority the culprits to be imprisoned in a (1,000 Soviet POWs, 2,000 Danish among the prisoners. concentration camp, even after serv- policemen, around 1,500 prisoners who In total, 80,000 men and 13,500 ing a prison sentence. Courts also were mostly German police prisoners, 1,400 prisoners taken to Neuengamme women were registered and given transferred prisoners to the authority for execution) prisoner numbers at the Neuen- of the SS for “annihilation through gamme concentration camp or its labour”. From 1942, these prisoners Total 86,800 13,600 100,400 satellite camps between 1938 and were referred to as Sicherungs-

1945. 5,900 more prisoners were verwahrte (prisoners in preventive Among the registered prisoners were around 13,000 Jews and around 500 Roma either never registered or their detention, literally: “prisoners and Sinti information was kept in different files. detained for reasons of security”) and had to wear the green triangle pointing upwards on their clothes. 24 The Prisoners The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 25

Political prisoners prisoners, of whom there were with a zero. Many police prisoners Prisoners from the Occupied Another major group of German several hundred. were transferred to the Hamburg Countries prisoners were imprisoned on remand prison after a few weeks or Men and women from more than 20 political grounds for opposing the Jews months, but others became “regular” countries were imprisoned in Nazi regime. Most of them were The first Jewish prisoners arrived at prisoners of Neuengamme concen- Neuengamme and its satellite camps. communists, social democrats and Neuengamme in 1940 from the tration camp or were transferred to The first prisoners to be deported to trade unionists, as well as a small Sachsenhausen concentration camp. other concentration camps. Neuengamme from occupied coun- number of liberals and conservatives. Depending on the reason for their tries in 1940 were Poles and Czechs. Others were imprisoned by the imprisonment, their clothes were Other groups of prisoners After Germany's invasion of the Gestapo for listening to enemy marked with a red, black or different- Up to 400 men were imprisoned in Soviet Union in 1941, Soviet POWs broadcasts, for having expressed a ly coloured triangle underlaid with a the Neuengamme camp for their were also imprisoned in Neuen- critical opinion of the government or yellow triangle to form the concentra- homosexuality. They came from all gamme. In 1941/42, the largest for joking about the regime. German tion camp version of the yellow star. walks of life and social classes and group of prisoners in the camp were political prisoners were marked with In May 1942, Jewish prisoners from were marked with a pink triangle on from Poland, and from 1942/43 a red triangle. Their total number at Neuengamme were taken to the their clothes. Another group of Soviet citizens formed the largest the Neuengamme concentration “euthanasia” facility at Bernburg prisoners consisted of around 200 prisoner group. By then, 90 per cent camp is estimated at 1,000 to 1,500. (Saale) to be murdered. The Jehovah's witnesses who had to wear of the prisoners came from outside remaining Jewish prisoners were a purple triangle. Around 100 Germany. More than half of them “Anti-social elements” transported to Auschwitz in October prisoners belonged to the “Wehr- were from Central and Eastern Eur- At least 1,200 German prisoners at 1942. macht special department”. They ope, but in 1943/44, thousands of Neuengamme were marked with a were former soldiers who had been people from Belgium, France, the black triangle as “anti-social Police prisoners discharged dishonourably from the Netherlands and Denmark were also elements”. Among them were Police prisoners formed a prisoner Wehrmacht and had been trans- deported to Neuengamme. Most of homeless people, alcoholics and category of their own. They were ferred from Wehrmacht penal units them were imprisoned for resistance so-called “work shirkers”. political prisoners who had been or camps to the concentration camp. activities against the German occu- transferred to the Hamburg-Wil- pation, or they were forced labourers Roma and Sinti (Romanies) helmsburg “work education camp” who were being punished for some Roma and Sinti people are an ethnic and to Neuengamme because of transgression. Many prisoners were minorities whose history is marked overcrowding at the Fuhlsbüttel victims of an act of retaliation or were by ostracism and persecution. There prison. They were marked with randomly taken hostage and then is very little information about the yellow triangles on their clothes and transported off. fates of Neuengamme’s Sinti or Roma received special numbers beginning 26 The Prisoners The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 27

From the spring of 1944, more than Prisoners from Poland “anti-German behaviour”, insub- Prisoners from Yugoslavia 12,000 Jewish prisoners from From the very beginning of the war, ordination against the occupation In occupied Yugoslavia, many people different countries, most of them the SS deported large numbers of authorities or resisting forced labour were arrested because of their women from Poland and Hungary, Polish people who had been involved in Germany. In the course of reprisals political convictions or during were transferred to the satellite in resistance activities against the against the population in 1944, the “resettlement measures” in northern camps of Neuengamme for slave German occupation to the concentra- Gestapo deported almost the entire Slovenia, and deported to concentrati- labour. Although the camp was tion camps. Many men and women male population of the villages of on camps. Yugoslavian citizens who officially designated as a detention were deported to Neuengamme from Putten in the Netherlands and were forced to work in Germany were facility for adults, teenagers and, Auschwitz. From 1942, Polish forced Meensel-Kiezegem in Belgium to also imprisoned for violations of work from 1944, even children were labourers, who had violated work Neuengamme. regulations. Around 1,000 men and incarcerated there. Transports from regulations or special decrees for around 250 women from Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, the Baltic states Poles (“Polenerlasse”), were also Prisoners from France and Spain mostly from Slovenia, were impri- and France, in particular, repeatedly imprisoned in Neuengamme. Among In France, resistance activities and soned in Neuengamme. brought very young people to the 15,700 Polish prisoners were attempts to evade forced labour in Neuengamme. Many teenagers were more than 5,000 Jews. Germany led to mass arrests. Prisoners from the Soviet Union also among the Jewish prisoners from Particularly from the spring of 1944, In October 1941, the Wehrmacht Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Prisoners from Czechoslovakia many of these prisoners were handed over 10,000 Soviet POWs to In late 1944, 20 Jewish children aged Many Czechoslovakian prisoners at deported to German concentration the SS. 1,000 of them were taken to between five and twelve were Neuengamme had been arrested on camps. More than 11,000 prisoners Neuengamme, where they were held brought to Neuengamme from political grounds. They were were taken to Neuengamme. Around in a camp section labelled “POW Auschwitz to be subjected to medical intellectuals and workers who had 300 of them were considered to be labour camp”. 652 of them died within experiments. been involved in resistance activities important individuals. They were the space of eight months. The or had violated work regulations. housed separately in the “camp for surviving POWs were transferred to Prisoners from Austria 1,600 men and women from prominent prisoners” and did not the Sachsenhausen camp in June The majority of the 320 Austrian Czechoslovakia were imprisoned in have to work. Many Spanish people 1942. Their fates are unknown. prisoners in Neuengamme, whom Neuengamme. who had fled to France after the end the SS classified as “Germans from of the Civil War were arrested for the Reich”, were political prisoners or, Prisoners from the Netherlands, their involvement with the French to a lesser degree, “criminals”. Most Belgium and Luxembourg resistance. 750 Spanish men were of them had been transferred from Men and women from Belgium, the imprisoned in Neuengamme. the Mauthausen and Dachau Netherlands and Luxembourg were concentration camps. arrested for resistance activities, 28 The Prisoners The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 29

Between 1942 and 1944, around 2.8 addition, Italian partisans, hostages

million people from the occupied from areas where partisan groups NORWAY territories in the Soviet Union were were active and people who had 2 800

deported to Germany for forced participated in strikes were impris- 100 2 400 2 000 DENMARK Danish 3 200 labour. More than half of them were oned in Neuengamme. In total, 1,200 policemen LATVIA 2 000 250 21 000 6 600 SOVIET UNION women. The most common reasons Italians were imprisoned in the camp. NETHERLANDS (not including Baltic states) Neuengamme 1 000 for imprisonment in concentration 150 3 500 400 BELGIUM POLAND Soviet POWs 8 800 2 700 camps were violations of work regula- Prisoners from Denmark and around 1,500 13 000 50 police prisoners LUXEM- CZECHOSLOVAKIA tions and escape attempts. Around Norway BOURG 800 800 UKRAINE FRANCE AUSTRIA HUNGARY** 22,000 Russian and Ukrainian Resistance fighters from Denmark 650 300 5 800 11 000 100 1 400 prisoners, 2,000 of them women, and around 2,000 Danish policemen 1 100 YUGOSLAVIA ITALY* 250 formed the largest prisoner group at who had refused to cooperate with SPAIN 1 000 750 Neuengamme. the German occupation authorities as

1 200 well as 141 Danish border guards GREECE Plus:

300 2 100 Prisoners from the Baltic were imprisoned in Neuengamme. from Albania, Estonia, Lithuania and more Countries After a brief stint at Neuengamme, than ten other states, around 1 400 prisoners of different nationalities Around 3,800 people from the Baltic the policemen were transferred to taken to the camp for * Many of the prisoners from Italy came from Italian-occupied parts of Yugoslavia execution countries were imprisoned in Buchenwald. Norwegian prisoners ** Among the Hungarian prisoners were many members of ethnic minorities, especially Slovak and Romanian Jews Map shows the 1937 borders. Neuengamme. Roughly 3,300 of were mainly taken to Neuengamme them were from Latvia. Most of them from other camps in the course of a arrived between June and October rescue operation carried out by the Prisoners from Hungary Prisoners from Greece 1944 on three transports from the Danish and Swedish Red Cross Almost all of the 7,200 Hungarian The German occupation authorities Salaspils “work education camp” near beginning in March 1945. They were prisoners in the Neuengamme reacted to partisan activities in Riga. Several hundred of these housed separately from the other concentration camp were Jewish, and Greece with harsh measures, prisoners were women, some of prisoners. In total, around 4,400 around 5,800 of them were women. including deportations to the them Jewish. Danish and 2,800 Norwegian people Most of them were transferred from concentration camps. Greek forced were imprisoned in Neuengamme. Auschwitz, where they had been labourers in Germany were also Prisoners from Italy selected for slave labour inside the often arrested and imprisoned in From September 1943, Italian German Reich. In November 1944, a concentration camps for violating soldiers, who were classified as transport of 830 Jewish men arrived work regulations. Around 1,200 men “military internees”, were taken to at the Neuengamme camp directly from Greece were imprisoned in Germany for forced labour. In from Budapest. Neuengamme. 30 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 31

The Concentration Camp SS Slave Labour

The SS organised the incarceration Political Department (II), Prisoners' At the turn of 1936/37, the SS brickworks and other production of people who were persecuted for Compound/Work Deployment (III), developed plans to set up their own facilities. One of the worst work political, racist or other reasons. In Administration (IV), the Medical production facilities and to financially details was making the Dove Elbe total, more than 4,000 SS men Department (V) and Education and profit from exploiting the prisoners' navigable and building a canal with a served at Neuengamme between Training (VI). On the organisational labour. The first area in which the SS harbour basin. The new brickworks 1938 and 1945. Most of them had level below these departments were became economically active was the was brought into operation in 1942, volunteered for the SS. Towards the the guard squads. The individual SS production of building materials. In after which the prisoners were in- end of the war, the Nazis also guards were instructed to be com- April 1938, the SS founded the com- creasingly forced to work in the clay deployed Wehrmacht soldiers and pletely ruthless in their treatment of pany Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke pits. In 1943, the production of sailors as well as customs and police the prisoners, who were seen as GmbH (DESt) (German Earth and prefabricated concrete parts for air officers and employees of the enemies. Acccording to SS ideology, Stone Works Ltd.). A few months raid shelters and provisional houses Reichsbahn, the state railway the fight against the “enemy within” later, the company bought, among started at the camp. company, as concentration camp was an important part of the fight other facilities, the disused brick- During the second half of the war, the guards, most of them at the satellite against the “enemy without”. The works at Neuengamme, where the SS prioritised the use of prisoners at camps. Female SS guards worked at guards had a lot of leeway to maltreat first concentration camp prisoners the camp's armaments factories – the the women's satellite camps. The prisoners even beyond the strictly from Sachsenhausen were deployed production facilities belonging to the Commandant of the Neuengamme regulated penal system. Exceptional- in December 1938. companies Messap, Jastram and main camp controlled both the main ly brutal SS men were rewarded, for In the course of 1939, after the first Metallwerke Neuengamme (Walther) camp and the satellite camps. example by being promoted. The production trial runs, the SS leader- – and in the SS’s own Deutsche Neuengamme had three Comman- prisoners' compound was surround- ship decided to build a completely Ausrüstungswerke (DAW). In dants: Walter Eisfeld (1940), Martin ed by a barbed wire fence which was new factory and expand the camp. addition, prisoners were forced to

Weiß (1940 /1942) and Max Pauly electrically charged at night. The The prisoners at Neuengamme had to work on the ongoing expansion of (1942/1945). The SS headquarters prisoners were under constant watch perform extremely hard labour, the camp until the end of the war. at Neuengamme was made up of six by sentries and guards, who also constructing the prisoners' com- departments: Headquarters (I), the marched them to and from work. pound, the SS barracks, the new

View of the SS barracks. Photo taken by the SS. (ANg) Guards listen to an address in the courtyard of the SS garages in November 1943. Photo taken by the SS. (ANg) Prisoners at the Dove Elbe in 1941/42. Photo taken by the SS. (ANg) 32 Slave Labour The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 33

Construction details kilometres in order to make the labour, load it onto tipper wagons Armaments factories Among the toughest work details at Neuengamme brickworks accessible and push these on provisionally laid From 1942, the increased integration Neuengamme were those forced to by boat from Hamburg. Prisoners rails to the brickworks. Work in the of the concentration camps into the do excavation, transport and had to shovel the dug-up soil, clay pits and on the tippers was German war effort led to the construction work. The prisoners, straighten the river banks and particularly hard, and many prisoners establishment of private armaments who were insufficiently dressed and reinforce them. At times, more than died performing these tasks. factories at the Neuengamme camp. undernourished, had to work out in 1,000 prisoners worked on this detail. The companies had to pay the SS a the open. They were forced to dig up Exhausted and ill, they had to Work in the prisoners' com- fee for using the prisoners' labour. the loamy soil, push loaded tipper perform these strenuous tasks in all pound and in the SS barracks The management of the companies wagons and carts, pull rollers and kinds of weather, while being Work inside the prisoners' compound Messap and Jastram were eventually transport carts and perform other maltreated and driven on by guards or in the SS barracks often meant allowed to use civilian employees to strenuous tasks. The resulting and kapos. greater chances of survival for the supervise the prisoners instead of SS physical decline among the prisoners prisoners, because workplaces inside guards, which meant that the was part and parcel of the SS's buildings afforded them better prisoners were only maltreated and regime at the camp. For the details The brickworks detail protection from the elements. Those severely overworked in exceptional made up of skilled construction From 1942, between 600 and 1,200 who worked for the SS administra- cases. However, if prisoners did not workers, conditions were slightly prisoners had to work on the tion were housed separately and meet the set production quotas, they more bearable, because the SS brickworks detail, most of them in received sufficient food, clean were in danger of being transferred wanted to keep using them for the the clay pits. The new brickworks clothes and better medical care than to one of the dreaded excavation or long-term. was up to modern production most other prisoners. Some construction details. standards, and only 160 to 180 workplaces also offered the chance In 1942, the arms manufacturer The Elbe detail prisoners were needed for turning of procuring additional food. Walther began planning and building Between 1940 and 1942, the Dove the clay into bricks. In the clay pits, a factory which it operated under the Elbe, an arm of the river Elbe, was by contrast, hundreds of prisoners name Metallwerke Neuengamme widened over a stretch of several had to dig the clay in hard manual GmbH (Neuengamme Metalworks

Prisoners working on the Neuen- gamme embankment. Photo taken by the SS. (NIOD) Ramp with hoist for tipper wagons at the new brickworks. (Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich) A workshop of the Metallwerke Neu- engamme factory, a subsidiary of Carl Walther GmbH from Zella-Mehlis. (ANg) 34 Slave Labour The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 35

Housing

Ltd.). From 1944, almost 1,000 External work details In the 16 wooden huts, the so-called 4.30 a.m. in the summer. After prisoners were forced to manufacture Various smaller work details were blocks, which were built over time, washing, a meagre breakfast and up to 20,000 rifles per month. deployed outside the camp, for the prisoners initially had to sleep making up their beds – a procedure Construction work on the factory example on nearby farms or in crowded together on straw mattres- during which the guards often took building was extremely strenuous businesses supplying the camp. ses on the floor. Later, the huts were any deviation from the prescribed and life-threatening for the prisoners, Prisoners also had to work on furnished with three-tier bunk beds, position of the straw mattresses as an as they had to work at great speed. clearance and bomb disposal details lockers, tables and benches. Usually, opportunity to terrorise and maltreat By comparison, working conditions in Hamburg following Allied air raids. considerably more than 300 – at the prisoners –, the inmates had to in the Walther factory were consid- Collapsing buildings and exploding times even over 600 – prisoners were assemble on the roll-call square for ered relatively good. duds regularly claimed the lives of crammed into the huts, which were morning roll call. After roll call, the prisoners on these details. 50 metres long and eight metres prisoners worked all day until dark. wide. The two brick buildings erect- Their workdays were ten to twelve ed in 1943/44 contained four blocks hours long. During the winter, they each, in which between 500 and 700 were slightly shorter. At noon, men were housed. From 1944, prisoners were given soup during a prisoners often had to sleep three to break. They had to work in all kinds a bed. Prisoners had few opportuni- of weather. In the evening, after they ties to wash themselves. The huts had been marched back to the camp, smelled of sweat and faeces. There there was another roll call, during was no privacy. The better beds which penal measures were often often went to the stronger prisoners. carried out. No evening meals were handed out until it was established The daily routine that all prisoners were present. The prisoners were woken very Afterwards, there was little time until early in the morning, even as early as lights out at 9.00 p.m.

Prisoners on Prisoners' huts in 1940/41. The clearing detail in the connecting middle sections of the huts, Hamburg district of which contained latrines and wash Hammerbrook after rooms, had not been built at the time. an air raid in 1943. Before the water pipes were laid in (StA HH) the first half of 1941, water was only available from hand pumps. Photo taken by the SS. (ANg) 36 Housing The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 37

Hygiene Food Clothing same fabric as the rest of the In 1940/41, the blocks were only Hunger determined the prisoners' Initially, the prisoners wore the concentration camp clothes were equipped with hand pumps. Even every thought and action. The rations uniforms which were introduced in issued. Many prisoners tried to after the sewage system was they were given were of inferior 1938. They were made from blue and protect themselves against the cold completed in 1941, the sanitary quality and often barely edible. The white or blue and grey striped fabric, by wearing empty paper bags, pieces facilities remained inadequate. In the SS gave the prisoners less food than which offered little protection from of blankets or other strips of fabric morning, hundreds of prisoners was officially allocated to them and the cold. The uniform consisted of a underneath their clothes. This was would jostle over the 15 to 20 water used some of the prisoners' rations jacket, a pair of trousers and a cap, as strictly forbidden, and prisoners who taps in each washroom. It was not for themselves. well as a shirt and one pair each of did this risked beatings and entries in until after the typhus epidemic of In the morning, the prisoners were underpants, socks and shoes. their penal file. When the SS ran out 1941/42 that prisoners were led in given either a thin milky soup or However, often prisoners were not of the striped fabric for the uniforms groups to the newly built shower so-called “coffee”. At midday, there issued all items of clothing, and the later on in the war, they began room. Initially, this was done once a was a thin turnip soup with very little ones they received were often badly issuing civilian clothes taken from week, then less often until in fat in it. As a so-called “extra mended, torn, too small or too big. those who were murdered in the 1944/45 prisoners were only taken to allowance for hard labour”, some The shoes were almost always extermination camps. These clothes the showers in exceptional cases. prisoners were given a slice of bread wooden clogs. Instead of socks, were marked as prisoner uniforms by There were hardly any towels or soap. with butter and cheese or sausage in prisoners were usually given rags to bright yellow crosses painted on the In the beginning, prisoners were only addition to the soup. In the evenings, wrap their feet in. In the winter of back and sometimes on the trouser able to change their underwear every prisoners were given their bread 1942/43, overcoats made from the legs. two weeks, and later even less often. rations for the next day and a little From 1942, the gas Zyklon B was margarine, cheese or jam. used to combat pests in the huts, but despite these efforts, the prisoners suffered from vermin, especially fleas and lice.

Washroom. Drawing by the Danish former prisoner Hans Peter Sørensen. (ANg) Distribution of Soup. Drawing by Hans Peter Sørensen. (ANg) Clothing in the Camp. Drawing by French former prisoner Lazare Betrand. (Musée de l'Ordre de la Liberation, Paris) 38 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 39

Death

The prisoners were confronted with facility to be gassed. In 1942, the SS death on a daily basis: They had to introduced executions as punishment watch their comrades die, and they at the camp. These were carried out lived in constant fear of their own on the roll-call square. In the spring death. The smoke from the cremator- of 1943, the SS murdered a large ium was also a constant reminder of number of “preventive detainees” death. At Neuengamme, prisoners transferred to Neuengamme by the were beaten to death, drowned, judiciary by driving them across the hung or killed by poison gas. They cordon of guards and then shooting starved to death or perished because them for “attempting to escape”. The they were insufficiently clothed or Neuengamme camp was also used housed and lived under appalling for executions by the Gestapo and, Furnaces at the crematorium, 1945. (ANg) hygienic conditions. They died from in August/September 1943, by the lack of medication or medical care, Hamburg judiciary, who had convicts Registration of deaths and prisoners, were given to the physical exhaustion from work or executed there. They were either body disposal anatomical institutes of the Hamburg from the effects of their maltreatment. shot at the sewage plant or hung in Up to March 1941, deaths that and Kiel university hospitals. From the camp prison. Soviet POWs from occurred at the camp were registered May 1941, the SS had the victims Executions and murder cam- Wehrmacht POW camps who were by the Neuengamme village registry burned in a provisional crematorium paigns selected according to the “Commis- office. Then the camp was given its near the camp until a new crematori- In the spring of 1942, a commission sar Order” were also murdered at own registry office, “Special Registry um located near the prisoners' com- of doctors visited the Neuengamme Neuengamme. In the autumn of Office A”. During the first years, a pound was brought into operation concentration camp and selected 1942, 448 of them were gassed with local funeral director would take the in 1942. However, the new crema- prisoners “unfit for work”, Jews and Zyklon B in two separate operations bodies to the municipal crematorium torium soon proved too small, and other prisoners, who were then taken at the “bunker”, which was specially in Ohlsdorf cemetery. Several in December 1944, an additional to the Bernburg/Saale “euthanasia” converted for the purpose. hundred bodies, mostly of executed facility was built.

Death at the Electric Fence. Drawing by the Soviet former prisoner V. Petrov. (ANg) The camp prison (“detention bunker”) was also used for executions by the SS and the Hamburg Gestapo. Photo by Sgt. K. Edward, 1946. (ANg) 40 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 41

The Satellite Camps

The Neuengamme concentration camp From 1942, there was an increasing gamme. They had to work in and its satellite camps Satellite camps in March 1945 demand for concentration camp armaments production, build Destinations of evacuation transports in 1945 prisoners' labour from the Ministry of bunkers, industrial complexes and Lütjenburg- Hohwacht Armaments and the German underground production facilities, Neustadt Neustadt Bay armaments industry. This prompted dig anti-tank ditches, clear rubble and Kaltenkirchen Hamburg the establishment of a large number repair streets and other traffic routes. Langenhorn Sasel Eidelstedt Wandsbek Spaldingstraße of satellite camps near factories and The prisoners in the 24 women's Wilhelmshaven Horneburg Neuengamme Blohm & Voss Bullenhuser Damm Wöbbelin Tiefstack Sandbostel Stülckenwerft Dessauer construction sites, especially during satellite camps which belonged to the Ufer Boizenburg Ravensbrück Farge Lübberstedt Schützenhof Blumenthal Bremen Neuenland the last year of the war. Neuengamme complex in 1944/45 Uphusen Uelzen Obernheide In total, more than 85 satellite camps had to work in armaments produc- Salzwedel Bergen-Belsen Meppen-Versen of Neuengamme were established all tion, both over- and underground, on Meppen-Dalum Gardelegen Braunschweig over north-western Germany. In addi- clearance detail and in the construc- Hanover Stöcken Misburg Porta Westfalica Ahlem Schillstraße Limmer Fallersleben Hausberge Lerbeck Mühlenberg Schandelah tion to Hamburg, most of these were tion of provisional housing. The Beendorf Lengerich Barkhausen Hildesheim Watenstedt Drütte Watenstedt/Leinde located in Bremen, Hanover, women came from the Soviet Union, SZ-Bad Salzgitter Salzgitter, Hildesheim and Porta Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Westfalica. The first satellite camp of Slovenia, France, Belgium, the Bad Sassendorf Neuengamme at a factory was Netherlands and Germany. established in August 1942 in Conditions in the satellite camps were Wittenberge. marked by SS terror, overwork, lack around 40,000 prisoners – roughly the SS. At the same time, around During the second half of the war, of health and safety provisions at 28,000 men and 12,000 women 13,000 prisoners were incarcerated in tens of thousands of men from workplaces as well as insufficient – were imprisoned in the satellite the Neuengamme main camp. German-occupied countries were medical care, undernourishment and camps, where they had to perform forced to work in the more than 60 insufficient housing, often in slave labour for German businesses, men's satellite camps of Neuen- provisional huts. In March 1945, the Wehrmacht, the German state or

The state-owned Hermann Göring Works in Salzgitter in 1944, where the Drütte satellite camp stood. (TNA) Prisoners of the Bremen-Obernhei- de women's satellite camp. (StA HB) Liberated prisoners at the Wöbbelin “reception camp”, 2 May 1945. Photo by the US Army. (USHMM) 42 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 43

The End

From the summer of 1944, the SS The White Buses campaign prison. On 20 April, 20 children who prisoners by train, they were forced began to evacuate concentration In March 1945, the Neuengamme had been subjected to medical to march from the camps. These camps located near the front lines. concentration camp became the experiments at Neuengamme, four torturous marches, which often went Those prisoners and production assembly point for all Danish and prisoners who had looked after them on for days, led to the deaths of facilities which were important for Norwegian prisoners incarcerated in and 24 Soviet POWs were taken to many of the men and women the German war effort were Germany. The “Scandinavians' Camp” the evacuated Bullenhuser Damm evacuated from the camps. Those transported to numerous newly- was established following talks satellite camp in the Hamburg district who collapsed or could not keep up established satellite camps within between Heinrich Himmler and the of Rothenburgsort and murdered. were shot by the guards. Germany. When the concentration Swedish Red Cross's Vice President, During the same period, a remaining camps inside the Reich were also Count Folke Bernadotte. Through work detail of 600 to 700 prisoners “Reception camps” evacuated in the spring of 1945, the this channel, Himmler hoped to enter had to clean up the camp. The SS Most transports went to so-called SS had very few remaining camps to into talks with the British government took calculated measures to erase the “reception camps”. Around 9,000 fall back on. about a ceasefire to prevent traces of the crimes committed at prisoners from satellite camps in The dissolution of the entire Germany's unconditional surrender Neuengamme. The camp's files were Bremen and Hamburg and sick Neuengamme camp system began and agreed to the rescue of Scandi- burned, the straw and refuse were prisoners from the Neuengamme on 24 March 1945 with the evacu- navian prisoners as a first concession. cleaned out of the huts, the flogging main camp were taken to the ation of the camps in the Emsland After some sick prisoners had been trestle and the gallows were Sandbostel POW camp near the region near the Dutch border. In taken to Sweden on the White Buses dismantled. The last prisoners and SS town of Bremervörde. early April, the satellite camps in the earlier, more than 4,000 Danish and men left the camp on 2 May 1945. More than 8,000 prisoners, most of Weserbergland region south of Norwegian prisoners were also taken them Jewish women or prisoners Hanover, Wilhelmshaven, Hanover, there in a convoy of 120 vehicles on Transports and death from satellite camps in the Hanover Braunschweig and Salzgitter were 20 April 1945, the day the evacuation marches area, were taken to the Bergen- evacuated, followed by those in of the main camp started. For the evacuation transports, the SS Belsen concentration camp. Bremen and Hamburg. Thousands of used cattle cars into which they The Wöbbelin satellite camp near prisoners were taken to so-called The dissolution of the crammed between 50 and 100 the town of Ludwigslust was the last “reception camps” such as Wöbbelin main camp prisoners, sometimes even more. place of imprisonment for around or Bergen-Belsen, where they were The main camp was used for execu- The prisoners were given very little or 5,000 prisoners, who were mainly left to their own devices without any tions until the very end of the war. no food during the journeys which from satellite camps in the Braun- food or medical care and under On 21 and 23 April 1945, the SS exe- sometimes lasted for many days. The schweig/Salzgitter area. Thousands appalling hygienic conditions. cuted 58 men and 13 women who many dead along the way were taken of prisoners died of starvation and had been transferred to Neuen- out and either left lying next to the disease in these three camps. gamme from the Fuhlsbüttel police tracks or were buried there. If the SS could not transport 44 The End The Neuengamme Concentration Camp, 1938 to 1945 45

The Victims of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp

Shortly before the end of the war, In total, there is evidence for the the SS destroyed all files and docu- deaths of at least 42,900 people, ments from the camp's administra- including the executed Gestapo tion. Therefore, the exact number of prisoners and judicial prisoners. people killed at Neuengamme cannot Additionally, thousands of prisoners be established. The names of around died after being transported to 22,500 prisoners who died in Neuen- other camps while often in a severely gamme and its satellite camps before weakened condition, or they died the evacuation of the main camp in of the effects of their imprisonment late March 1945 are known. The total after their liberation. We must number of victims up to late March assume that more than half of the 1945 is estimated at 26,800. At least around 100,400 prisoners of Neuen- 16,100 more people died during the gamme concentration camp did not evacuation marches and transports survive their ordeal. to the so-called “reception camps” (excluding Bergen-Belsen) and in the air raid on the prison ships in Lübeck Bay. The burning Cap Arcona, 3 May 1945. (IWM)

Prison ships on the Baltic 1945, the ships Cap Arcona and When no more “reception camps” Thielbek, lying just off Neustadt in were available for the evacuation of Lübeck Bay, were accidentally the main camp, Hamburg's regional bombed during a British air raid Nazi Party leader (Gauleiter), Karl intended to stop German troops Kaufmann, requisitioned ships from escaping across the Baltic. moored near Lübeck. More than Almost 7,000 prisoners were either 9,000 prisoners were taken aboard killed in the flames, drowned or were these ships. Crammed into the ships' shot trying to save their lives. Only holds, many of them died of star- 450 people survived. vation, thirst and disease. On 3 May Excerpt from a death register kept at the camp's sick-bay. (ANg) 46 The Site after 1945 47

The Site after 1945

After the end of the war, the British Penal Facility XII (Justizvollzugsanstalt military authorities used the buildings XII). In the late 1960s, another prison, of the former concentration camp in the Vierlande Juvenile Detention Neuengamme for three different pur- Centre, later called Penal Facility IX, poses: One section was the “Russian was built in the grounds of the former DP camp” (DP: displaced person), concentration camp. Under pressure where they housed former slave from former prisoners, the Hamburg labourers from the Soviet Union who council had a commemorative pillar had been deported to the Hamburg erected at the site of the former camp area; another was used as an intern- garden nursery. In 1965, the Inter- ment camp for members of the SS, national Memorial was established. It the Nazi party and the Wehrmacht as consists of an inscribed stone slab, a well as civilian functionaries of the commemorative wall and the sculp- Nazi state; and the third section was ture Le Deporté (“The Deportee”). used as a transit camp. In 1948, the In 1981, the Document Building British authorities handed over the containing a first permanent exhib- camp to the Hamburg city council, ition was opened. Slowly other parts which established a prison at the site, of the former camp were also incorp- using both the existing buildings and orated into the Memorial until, after erecting new ones. The prison was the closure of the two prisons in 2003 initially called the Neuengamme and 2006, the complete site was The prison completed in 1970 on the site of the former clay pits, 1992. (ANg) Men's Prison and was later referred to handed over to the Memorial and as the Vierlande Penal Facility or underwent extensive redesign.

May 1945: German internees arriving at the former Neuengamme concentration camp. Film still from footage shot by the British Army. (IWM) The memorial site designed in 1965 with the commemorative wall and the “Path of Nations”. (ANg) The former Document Building, now the House of Commemoration, 1995. (ANg) 48 The Site after 1945 49

Chronicle of Events from 1945

2 May 1945 The last SS men leave the Neuengamme concen 18 March to The main trial against members of the Neuen- tration camp; in the evening, a British advance 3 May 1946 gamme concentration camp headquarters is held guard unit reaches the evacuated camp before a British military tribunal at the Curio-Haus 9 May 1945 The camp is designated as the “Russian DP camp” in Hamburg; 11 of the 14 defendants are senten- and used to house former slave labourers from the ced to death and executed Soviet Union who had been deported to the Ham- Autumn of 1946 The internment camp is expanded to include a transit burg area. German POWs are also interned there camp section, where German citizens extradited 22 May 1945 The first DPs are transferred to other camps to the British zone from other countries are held. 27 May 1945 More than 8,000 members of the SS arrested in Turn of 1946/47 The crematorium is demolished the area occupied by the Ninth US Army arrive at February 1948 The internment camp is gradually disbanded and Neuengamme the British Military Government hands over the 5 June 1945 The British Military Government begins using the former brickworks to the Hamburg city council. former concentration camp as an internment camp The first 40 prisoners and eight judicial officers for civilian functionaries of the Nazi state, suspect- move into the brickworks and begin clearance and ed war criminals and people arrested for security renovation work reasons. Most of the internees come from 6 June 1948 The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Neuengamme, the Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein representative organisation of German Neuen- September 1945 The first issue of a bulletin by the French asso- gamme survivors, is founded ciation of former Neuengamme prisoners, the 13 August 1948 The British Military Government closes the Amicale de Neuengamme, is published. internment camp; the grounds and buildings of The Belgian association of Neuengamme survivors the former concentration camp are then taken over is also founded in 1945 by the Hamburg prison service 6 September 1948 The Neuengamme Men's Prison (later renamed Vierlande Penal Facility) is brought into operation

Former prisoners at the crematori- um in the evacuated camp. The photo was taken on 5 May 1945. Photo courtesy of the IWM. (ANg) Former Neuengamme prisoner Herbert Schemmel identifying SS men in 1945. (ANg) Trial of 14 SS members at the Curio-Haus in Hamburg, 1945. (ANg) 50 Chronicle of Events from 1945 The Site after 1945 51

Spring of 1949 The wooden huts in the former prisoners' compound 1970 The second prison, the Vierlande Juvenile are torn down Detention Centre, is brought into operation at the Mid-1949 The Hamburg council rents out the brickworks to a site of the former clay pits. The new prison company making lightweight panels building is used as a juvenile detention centre until 14 July 1949 The foundation stone for a new cell block for the the mid-1980s and later as a closed prison for Neuengamme Men's Prison is laid at the former adults (Justizvollzugsanstalt IX) prisoners' compound 18 October 1981 The Document Building containing the permanent 10 December 1950 The new cell block is brought into operation. exhibition Labour and Annihilation on the history 1951 Almost all the watchtowers are demolished of the Neuengamme concentration camp is 18 October 1953 A commemorative pillar bearing the inscription opened. The Neuengamme Memorial becomes a “Dedicated to the Victims, 1938 – 1945” is erected branch of the Hamburg Historical Museum at the site of the former camp garden nursery on July 1982 Participants of the First International Youth Work the northern edge of the grounds Camp mark and lay out a tour path around the 1958 The survivors associations in different countries grounds of the historical camp join together to form the Amicale Internationale de 1982-83 A new solitary confinement building for the first Neuengamme. The international survivors' asso- prison, the Vierlande Penal Facility, is constructed ciation demands that the Hamburg council 14 February 1984 Following public protests against the planned establish an adequate memorial demolition of the brickworks, which is in danger of 7 November 1965 The International Memorial with the inscribed collapsing, the Hamburg council issues a preserv- stone slab, the memorial wall, the plaques for the ation order for the brickworks and those sections different nations and the sculpture Le Deporté is of the site that are not used by the prisons officially opened and a park is laid out 1985 to 1991 The brickworks is restored with funds from the Hamburg council and the German Federal Employment Agency

The foundation stone for a cell block of the Neuengamme men's prison is laid on 17 July 1949. (Strafvollzugsbehörde Hamburg) The commemorative pillar for the victims of the Neuengamme concen- tration camp, erected in 1953. (ANg) Official opening of the Document Building in 1981. (ANg) 52 Chronicle of Events from 1945 The Site after 1945 53

23 November 1986 A section of the street Neuengammer Heerweg is academics and survivors of the camp. renamed Jean-Dolidier-Weg They draw up a plan for the extensive redesign of 1988 Plans to construct more prison buildings on the site the Memorial, to be implemented after the prisons of the former roll-call square trigger international have been moved as decided protests 6 April 1993 The Hamburg Senate and Parliament approve the 17 July 1989 The Hamburg Senate decides to move the older one plan for the future development of the Neuen- of the two prisons, the Vierlande Penal Facility, to gamme Memorial drawn up by the commission a different site. The move is completed in the 1994 The first issue of the Neuengamme Memorial's mid-1990s yearly journal Papers on the History of Nazi 6-7 June 1990 The Hamburg Parliament welcomes the decision to Persecution in Northern Germany is published move the Vierlande Penal Facility (XII) and asks 27 April 1994 The Hamburg Senate and Parliament provide the Senate to consider “whether and how the special funds for collecting all available data on Vierlande Juvenile Detention Centre prisoners in digital format for statistical evaluation [Penal Facility IX] might also be moved and the and for establishing a scientifically validated death building demolished over the coming years” register 1990 to 1993 In the course of an oral history project, the May 1994 A modular, relocatable building is set up to house the Memorial conducts biographical interviews with Memorial's archive, offices and rooms for former prisoners in 14 European countries as well receiving visitors while the Document Building is as in Israel and the USA being redesigned as the House of Commemor- 7 May 1991 A commission for the development of the ation Neuengamme Memorial chaired by First Mayor August 1994 The tracks near the former camp train stop are Henning Voscherau is set up. Its members include reconstructed and a historical goods wagon is put members of the Hamburg Parliament, on display

Tipper wagons from the concen- tration camp outside the second prison. (ANg) In November 1986, a section of Neuengammer Heerweg was named after former prisoner Jean Dolidier (ANg) Work camps for young people have been held at Neuengamme since 1981. Photo taken in 1986. (ANg) 54 Chronicle of Events from 1945 The Site after 1945 55

4 May 1995 For the 50th anniversary of the liberation, the 27 July 1999 The German Federal Government presents its new Document Building is reopened as the House of plan for memorials which, for the first time, Commemoration after its redesign by artist includes the West German memorials at Bergen- Thomas Schütte. In a section of the former Belsen, Dachau and Neuengamme in its perman- Walther factory, which had been used by Penal ent funding plans Facility XII for workshops, the new permanent August 2000 Construction work for a new prison in the exhibition Struggling for Survival – Prisoners Hamburg district of Billwerder begins under the Reign of the SS is opened 1 October 2000 The Hamburg Ministry of Justice hands over the June 1996 The Hamburg Senate decides to build a new prison in former commandant's house of the Neuengamme the Hamburg district of Billwerder – under the concentration camp, which it had used to house provision that the budget is consoldated prison staff, to the Memorial. The building is 1 June 1997 Opening of the exhibition Labour and renovated Annihilation: Concentration Camp Prisoners' Slave 5 September 2001 The Hamburg Parliament decides to hand over Labour in Brick Production about the prisoners' the entire historical site and its buildings to working conditions at the brickworks the Memorial for expansion and redesign September 1997 In its coalition agreement, the new coalition (2002 – 2006) once the construction of the prison government in Hamburg made up of the SPD and in the Hamburg district of Billwerder and the move the Green Party confirms the goal of of Penal Facility XII are completed moving the prison and steps up the planning 13 October 2001 After the state elections of 23 September 2001, process for the redesign the new coalition between the conservative CDU, 1 January 1999 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial the far-right Law and Order Offensive party and becomes independent from the Hamburg the liberal FDP announces that it will not close Historical Museum. Now an institution of its own, Penal Facility XII because of “the urgent need for the Memorial answers directly to the Hamburg prison space” Ministry for Cultural Affairs

The House of Remembrance. (ANg) Neuengamme, May 1995. (ANg) Protest graffiti: “There used to be a concentration camp here” on the wall of Penal Facility IX, which opened in 1970. Photo taken in 1988. (ANg) 56 Chronicle of Events from 1945 The Site after 1945 57

This triggers vehement international protests, 4 May 2005 The redesigned Memorial at the site of what was which in turn prompts First Mayor designate the prisoners' compound is opened. Its main Ole von Beust to enter into talks with survivors' elements are the Centre for Historical Studies, the associations to find a solution library, the archive, the main exhibition Traces of December 2001 The former SS garages are handed over to the History, which is housed in what used to be Memorial before the rest of the site and are prisoners' quarters, the research exhibition Posted converted into office and exhibition spaces to Neuengamme about the camp's SS staff shown 24 January 2002 The Hamburg Parliament decides to move Penal in the former SS garages, the Open Archive and Facility XII by 30 June 2003, finish the reconstruc- the markings of where the huts and camp fence tion of the roll-call square even while the prison is used to be as well as the archaeological digs still in operation and finish the entire redesign February 2006 The second prison, Penal Facility IX, is moved to process in time for the 60th anniversary of the Billwerder liberation in May 2005 This ends the grounds' period of use by the prison 26 June 2003 The new prison in Billwerder is opened service. The last sections of the site are handed 30 June 2003 Penal Facility XII is closed and the site is handed over to the Memorial, which now covers 57 over to the Neuengamme Concentration Camp hectares Memorial. The Memorial now covers an area of 50 5 May 2007 The exhibition Mobilisation for the War-time hectares and contains 15 buildings dating from Economy: Concentration Camp Prisoners as Slave the time of the concentration camp with a total Labourers in Armaments Production is opened at floor area of 41,000 square metres the former Walther factory August 2003 to The post-war buildings are demolished, those dating 19 May 2007 The exhibition Prisons and Memorial: Docu- May 2005 from the time of the camp are renovated and menting a Contradiction is opened. The exhibition the grounds of the former camp are redesigned. is installed on a piece of a wall from Penal Facility Funding comes from the Federal State of IX at the site of the former clay pits Hamburg and the German Federal Government

The site of the former prisoners' compound is handed over to the Memorial in a ceremony on 30 June 2003. (ANg) View of the redesigned main entrance. (ANg) Demolition of Penal Facility IX in 2007. (ANg) 58 The Site after 1945 59

The British Internment Camp The Transit Camp

On the evening of 2 May 1945, arrested for security reasons. administration of the camp and were From the autumn of 1946, the Neuen- British soldiers reached the Neuen- Information on Nazi crimes had allowed cultural activities, i.e. they gamme site also contained a transit gamme concentration camp and prompted the Allies to draw up could put on concerts or plays, camp for German men, women and found it mostly empty. The vast site measures to combat Nazi ideology in organise public talks or form learning children who had been expelled from itself with its many huts and buildings the German population even during groups. In these efforts, the internees other countries. This camp was the did not reveal what had happened the war. These measures included were supported by the Hamburg only one of its kind in the British zone there. the automatic arrest of all members of authorities and local churches. In the of occupation. Because the buildings and the site's certain groups following an Allied summer of 1947, British experts The expellees came from countries all infrastructure seemed suitable for victory over Germany. The majority carried out a pilot programme aimed over Europe, Africa and Asia; a large housing large numbers of people, the of the internees at Neuengamme at turning Nazis into democrats number of them had been interned British brought Soviet former slave were members of one of these through education. Many of the in- since the start of the war. Many were labourers from the Hamburg area to groups: First and foremost among ternees were released after their missionaries with families who now Neuengamme, where they were them were functionaries of the Nazi cases had been individually examined received support from church groups given accommodation and medical party – the NSDAP – and members or after amnesties had been granted. in Neuengamme. Most of them were care. During the same period, of the Gestapo, the SD and the SS. In 1948, the British military admini- able to leave the camp after a few German POWs were taken to other Among the members of the Waffen- stration disbanded the internment days once they had undergone brief parts of the camp. From early June SS who were interned at Neuen- camp and handed the site over to the screening procedures. If these 1945, in accordance with the gamme were also people from Hamburg council, which then began interrogations revealed, however, that principles of the Potsdam Agreement, outside Germany. using it for its penal system. the expellees had held an important the British military administration From November 1945, the Neuen- position in the Nazi party's foreign used the former concentration camp gamme camp was officially called departments or their interrogators as an internment camp, mostly for SS Civil Internment Camp No. 6 (CIC 6). suspected them of espionage, they members at first, and later also for Conditions at CIC 6 were tough in the were transferred from the transit civilian functionaries of the Nazi state, beginning but were eased over time. camp to the neighbouring CIC 6. suspected war criminals and people The internees were given a say in the

British soldiers at the entrance to the camp, 2 June 1945 Film still from footage shot by Lt. Thompson. (IWM) View of the internment camp at the former Neuengamme concentra- tion camp from the watchtower in the south-east. (ANg) German internees at the internment camp, May 1945. (IWM) 60 The Site after 1945 61

The Prisons and the Memorial at the Historical Site of the Concentration Camp

After the British internment camp during the time of the concentration as a prison meant that the grounds Monument, which still exists today. It was disbanded in 1948, the Hamburg camp were altered in 1954 and 1957. continued to be off-limits to the was unveiled on 7 November 1965 council took over the grounds and The prison refectories, storerooms public and could not be used for and consists of a concrete slab which the buildings of the former Neuen- and a hospital ward were moved into commemorative purposes. During bears the inscription “Your suffering, gamme concentration camp. The the eastern brick building, and the the first few years, the survivors had your struggle and your death shall Neuengamme Men's Prison was set prison administration was housed in no help in keeping the memory of not have been in vain”, a commem- up at the site of the former prisoners' the western building facing the street. the past alive. Their emphatic orative wall with 18 plaques from compound. The Hamburg Senate Also in 1957, the roll-call square was interventions eventually forced the different nations and the sculpture Le rejected criticism of this use of the torn up and a sports field installed at Hamburg Senate to agree to the Deporté (“The Deportee”) by the grounds from the survivors' associa- the site of the former sickbays. erection of a small commemorative French sculptor Françoise Salmon, tions, arguing that the prison was Over the course of the 1980s, several column, which was unveiled in 1953 which was donated by the Amicale going to serve as an example for the new buildings were constructed for and bore the inscription “Dedicated Internationale de Neuengamme. The new liberal prison regime in the prison, which was now officially to the victims, 1938–1945”. However, area of the former camp nursery was Hamburg. called the Vierlande Penal Facility the column could only be erected on turned into a park, but the public A few months after the council had (JVA XII). Initially, only men were the northern edge of the grounds at still had no access to the site of the taken over the grounds, the wooden imprisoned in Penal Facility XII, but in the rather secluded site of the former former camp itself. In 1970, the huts at the prisoners' compound 1995 a women's wing was added. camp nursery. Because the SS had outline of the former crematorium, were demolished and replaced by a The prison guards were initially ordered human ashes from the which had been demolished in 1947, new cell block in 1949/50. The stone housed in the former SS barracks and crematorium to be scattered here, the was marked as a commemorative site buildings that had been built at the the commandant's house until a site had the status of a cemetery. and access to it was provided via an former concentration camp were housing estate was built for them in The efforts of the international avenue lined by birch trees which used as cell blocks to house the 1953 in the northern part of the umbrella organisation of Neuen- crossed the prison grounds. prison administration and workshops. grounds. gamme survivors to create a suitable Although the Hamburg government The two large brick buildings which The Hamburg Senate's decision to memorial eventually led to the continued to be criticised for setting had been used to house prisoners use the former concentration camp establishment of the International up the first prison, construction work

Topping-out ceremony for the new prison building at the men's prison, 17 May 1950. (ANg) Inauguration of the first commem- orative column on 18 October 1953. Photo by Conti-Press (StA HH) Inauguration ceremony for the International Monument on 7 Novem- ber 1965. Photo by Hansa-Bild. (ANg) 62 The Prisons and the Memorial at the Historical Site of the Concentration Camp The Site after 1945 63

on a second prison began in the late In October 1981, the Document Penal Facility (XII), which had stood reopened as the House of Remem- 1960s at the site of the former clay Building containing a first permanent at the Neuengamme site since 1948. brance. In 1995, the Neuengamme pits. The Vierlande Juvenile exhibition covering 250 square It would, however, take another 14 Memorial consisted of the area Detention Centre was opened on 15 metres of exhibition space was years until the prison actually closed surrounding the International Monu- January 1970. opened. Following the opening of in June 2003. ment and the House of Remem- Initially, the detention centre held the Document Building, those In 1994, parts of the former Walther brance, the former brickworks – 300 young remand prisoners and sections of the former camp that factory, which had contained prison where a supplementary exhibition offenders. It was used as a juvenile were accessible to the public were workshops until then, were made opened in 1997 – and the exhibition prison until 1980, when it was integrated into the Memorial step by available to the Memorial for a new hall in the southern wing of the renamed Penal Facility IX and used as step. The laying-out of a tour path in permanent exhibition as a prelimin- former Walther factory. The path to a closed prison for adult offenders. 1982 and the successful campaign ary measure before the prison was the exhibition led along the railway During the 1970s, the readiness to against the demolition of the brick- actually closed. tracks, past the former camp train deal with the Nazi past increased in works in 1983 / 84 were of particular The exhibition Struggling for Sur- stop, the site of the crematorium and West German society. In Hamburg, importance in this context. vival – Prisoners under the Reign of the remains of the SS shooting range youth associations and trade unions However, the coexistence of the the SS was opened in 1995 for the excavated in 1997. began to campaign for commem- prisons and the Concentration Camp 50th anniversary of the camp's Following the 2001 Hamburg parlia- orating and documenting the crimes Memorial, which was working liberation. It was housed in a hall mentary elections, the new Hamburg committed in the concentration camp towards an adequate use of the histo- measuring almost 1,000 square Senate briefly considered maintaining at the historical site itself. On 4 rical site, continued to represent a metres of floor space in the southern the Neuengamme prisons but had to September 1979 – over 40 years after contradiction. In July 1989, following wing of the former Walther factory. abandon these plans under pressure the concentration camp was protests against the construction of The exhibition broke new ground and from public protests and official established and more than 30 years further prison buildings on the site of abandoned traditional ideas of interventions from abroad. In 2003, after the first prison was opened – the former camp, the Hamburg exhibition design. Around the same Penal Facility XII was finally moved. the Hamburg Parliament decided on Senate decided to restore the dignity time, the former Document Building The grounds and buildings were the establishment of a documentati- of the site and move the Vierlande was remodelled by an artist and handed over to the Memorial. on centre in Neuengamme.

Signposts taken down in 2004. (ANg) The permanent exhibition Struggling for Survival opened in 1995. Photo by H. Scharnberg. (ANg) Strips of fabric with the names of the victims in the House of Remem- brance. (ANg) 64 The Prisons and the Memorial at the Historical Site of the Concentration Camp The Site after 1945 65

Following a redesign process funded bility towards the victims and their by the German Federal Government families” as one of the reasons for this and the Free and Hanseatic City decision. of Hamburg, the Neuengamme The prison was closed in February Concentration Camp Memorial 2006 and subsequently demolished reopened on 4 May 2005 – on the before this part of the grounds was 60th anniversary of the camp’s also handed over to the Memorial in liberation – as a centre for exhib- May 2007. Today, almost the entire itions, encounters and historical site of the former concentration study. The new Memorial contained camp has been integrated into the a newly designed permanent exhib- Neuengamme Concentration Camp ition covering more than 2,000 Memorial. square metres of exhibition space Two so-called “time windows” serve and a research exhibition on the as reminders of the prisons that used Neuengamme SS staff. to occupy the site: a remainder of Since 5 May 2007, a permanent the cell block built in 1949/50 and a exhibition on the slave labour of wall section and watchtower of the concentration camp prisoners in second prison built in 1970. An armaments production has been on exhibition was mounted on the wall display in the northern wing of the which opened on 19 May 2007. former Walther factory. It illustrates the incongruous On 28 February 2005, the Hamburg coexistence of the prisons with the Senate decided to close the second Memorial at the historical site prison on the site, Penal Facility IX, The exhibition Prisons and Memorial: Documenting a Contradiction on the remaining piece citing Hamburg's “historical responsi- of wall from Penal Facility IX, 2007. (ANg)

The section on “Everyday life and work” in the main exhibition. (ANg) The Centre for Historical Studies and the wire mesh structures marking the sites of the prisoner huts. (ANg) The site of the former prisoners' compound today. (ANg) 66 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 67

The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial

Today, the Memorial covers an area shown at the former SS garages and of 57 hectares – almost the entire site three supplementary exhibitions – of the former Neuengamme one on prisoners' slave labour in concentration camp – and contains armaments production, one on slave 15 original buildings from the time of labour in brick production and one on the camp. This makes it one of the the decades of conflict over the use largest concentration camp memori- of the grounds for prisons and the als in Germany. The grounds are fully demands for an adequate memorial accessible and marked with signs and and documentation centre. The nformation panels. Memorial's archive, library, the Open The layout of the site of the former Archive and the Centre for Historical prisoners' compound includes wire Studies, where research projects and mesh structures – so-called gabions seminars are held, serve to collect – marking the foundations of the and document materials and provide prisoner huts, metal poles marking historical education. Today, the the course of the camp's perimeter Neuengamme Memorial is a site of fence as well as open archaeological both commemoration and learning. excavations. The Memorial contains five permanent exhibitions: the main exhibition Traces of History in the former prisoners’ quarters, a research View of the reconstructed roll-call square and the building housing the main exhibition. exhibition on the Neuengamme SS (ANg)

The section on different groups of prisoners in the main exhibition. (ANg) Wire mesh structures marking the sites of the former utility huts. (ANg) A door of the historical gate of the Neuengamme camp, donated to the Memorial in 2005 by the Amicale Internationale. (ANg) 68 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 69

The Memorial's profile also organises seminars in collabor- The Memorial's tasks: k Maintaining contact with concen- ation with the Memorial's international tration camp survivors and their The Memorial depends on wide- partners or within the context of its k Researching and teaching the families spread public attention to provide international exchange programmes. history of Nazi persecution in k Collaborating with survivors' sustainable educational work and Changing and improving information Hamburg associations in Germany and become part of Hamburg's historical channels, introducing new kinds of k Developing and presenting abroad memory. Its activities are part of the education outreach such as talk series exhibitions on these issues k Providing individual survivors with city's cultural life. The Memorial's and special exhibitions, participating in k Publishing catalogues, studies and the certificates of imprisonment work aims to have an impact beyond larger cultural events held in Hamburg biographical accounts from necessary for claiming pensions the boundaries of Hamburg and and increasing participation in the survivors and compensation payments contribute to international under- activities of other cultural institutions k Annually publishing the journal k Guided tours and other educa- standing. Over recent years, it has complete the new concept for the Papers on the History of Nazi tional activities for more than 1,500 put much effort into developing new Memorial's educational work. Persecution in Northern Germany groups of schoolchildren, ways of informing the public about The Memorial's events and activities k Collaborating with universities, teenagers and adults every year the Neuengamme concentration also focus on the history of the research institutions, museums and k Organising cultural, educational, camp and its post-war history. To this Neuengamme concentration camp by historical associations historical and political events end, it has implemented new placing it in the context of current k Collaborating with memorials in k Organising lectures and talks by methods of teaching people about issues relating to Holocaust remem- Germany and abroad survivors as well as conferences Germany's Nazi history. This includes brance, human rights violations past k Supporting the over 20 memorials new educational forms such as the and present, the development of a at the sites of former Neuengamme The Memorial's current programme so-called project days – educational culture of democracy and understan- satellite camps where exhibitions of events is available online at: projects tailored for particular ding between cultures. are shown www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de professions – and the introduction of new modules into guided tours. It

International youth exchange programme at the Neuengamme Memo- rial in 2005. (ANg) A group looking at the remaining foundation of a prisoner hut in 2007. (ANg) A theatre performance at the former brickworks in 2009. (ANg) 70 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 71

The Grounds

The site includes the commemorative and enable further exploration. An the fragmentary documents available A display case in the central hall of area with the International Monu- audio guide system provides – are printed on four-metre long the House of Commemoration ment and the House of Commemor- extensive additional information. strips of fabric hanging from the contains a model of the former ation as well as the large exhibition At the former prisoners' compound, ceiling. These names are presented in concentration camp at Neuengamme. and documentation complex to the foundations have been excavated the chronological order of their It is 4.65 metres long and shows the south. Tour paths provide access to and mark the sites of the former deaths. Towards the end of the war, site and its buildings as they the extensive grounds and lead to the wooden huts and other buildings. the columns of names become longer appeared in 1947/1948. The model is historical buildings and facilities, such Metal poles mark the course of the and longer for each day. A separate a historical artefact in its own right. It as the former brickworks, the harbour camp fence and watchtowers, making room containing unmarked strips of was made for the Hamburg prison basin, the former Walther factory the outline and different sections of fabric is dedicated to the memory of authority in 1948, when the council building, the prisoners' compound the former camp visible to visitors. the victims whose names remain took over the still largely unchanged and the SS barracks. unknown. camp complex and began building 60 panels containing texts and Seven display cases in a plain side the first prison. In 1995, the Hamburg images offer information on the site room with a view of the International Ministry for Urban Development had Monument hold some of the most another model made of the entire important surviving original docu- grounds. The new model was the The House of Commemoration ments from the concentration camp: same scale and was designed like a handwritten death ledgers from the contemporary architectural model. The House of Commemoration was building's sculptural and religious hospital at the prisoners' compound. Both models are presented together established in 1995. The artist architectural qualities, and a gallery Six glass doors offer a view of the at the House of Commemoration to Thomas Schütte from Düsseldorf was with high red walls enclosing the area where the ashes of victims were illustrate the changes the grounds of commissioned to redesign the former square central hall was put in. scattered whose bodies had been the former camp underwent over the Document Building, which was built 22,460 names of victims of the cremated at the camp's crematorium. post-war decades. in 1981. Schütte had the rough Neuengamme concentration camp – When redesigning the site, Schütte concrete walls exposed to stress the those that could be determined from had conifers planted in this area.

Die KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme The Neuengamme Concentration 72 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 73

The Exhibitions

Camp Memorial contains five building's original features have been former concentration camp at Research Exhibition permanent exhibitions. An additional preserved, while others had to be Neuengamme as well as the changes Posted to Neuengamme: The sixth exhibition space has also been reconstructed. The exhibition's main in commemorative practices over the Camp SS created for showing travelling focus is on the history of the decades. Its structure and modes of With the help of legal files, docu- exhibitions which expand on the Neuengamme concentration camp presentation make the exhibition ments and biographies, the research information on offer in the permanent and its satellite camps from 1938 to easy to use for teaching purposes. exhibition offers extensive informati- exhibitions. The travelling exhibitions 1945. Its central aim is to document Maintaining a multi-perspective on on the perpetrators and the are either compiled by the Memorial the crimes that were committed and approach also played an important concentration camp system as a itself or by other institutions. the suffering of the prisoners. role in its development. Individuals whole. The exhibition is shown in Information is presented on three can have very different memories, one of the historical buildings of the Main Exhibition levels. On the first level, short depending on whether they are former SS garage complex and is Traces of History: The Neuen- introductory texts on large panels former prisoners or British soldiers, made up of five thematic parts. It gamme Concentration Camp provide an overview. On the second male or female SS personnel, inmates starts with the legal proceedings 1938 –1945 and its Post-War and third levels, more detailed of the British internment camp, policy dealing with the crimes committed at History information is provided through makers during the immediate Neuengamme. The relationship The main exhibition is shown in a historical documents, such as files, post-war era or members of the between individual deeds and brick building which was built in the photographs or artefacts combined younger generation. These many individual responsibility, which is prisoners' compound in 1943/1944 with short explanatory captions. perspectives show that history often central to this exhibition section, is and was used for housing prisoners. Audio and video accounts by presents itself in contradictory and also discussed in the many bio- The building originally consisted of survivors and more than 150 conflicting narratives. graphies of SS members presented four prisoner blocks with separate biographical folders give visitors a here. Furthermore, the exhibition entrances, each covering around 600 closer insight into the fates of illustrates the hierarchical organisatio- square metres. The blocks, in turn, individual prisoners. The exhibition nal structure of the SS and the consisted of two large dormitories, a also examines the way the Hamburg different workplaces SS members washroom and a latrine. Parts of the council has dealt with the site of the were assigned to both in the main 74 The Exhibitions The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 75

camp and in the satellite camps. In its new brickworks from 1940 to 1942 of bricks was replaced by manufactu- and carbines for Metallwerke final section, the exhibition looks at and later for brick production. The ring concrete parts for temporary Neuengamme GmbH, a subsidiary what happened to the SS members prisoners also had to work on the housing. Another subject covered in of the armaments manufacturer after the war. construction of a harbour basin and a the exhibition is the use of the Carl Walther from Thuringia. canal connecting the camp to the brickworks building after the war, The SS-owned company Deutsche Supplementary Exhibition Dove Elbe – an arm of the Elbe River because it was not incorporated into Ausrüstungswerke (DAW) also oper- Labour and Annihilation: – so that materials and finished bricks the Memorial until the late 1980s and ated a production facility at Neuen- Concentration Camp Prisoners could be transported to and from the only after considerable controversy. gamme, where prisoners had to work as Slave Labourers in Brick camp by barge. . in furniture production and metal Production The supplementary exhibition on the Supplementary Exhibition processing. The Nazis were planning to turn prisoners’ slave labour in brick Mobilisation for the War-Time The supplementary exhibition on Hamburg into a so-called Führerstadt production is shown in the eastern Economy: Concentration Camp slave labour in armaments production (“Führer city”). They had begun wing of the former brickworks and Prisoners as Slave Labourers in is shown in a section of the Walther designing large redevelopment describes the conditions under which Armaments Production factory building. This former projects for the northern banks of the prisoners had to work in this section In 1942, armaments companies weapons factory within the perimeter Elbe, where they intended to have of the camp. It also documents the began setting up production facilities of the Neuengamme camp was built monumental brick buildings erected. Nazis' construction plans for the at the Neuengamme concentration by prisoners for the Walther company To produce the large quantities of “New Hamburg”, the production camp. Prisoners were forced to between 1942 and 1944. bricks they needed, the SS establis- methods used at the brickworks and produce timed detonators used in The exhibition in the factory building hed the Neuengamme concentration the prisoners' work routine. They had grenades for Deutsche Messapparate documents the conditions under camp on the site of a disused to perform hard, physically exhaust- GmbH (“Messap”) and naval engines which prisoners had to work and how brickworks and had a new brick ing work under primitive conditions, and other parts for shipbuilding for the prisoners' labour was increasingly factory built. Concentration camp and many of them died while working the Hamburg-based engine manufac- exploited for armaments production prisoners were forced to provide or from exhaustion and disease. As turer Carl Jastram. At the Walther as the war progressed. The main labour for the construction of the the war progressed, the production factory, prisoners had to make pistols focus of the exhibition is on the 76 The Exhibitions The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 77

Walther factory, the largest arma- The exhibition describes the k The Perspectives of the Perpetra- k “The Drawing Survives ...” Pictorial ments factory at the Neuengamme historical circumstances under which tors, Victims and other Eyewit- evidence from prisoners of camp. It also covers the general the prisons were built at Neuen- nesses Neuengamme concentration camp. structures of slave labour in the gamme and the often controversial k The Evacuation of a Concentration k Hamburg's Port during the Nazi German armaments industry. development of the site until the Camp. Prisoners between exter- Period. Business, slave labour and prisons were eventually demolished. mination and liberation. The dis- resistance Supplementary Exhibition It also discusses the history of solution of Neuengamme concen- k “The Sites Will Remain.” Memorials Prisons and Memorial: Docu- commemoration at the site. tration camp and its satellite camps to the victims of Nazi persecution menting a Contradiction k KoLaFu – A Place of Arbitrary in Hamburg The subject of the supplementary Travelling Exhibitions on Loan Violence. The history of the exhibition on the prisons and the In addition to the permanent Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp For more information about loaning Memorial is the way in which the exhibitions, the Memorial has been and penal facilities, 1933–1945 these exhibitions, please contact former concentration camp was used regularly compiling travelling k“... That We Managed to Remain Heidi Heitmann at the Memorial: after 1945. The outdoor exhibition exhibitions since 2001. These Women in this Terrible Struggle.” [email protected] is shown in the grounds of the exhibitions deal with subjects relating The history of the women's satellite Memorial near the former clay pits on to Nazi persecution and resistance in camps of Neuengamme concentra- Special Exhibitions a piece of wall that was part of the Hamburg as well as the history of the tion camp Changing special exhibitions expand- second prison, Penal Facility IX, built Neuengamme camp. Every year on k “I Left my Youth in Hamburg.” ing on the information presented in in 1970 and closed in 2006. 27 January, they are officially opened Slave labour in Hamburg, 1940– the permanent exhibition are shown The site of the former concentration at Hamburg City Hall. After being 1945 in the southern wing of the Walther camp was used by the Hamburg displayed there for three weeks, the k The Invisible Helpers. Hiltgunt factory. For information on current prison authorities for almost 60 years. travelling exhibitions are put on loan Zassenhaus and the Norwegian special exhibitions, see the This also meant 60 years of struggle to other institutions. So far, exhi- Sailors' Mission working on behalf Memorial's programme of events for a more adequate form of bitions on the following subjects have of the Norwegians imprisoned in flyer or its website. remembrance at the site. been produced: Fuhlsbüttel, 1940–1945 78 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 79

The Memorial's Educational Services

As a site where visitors are confron- so-called project days, study days initiatives working against right-wing and other materials from the ted with issues from the past and the and further training courses. In extremism and racism. Both Memorial's exhibitions, archives and present, the Neuengamme Concen- addition, the exhibitions, classrooms institutions are always open to library tration Camp Memorial has a and the digitally organised Open participating in similar projects on a significant role to play on a European Archive offer many opportunities for local, regional or national level. Tours, Projects and Project Days level. It provides a space for exploratory learning. The Memorial's educational activities encounters between people from Some tasks are shared by both the The Educational Department give visitors a deeper understanding Germany and abroad, and it enables Department and Centre, for example The Neuengamme Memorial's of the history of the Neuengamme visitors to explore the historical site. training staff and volunteers who are Educational Department provides concentration camp between 1938 The main aims of the Memorial's interested in working with the guided tours and teaching units on and 1945. They also focus on the educational work are to inform Memorial in an educational capacity, the history of the Neuengamme post-war use of the grounds and raise visitors about the crimes committed or developing teaching materials such concentration camp to groups of awareness for appropriate ways of under the Nazis and to raise as lesson units, worksheets or visitors, most of them school groups. dealing with Germany's Nazi past. awareness of current forms of introductory texts and other media. These tours have a special focus on This is often done through describing intolerance, racism and anti-Semti- The Memorial cooperates with the suffering of the prisoners. Each the fates of individual prisoners. The ism. The Memorial is committed to schools in the tailoring of projects, year, the Department organises tours Educational Department offers tours applying a reflective approach to so-called project weeks or research for more than 1,500 groups, both at and projects ranging from one to five history education and also works projects to fit their individual needs, the Neuengamme Memorial and its hours in length. toward putting the history of Nazism and it helps schools to raise their branches: the Bullenhuser Damm in the context of current issues. profile in history and social sciences. Memorial in the Hamburg district of The Memorial's Educational The Memorial's Educational Rothenburgsort, and the Fuhlsbüttel Department and Centre for Historical Department and the Centre for and Poppenbüttel Memorials. The Studies provide a wide range of Historical Studies are involved in Open Archive also provides oppor- educational services, such as guided projects relating to peace and tunities for exploratory learning by tours of the grounds and exhibitions, democracy education as well as giving visitors access to documents 80 Educational Services The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 81

Tours and other services: that they can then discuss in brief Commemoration. Other sites and Possible topics for Projects: presentations exhibitions within the Memorial's k The prisoners and the commem- k Museum Tour: This one-hour tour The one-hour museum tour offers grounds may also be visited, depend- oration of the victims gives adult visitors an introductory groups of adults a short introduction ing on the focus chosen by the k The Neuengamme SS overview of the main exhibition before letting them explore the visitors. Because it is three hours k Slave labour and the various sites in the grounds grounds and the exhibitions on their long, a Project is particularly suited k Conflicts regarding how the site's k Museum Talk: A two-hour guided own. for giving first-time visitors a general history was dealt with from 1945 tour which provides a general The two-hour tour provides an overview of the site's history. to 2005 survey of the history of the camp overview of the history of the largest The extended 4-hour Project Plus and the Memorial and includes a Nazi concentration camp in northern tour also gives visitors the opportun- Tours on other topics can also be guided visit to the main exhibition Germany. It includes a guided tour of ity to examine the site's history more arranged. k Project: This three-hour tour the main exhibition Traces of History closely by allowing them to choose includes the “Museum Talk” plus a and a visit to some of the sites in the topics and do their own research in Apart from a guided tour of the main guided visit to one of the supple- grounds, particularly in the area of the exhibitions, the grounds and at exhibition, one supplementary exhib- mentary exhibitions and a short the former prisoners' compound. If the Open Archive or the Centre for ition and large parts of the grounds, tour of the grounds visitors are already familiar with the Historical Studies. Students can also the five-hour Project Days also allow k Project Plus: This four-hour event main exhibition or want to focus on explore the exhibitions on their own visitors to explore the site's history on gives visitors the opportunity to particular issues during their visit, with the help of worksheets, which their own. The Memorial's educa- explore the history of the site in other sites can be chosen for the are then evaluated in a group tional staff will help visitors conduct more depth by focussing on one Museum Talk by prior arrangement. discussion after the visit research in small groups at the Open particular aspect The three-hour Project tours include Archive, the Centre for Historical k Project Day: The five-hour Project a visit to the main exhibition plus a Studies or the library. They will also Day includes Project Plus as well as more in-depth exploration of the make documents, photographs, films, an additional topic for which former prisoners' compound, the books and other materials available to visitors can do their own research brickworks and the House of visitors, who can share their research 82 Educational Services The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 83

with others in the form of a written k Life after survival Changing educational approaches the group. In the exhibitions, guides text, presentation or discussion. k The history of commemoration One of the educational challenges encourage visitors to explore the Visitors who would like to attend a the Educational Department faces is subjects presented on their own and Project Day at the Neuengamme Tours on other topics can also be the need for new forms of guided help organise discussions so visitors Memorial should have basic know- arranged. See the Memorial's website tours for groups which are designed can talk about what they have seen. ledge of Germany's Nazi history and for a list of possible topics: to encourage visitors to actively and Worksheets can be ordered in be interested in exploring the history www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de independently seek out information. advance via e-mail and are designed to of the Neuengamme concentration The Department encourages creative enable smaller groups to independent- camp in some depth. To book a guided visit to the and associative educational ap- ly explore different exhibition sections Groups can either choose a shared Neuengamme Memorial or one of its proaches and therefore also offers simultaneously and to make the topic for their tour and research, or branches, please contact the audio, film, art and photography different topics more accessible. they can split up into several smaller Hamburg Museum Service at projects. groups and work on different aspects +49 40 428131-0. The Memorial's guides and facilitators of the camp's history. Possible topics www.museumsdienst-hamburg.de still have a role to play, however, in include: that they act more as moderators for The Neuengamme Memorial's three the group visits and discussions. k Groups of prisoners and individual branches, the Bullenhuser Damm, With the help of maps, audio guides prisoner biographies Fuhlsbüttel and Poppenbüttel and the many information panels, k The Neuengamme SS and how Memorials, are also suited for groups of visitors can explore the German society dealt with the supplementary tours on the Nazi extensive grounds on their own. perpetrators after the war period, resistance and Nazi per- During guided tours, groups may k Slave labour and the prisoners' secution in Hamburg. split up into smaller “exploration everyday lives groups” and collect information on k Keeping up morale, cultural and their own, which they can later resistance activities present and discuss with the rest of 84 Educational Services The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 85

The Open Archive The Centre for Historical ped with up-to-date media techno- witnesses. The Open Archive is an educational Studies logy (video projectors, DVD and VHS The topics of the Centre's con- service provided by the Memorial. The activities carried out by the players, and Internet access). ferences and seminars include the Visitors looking for information Centre for Historical Studies are The premises can also be rented. development of a democratic way of beyond what is presented in the geared towards adults and young life, the peaceful coexistence of exhibitions can do their own people and are often organised in The Centre's activities different cultures, and human rights independent research on particular close cooperation with other institu- The Centre for Historical Studies issues. topics based on the texts, images and tions working in youth and adult edu- organises educational and academic By focusing on the perpetrators and films contained here. Computer cation. The Centre offers tailored conferences and seminars, often in the choices available to individuals terminals give visitors access to these educational services for professionals cooperation with other institutions and institutions during the Nazi materials through a navigation system or vocational college students who both from Germany and abroad. It period, the Centre encourages or through a search engine. In all, the want to explore the historical site and also documents the results of these participants to reflect on today's Open Archive contains more than the history of the Nazi period in more conferences. Its work focuses on the values and forms of social behaviour. 5,500 items in both digital and depth and in the context of their par- changing nature of the culture of Other central topics for the Centre's analogue format. These can be used ticular profession. Close ties have commemoration as well as the latest work are questions of how memories by groups of visitors for exploratory also been established with schools, developments in civic and historical are handed down to the third and learning and for drawing up further training institutions and infor- education. The Centre is aware that fourth generations as well as issues presentations on particular topics in mation disseminators in academic Nazi crimes are increasingly receding relating to Germany as an immigra- the course of a guided visit of the institutions. into the distant past for members of tion society and how we experience Memorial. In addition, the Open The Centre has meeting and class subsequent generations. This raises history. Archive also contains a selection of rooms of different sizes, as well as questions such as how to talk about videos and audio recordings from the two screening rooms, a workshop, a the fates of concentration camp Memorial's extensive archives. kitchen and a dining room. These prisoners or other victims of Nazi facilities allow groups of visitors to persecution without the direct testi- work in spacious surroundings equip- mony from the survivors or other 86 Educational Services The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 87

Study Days takes a more seminar-like form. It also k “Why were black people im- A list of other possible topics for allows groups from the police, armed prisoned in concentration camps?” Study Days can be found on the Groups of adults or young people can forces, railway, fire brigade, local k The medical profession under the Memorial's website at explore the history of the Neuen- administration, health care or other Nazis www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de gamme site in the course of a six-hour professions to discuss questions k The role of the police in the workshop called a Study Day. Study relating to their fields. For students concentration camps and within Study Days can only be booked Days can focus on a particular from vocational training colleges, the the Nazi system of persecution through the Centre for Historical country or issue of memorial culture Study Day Plus model also allows for k Soviet POWs in the Neuengamme Studies. or on how societies have dealt with an examination of historical issues camp and the role of the Wehr- the Holocaust and the experience of relating to their particular profession. macht in the concentration camp Multi-day events Nazi persecution. A Study Day con- system School groups and other groups of sists of an introductory presentation, Possible topics for Study Days: k The role of the Reichsbahn (the young people can use the premises a tour of the exhibitions and the k Groups of prisoners and individual German national railway) in the of the Centre for Historical Studies grounds and the further exploration prisoner biographies deportation of prisoners to the over several days for educational of a particular subject in smaller k The Neuengamme SS and the way concentration and extermination projects by prior arrangement. The groups. These groups work either at German society dealt with the camps Centre especially supports regional the Centre or at the Open Archive, perpetrators after the war k The administration and implemen- cooperation projects, multi-day researching documents, photo- k Slave labour and the prisoners' tation of the Nazi policies of international youth or school graphs, videos, books and other everyday lives ostracism and persecution exchanges as well as work camps. materials and then compiling, pre- k Keeping up morale, cultural and k Nazi economic and social policies Because of the Memorial's geo- senting and discussing the results of resistance activities k Religion in the concentration graphical location and the history of their work with the other groups. k Life after survival camps the Neuengamme concentration The seven-hour Study Day Plus k The history of commemoration camp, the focus in this context is on workshop allows for a more in-depth k The White Buses rescue operation north-western Europe, especially on examination of specific questions and for the Scandinavian prisoners Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the 88 Educational Services The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 89

Baltic states, Poland, the Netherlands Possible topics for multi-day events Support for visiting scholars Additional Information on and Belgium. However, the Centre and further training courses The Centre supports visiting scholars Educational and Academic also supports cooperative projects k Memorial culture in an immigration in their research at the Neuengamme Services with France, the Czech Republic, society Memorial. It also offers them an The wide range of information Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. k Educational work relating to the Nazi office space for pursuing longer available at the Memorial makes it period and the Holocaust and the projects or academic work relating to necessary for visitors to concentrate on Further training role of educational centres outside the historical site. a limited number of topics, based on The Neuengamme Memorial offers the school context their previous knowledge and age as further training courses for teachers k The second and third post-war Developing high-quality teaching well as the amount of time available. and other information disseminators generations and the way they dealt material for historical and civic The following exhibitions and sites from all fields. These courses with Germany's Nazi past education from a German, bi-national within the grounds can be integrated combine the particular skills of k The Nazi period and the Holocaust and international perspective for in a visit: participants with the specialist in literature, film and the media teachers and educators from many knowledge and skills of the k Photographs and drawings from different fields is another very k The main exhibition Traces of Memorial's staff, creating a learning concentration camps and their important aspect of the Centre's History: The Neuengamme process that goes beyond the significance as media of memory work. Concentration Camp 1938–1945 traditional school context. Many and its Post-War History, shown in courses are organised in cooperation Seminars and conferences the two-storey brick building which with university and non-university The Centre organises educational and was used to house prisoners teacher training, historical and civic academic workshops, seminars and k The former prisoners' compound education institutions. conferences in cooperation with k The research exhibition Posted to institutions from Germany and abroad. Neuengamme. The Camp SS shown The Centre's premises are also avail- in the former SS garages able to rent. k The former Walther factory, which contains the exhibition Mobilisation 90 Educational Services The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 91

for the Wartime Economy: If you are planning a full-day project languages: Danish, Dutch, English, Directions and Meeting Point Concentration Camp Prisoners as for children or teenagers on a topic French, German, Hebrew, Polish, for Guided Tours Slave Labourers in Armaments other than the ones described above, Russian and Spanish. The VHH bus company offers charter Production have any special requirements as to bus services for groups that are too k The former clay pits and the topics or educational approaches, or For more information on the services large to travel on the regular bus open-air exhibition Prisons and if you want to establish an official offered by the Centre for Historical service. Bookings must be made at Memorial: Documenting a cooperation project between your Studies, please contact least one day in advance by calling Contradiction school and the Memorial, please Oliver von Wrochem at the +49 40 72594-0. k The former brickworks and the contact Iris Groschek at the Memorial exhibition Labour and Annihilation: Memorial's Educational Department. Phone: +49 40 428131-515 The meeting point for guided tours is Concentration Camp Prisoners as [email protected] located by the main entrance at 75 Slave Labourers in Brick Production To book a tour or Project Day, Jean-Dolidier-Weg near the “KZ- k The House of Commemoration and please contact For seminars and further training Gedenkstätte, Ausstellung” bus stop. the International Monument Museumsdienst Hamburg courses not outlined above, or for At the main entrance, which is well Phone: +49 40 428131-0 projects tailored to specific profes- signposted, a glass pavilion offers For more information about the www.museumsdienst-hamburg.de sions or for students from vocational some introductory information as well services offered by the Educational [email protected] training colleges, please contact as room for groups waiting for a tour. Department, please contact Oliver von Wrochem at the Centre Iris Groschek at the Memorial After booking your visit with the for Historical Studies. Phone: +49 40 428131-521 Hamburg Museum Service, you will [email protected] be given the phone number of one of Please see the Memorial's website at our guides so you can make www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de arrangements for your visit. The for an up-to-date programme of Hamburg Museum Service can educational services. arrange tours in the following

92 Educational Services The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 93

Archives and Library

Practical Information for Tours and Educational The Memorial has two archives and a Concentration Camp Memorial's Visitors Services for Visitors with library, where visitors can do further archive has continued to expand. A small cafeteria offering a limited Special Needs research into particular topics after Apart from original documents from range of food and drinks is located in The Memorial offers tours and educa- visiting one of the exhibitions,work the camp administration, it contains the same building as the main tional services for visitors who are on personal projects or conduct an extensive collection of duplicates exhibition. There are no other shops visually or hearing impaired. Please academic research. of other documents archived in the Memorial's immediate vicinity. let the Hamburg Museum Service The main topics covered by the elsewhere as well as a significant Visitors are allowed to bring their own know of your needs in advance. collections are the concentration collection of documents, accounts food to the Cafeteria. Phone: +49 40 428131-0 camp system, the Neuengamme and recorded interviews from former When choosing what clothing to [email protected] concentration camp and its more than prisoners. Records from Nazi bring, visitors should keep in mind 85 satellite camps, the early Hamburg institutions and the British occupation that the weather in the Vierlande All buildings in the grounds which are concentration camps at Fuhlsbüttel authorities as well as documents from region is often considerably colder open to the public are also accessible and Wittmoor, Nazi persecution and both German states after 1949 also and windier than in central Hamburg. by wheelchair, except for the House resistance activities in Northern form part of the collection. Good walking shoes are recommend- of Commemoration. Germany, the “forgotten victims” of Other important elements of the ed, as the tour paths around the the Nazis, post-war history, how archive's collection are reproductions grounds are laid with gravel. Germany dealt with its Nazi past, and of documents from the British educational issues relating to concen- National Archives relating to invest- tration camp memorials. Texts and igations into war crimes committed at materials from the exhibitions are also Neuengamme or one of its satellite available in the archives and library. camps, case files on former concen- tration camp guards and other staff Archive members compiled by West German Since the opening of the Document public prosecutors or the East Building in 1981, the Neuengamme German Ministry for State Security 94 Archives and Library The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 95

(the Stasi), around 2,000 accounts are now kept at the Bergedorf regis- The Library memorials in Germany and abroad. It from and biographical interviews with try office, these records represent the The Memorial has a reference library also receives many book donations former prisoners, a selection of most significant surviving documents open to the public that mainly and promotion copies. materials from the Hans Schwarz from the administration of the Neuen- focuses on the following areas: the Archive, around 28,000 photographs, gamme concentration camp. Neuengamme concentration camp Library opening hours: posters, maps, drawings, press All use of the archives or the data and its satellite camps, the concentra- Monday to Thursday: clippings, artefacts such as archaeo- bases on the Neuengamme prisoners tion camp system, persecution and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., logical finds from the grounds of the is regulated by the Hamburg Archive resistance in Northern Germany, Fridays 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. former camp, and audio and video Law and relevant data protection slave labour, educational questions and by prior arrangement media. regulations. In some cases, their use relating to concentration camp Data on almost half of the over may be restricted by the institutions memorials and memorial culture. The For more information, please contact 100,000 prisoners of Neuengamme or individuals who donated the collection includes around 15,000 Carola Kieras at the Memorial and its satellite camps can be acces- documents to the Memorial. books and 75 periodicals and is Phone: +49 40 428131-513 sed at several computer terminals. organised according to topic. Ten [email protected] There are few documents from the Archive opening hours: reading desks are available to visitors, Nazi period itself, as the SS at the Monday to Friday: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. one of which has Internet access. The Neuengamme concentration camp by appointment only library's holdings are catalogued destroyed almost all of its files in April alphabetically by title, key word and 1945 in an attempt to cover up their For questions and research appoint- subject, and the catalogue can be crimes. However, during the last days ments, please contact searched in a card index and online of April 1945, prisoners were able to Reimer Möller at the Memorial through the GBV Common Library hide several death ledgers and lab Phone: +49 40 428131-537 Index at www.gbv.de. The library not records from the camp's sickbays. [email protected] only buys new books, it also Apart from the death records from exchanges publications with more the camp's SS registry office, which than 60 research institutions and 96 Archives and Library The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 97

The Open Archive k The exhibition Posted to Neuen- Archive allows for exploratory The Open Archive gives visitors the gamme. The Camp SS learning processes during Project opportunity to research specific topics k The exhibitions at the satellite Days. in the exhibitions by accessing texts, camps From 2010, a selection of the Open images and other materials. Archive's collection will be accessible Information in both digital and The Open Archive's collection of online. analogue formats can be researched digital and analogue media is fully via a navigation system or an open searchable. A data base lists a short Open Archive opening hours: search at four computer terminals. description for each individual Monday to Friday: The topics covered in the Open element. In addition, the Open 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Archive are: Archive also contains a selection of Saturdays, Sundays and copies from the Memorial's extensive public holidays: k The Neuengamme concentration video and audio archive, including April to September, camp and its satellite camps films about the Neuengamme 12 noon to 7 p.m.; k Information on the buildings and concentration camp and edited October to March, 12 noon to 5 p.m. the grounds interviews with survivors and other k The development of the Memorial witnesses. Fictional and documentary For more information, please call: up to the present day films about victims and survivors of +49 40 428131-521 or -551 k The Memorial's educational work Nazi persecution complete the video k The Nazi period (including selection. Video interviews with The Open Archive is located directly information on regional history) witnesses are available in Danish, adjacent to the exhibition on the k Memorial policies and the politics of Dutch, English, French, German, camp's SS staff commemoration Polish and Russian. A selection of k The main exhibition Traces of clips from these films is also available History at the computer terminals. The Open 98 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 99

Branches

From 1942, both the Nazi armaments about what happened during the evacuated, the SS decided to murder was operated by the “Bullenhuser ministry and the German armaments evacuation of the camps. these chil- Damm Children” association. In 1985, industry demanded for more Today, the three memorials located in dren to cover up their crimes. The a rose garden designed by the Ham- concentration camp prisoners to be Hamburg itself – the Bullenhuser children and the four prisoner doc- burg-based artist Lili Fischer was used as slave labourers to support the Damm memorial, the Fuhlsbüttel tors and nurses who had cared for added to the memorial. That same German economy. Concentration Camp and Prison them were taken to an evacuated year, a monument to the murdered This led to the establishment of 1933-1945 memorial and the satellite camp located at a school on Soviet prisoners was designed by numerous satellite camps near Poppenbüttel prefabricated building Bullenhuser Damm in the Hamburg Moscow sculptor Anatoly Mossichuk factories or large construction sites, memorial – are all branches of the district of Rothenburgsort. There, the and was erected at the entrance to especially during the last year of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp SS men hanged the children and the the rose garden. war. By 1945, more than 85 satellite Memorial. doctors and nurses in the basement. The large painting “21 April 1945, camps of the Neuengamme concen- A few hours later, 24 Soviet POWs 5 a.m.” by the artist Jürgen Waller tration camp had been established in The Bullenhuser Damm were also murdered there. from Bremen has been on display at Hamburg and all over northern Memorial and the Rose Today, part of the building houses the the memorial since 1987. It covers Germany. Garden for the Bullenhuser Bullenhuser Damm memorial, which an entire wall and shows the school During the 1980s, memorials were Damm Children also includes the basement rooms basement on the morning after the established at many of these sites, SS doctor Kurt Heißmeyer performed where the SS committed the mur- children were murdered. often following years of public medical experiments with tubercu- ders. In 1979, this historical site was In 1994, a new permanent exhibition controversies. These were built losis on prisoners at the Neuen- brought to the public’s attention. was opened which documents the thanks to the commitment of gamme concentration camp. In In 1980, the school was renamed fate of the victims as well as the way individuals and initiatives in the November 1944, he had 20 children Janusz Korczak School and the first post-war German society dealt with private and public sector. brought to Neuengamme from the exhibition on the murders opened in the perpetrators and the history of More than 20 of these sites have Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination the basement. The memorial was how the crimes were remembered. exhibitions informing visitors about camp to experiment on them. completed in several steps over a When the memorial and the rose the history of each satellite camp or When the concentration camp was period of 20 years, during which it garden at Bullenhuser Damm came 100 Branches The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 101

under the authority of the Hamburg The Fuhlsbüttel Memorial death. From October 1944 until the different reasons for persecution. council and became part of the (Concentration Camp and February 1945, the SS also used part Another section deals with the Neuengamme Memorial in 1999, the Prison, 1933-1945) of the Fuhlsbüttel prison building as a post-war history of the site and the memorial was redesigned and In early 1933, the Hamburg State Neuengamme satellite camp. More lives of the perpetrators after the war. expanded. Police took over one of the cell blocks than 200 prisoners lost their lives in of the prison in the Fuhlsbüttel the camp. Address: district of Hamburg and used it as a From 1982, various initiatives Address: Bullenhuser Damm 92 concentration camp to imprison campaigned for the establishment of Suhrenkamp 98 20539 Hamburg political adversaries of the Nazi a memorial at the prison gate house 22335 Hamburg regime. The camp became known on Suhrenkamp road, and in March How to get there: and feared under the name “KolaFu”. 1985, the Hamburg Parliament ap- How to get there: Take S-Bahn (urban railway) lines 2 or In 1936, it was designated a “police proved the plans for a memorial. Take S-Bahn (urban railway) or 21 to Rothenburgsort prison”, but its new name did nothing Since 1987, the Fuhlsbüttel. Since U-Bahn (underground) lines S1, S11 to improve conditions there. The 1987, the Fulsbüttel memorial has or U1 to Ohlsdorf Opening hours: Fuhlsbüttel facility was used to im- been a branch of the Neuengamme Sundays: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. prison and torture people who Concentration Camp Memorial. It is Opening hours: and by prior arrangement. resisted the Nazi regime or refused to located in the prison's former Sundays: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free follow its social norms, such as the gatehouse and houses an exhibition and by prior arrangement. “swing kids”. Fuhlsbüttel was also on the history of the Fuhlsbüttel Admission is free Tours may be arranged by calling: used as a transit point for slave concentration camp and police prison +49 40 428131-0 labourers being taken to the Neuen- as well as the Fuhlsbüttel satellite To book a guided tour, please contact www.museumsdienst-hamburg.de gamme concentration camp for camp of Neuengamme. the Hamburg Museum Service at alleged transgressions and for prison- The exhibition also discusses what +49 40 428131-0 or visit ers who had been sentenced to happened to individual prisoners and www.museumsdienst-hamburg.de 102 Branches The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 103

The Poppenbüttel Memorial council. Biographies of individual prisoners Address: (The Prefab Building) Demolition of the roughly 370 are presented here to enable visitors Kritenbarg 8 Between mid-September 1944 and prefabricated buildings of the to examine the fates of some of the 22391 Hamburg the end of the war, the SS operated a Poppenbüttel housing estate began women who were imprisoned in the small satellite camp of the Neuen- in the late 1960s. The only building camp in more detail. One section of How to get there: gamme concentration camp in the left standing is the one which houses the building contains original Take S-Bahn line S1 or S11 to Sasel district of Hamburg. The the memorial today. furnishings used for temporary Poppenbüttel prisoners were 500 Jewish women The memorial, a branch of the housing from 1944. This part of the who had been transferred in two Neuengamme Memorial, was exhibition also offers information on Opening hours: groups to Neuengamme from the established in January 1985 on the construction of provisional Sundays: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination initiative from various groups. Its housing and the situation of the and by appointment camp. The women were housed in a exhibition was redesigned in 2008. It people who lived in the prefab Admission is free former POW camp on Feldblumen- now focuses mainly on the destruc- temporary housing estate. weg and were forced to work on the tion of Jewish life in Hamburg and the To book a guided tour, please contact construction of the temporary persecution of women by the Nazi the Hamburg Museum Service at housing estate of prefabricated state. It takes the district of Poppen- +49 40 428131-0 or visit buildings near the Poppenbüttel train büttel in 1944/45 as a starting point www.museumsdienst-hamburg.de stop. Work on this housing estate, for documenting the history of the which was intended for bombed-out Sasel women's satellite camp and inhabitants Hamburg, had been seven other women's satellite camps going on since November 1943. The of Neuengamme in Hamburg and prisoners also had to do slave labour Wedel. The exhibition also docu- on clearance detail in central ments the immediate post-war period Hamburg as well as for various and how post-war German society companies and the Hamburg city dealt with sites of Nazi persecution. 104 The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 105

Contact Details Literature

DIRECTOR OPEN ARCHIVE Literature in English Detlef Garbe Phone: +49 40 428131-551 Eichengreen, Lucille. From Ashes to Life. My Memories of the Holocaust. San Francis- Phone: +49 40 428131-511 or: co: Mercury House, 1994 [email protected] Iris Groschek Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. Traces of History. The Exhibitions. Phone: +49 40 428131-521 Bremen: Edition Temmen, 2005 MANAGEMENT [email protected] Sofsky, Wolfgang. The Order of Terror. Transl. by Wiliam Templer. Princeton: Prince- AND COMMUNICATIONS ton University Press, 1999 Wolfgang Stiller ARCHIVE Phone: +49 40 428131-547 Reimer Möller Literature in German [email protected] Phone: +49 40 428131-512 Arbeitsgemeinschaft Neuengamme e. V. in Zusammenarbeit mit der [email protected] KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme (Hrsg.): Gedenkstätten für die Opfer des PRESS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS KZ Neuengamme und seiner Außenlager. Redaktion: Hans-Joachim Höhler. Karin Schawe LIBRARY Hamburg 2000 (viersprachige Ausgabe: Deutsch, Englisch, Französisch, Russisch) Phone: +49 40 428131-536 Carola Kieras Baganz, Carina: Zehn Wochen KZ Wöbbelin. Ein Konzentrationslager in Mecklen- [email protected] Phone: +40 40 428131-513 burg 1945. Hrsg.: Mahn- und Gedenkstätten Wöbbelin. Wöbbelin 2000 [email protected] Borgsen, Werner/Klaus Volland: Stalag X B Sandbostel. Zur Geschichte eines RESEARCH AND INFORMATION Kriegsgefangenen- und KZ-Auffanglagers in Norddeutschland 1939–1945. 3. Aufl. Herbert Diercks CENTRAL OFFICE Bremen 2003 Phone: +49 40 428131-517 Phone: +49 40 428131-500 Buggeln, Marc: Das Außenlagersystem des Konzentrationslagers Neuengamme, in: [email protected] Sabine Moller/Miriam Rürup/Christel Trouvé (Hrsg.): Abgeschlossene Kapitel? Zur Geschichte der Konzentrationslager und der NS-Prozesse. Tübingen 2002, EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT S. 15–27 Iris Groschek Buggeln, Marc: Erinnerung am Ort der Tat. Außenlager des KZ Neuengamme, in: Phone: +49 40 428131-521 Dachauer Hefte 24 (2008), S. 138–152 [email protected] Diercks, Herbert (Hrsg.): Verschleppt nach Deutschland! Jugendliche Häftlinge des KZ Neuengamme aus der Sowjetunion erinnern sich. Hrsg. im Auftrag des CENTRE FOR HISTORICAL STUDIES Freundeskreises KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme e. V. und der KZ-Gedenkstätte Oliver von Wrochem Neuengamme. Bremen 2000 (auch in russischer Sprache erschienen) Phone: +49 40 428131-515 Ellger, Hans: Zwangsarbeit und weibliche Überlebensstrategien. Die Geschichte der [email protected] Frauenaußenlager des Konzentrationslagers Neuengamme 1944/45. Berlin 2007 Ernst, Christoph/Ulrike Jensen (Hrsg.): Als letztes starb die Hoffnung. Berichte von Überlebenden aus dem KZ Neuengamme. Hamburg 1989 106 Literature The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial 107

Eschebach, Insa: Das Konzentrationslager Neuengamme im Gedächtnis der frühen KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme (Hrsg.): Häftlinge im KZ Neuengamme. Verfolgungs- Nachkriegszeit, in: Dachauer Hefte 19 (2003), S. 71–88 erfahrungen, Häftlingssolidarität und nationale Bindung. Hamburg 1999 Garbe, Detlef: Stammlager Neuengamme, in: Wolfgang Benz/Barbara Distel (Hrsg.): KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme (Hrsg.): Die Ausstellungen. Deutsch – English – Der Ort des Terrors. Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Français. Redaktion: Detlef Garbe/Wolfgang Stiller. Bremen 2005 Bd. 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. Redaktion: Angelika Königseder. Lange, Wilhelm: Cap Arcona – Das tragische Ende einiger Konzentrationslager- München 2007, S. 315 – 346 Evakuierungstransporte im Raum der Stadt Neustadt in Holstein am 3. Mai 1945. Garbe, Detlef/Carmen Lange (Hrsg.): Häftlinge zwischen Vernichtung und Befreiung. Dokumentation. Erstellt im Auftrage des Magistrats der Stadt Neustadt in Holstein. 4. Die Auflösung des KZ Neuengamme und seiner Außenlager durch die SS im Früh- Aufl. Eutin/Neustadt in Holstein 2005 jahr 1945. Bremen 2005 Projektgruppe für die vergessenen Opfer des NS-Regimes/KZ-Gedenkstätte Hertz-Eichenrode, Katharina (Hrsg.): Ein KZ wird geräumt. Häftlinge zwischen Ver- Neuengamme (Hrsg.): »Und vielleicht überlebte ich nur, weil ich sehr jung war«. nichtung und Befreiung. Die Auflösung des KZ Neuengamme und seiner Außen- Verschleppt ins KZ Neuengamme: Lebensschicksale polnischer Jugendlicher. lager durch die SS im Frühjahr 1945. Katalog zur Wanderausstellung. Hrsg. im Redaktion: Georg Erdelbrock. Bremen 1999 Auftrag des Freundeskreises KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme. Bd. 1: Texte und Schwarberg, Günther: Der SS-Arzt und die Kinder vom Bullenhuser Damm. Dokumente; Bd. 2: Karten. Bremen 2000 Göttingen 2006 Jureit, Ulrike/Karin Orth: Überlebensgeschichten. Gespräche mit Überlebenden des Strebel, Bernhard: Celle April 1945 revisited. Ein amerikanischer Bombenangriff, KZ Neuengamme. Mit einem Beitrag von Detlef Garbe. Hamburg 1994. deutsche Massaker an KZ-Häftlingen und ein britisches Gerichtsverfahren. Kaienburg, Hermann: »Vernichtung durch Arbeit«. Der Fall Neuengamme. Die Wirt- Bielefeld 2008 schaftsbestrebungen der SS und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Existenzbedingungen der KZ-Gefangenen. Bonn 1990 Kaienburg, Hermann: Das Konzentrationslager Neuengamme 1938–1945. Hrsg.: KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme. Bonn 1997 Abbreviations in Photo Credits KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme (Hrsg.): Beiträge zur Geschichte der nationalsozialis- tischen Verfolgung in Norddeutschland. Heft 1: Rassismus in Deutschland (1994); ANg Neuengamme Memorial, Archive Heft 2: Kriegsende und Befreiung (1995); Heft 3: Die frühen Nachkriegsprozesse IWM Imperial War Museum, London (1997); Heft 4: Abgeleitete Macht – Funktionshäftlinge zwischen Widerstand und MDF Museet for Danmarks Frihedskamp 1940-1945, Copenhagen Kollaboration (1998); Heft 5: Verfolgung Homosexueller im Nationalsozialismus NIOD Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam (1999); Heft 6: Museale und mediale Präsentationen in Gedenkstätten (2001); StA HB Bremen State Archive Heft 7: Entgrenzte Gewalt. Täterinnen und Täter im Nationalsozialismus (2002); StA HH Hamburg State Archive Heft 8: Zwangsarbeit und Gesellschaft (2004); Heft 9: Schuldig. NS-Prozesse vor TNA The National Archives (Public Record Office), London deutschen Gerichten (2005); Heft 10: Hilfe oder Handel? Rettungsbemühungen USHMM United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. für NS-Verfolgte (2007); Heft 11: Ausgegrenzt. »Asoziale« und »Kriminelle« im nationalsozialistischen Lagersystem (2009) The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial was unable to locate all persons hold- ing the rights to images reproduced in this brochure. We would therefore kindly ask all those who hold rights to any images included here to please contact the Memorial. 108

Opening Hours and Guided Tours

EXHIBITIONS GUIDED TOURS Monday to Friday: To book tours and project days, please 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. contact the Hamburg Museum Service: Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, Phone: +49 40 428131-0 April to September: www.museumsdienst-hamburg.de 12 noon to 7 p.m October to March: For more information, please contact 12 noon to 5 p.m. Iris Groschek: Phone: +49 40 428131-521 OPEN ARCHIVE [email protected] Opening hours same as exhibition opening hours The Lutheran Commemoration Commit- Phone: +49 40 428131-551 tee (Arbeitskreis kirchliche Gedenk- stättenarbeit) also organises free guided ARCHIVE tours every Sunday at 12 noon and Monday to Friday: 2:30 p.m. The meeting point for these 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. tours is the prefab concrete building near and by prior arrangement the brickworks. Phone: +49 40 428131-537

LIBRARY Monday to Thursday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Friday: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and by prior arrangement Phone: +49 40 428131-513

Admission is free. Visitors can also access the grounds outside the Memorial's opening hours MAP OF THE GROUNDS Tour paths

“Mahnmal“ “Klinkerwerk“ “Ausstellung“ Entrance

Short tour path (1.5 km, around one hour) Buildings dating from before 1945 Area of the former prisoners‘ compound Toilets are located in buildings 5, 12 and Medium-length tour path Buildings dating from after 1945 Original fence posts 14 and are open during the exhibitions‘ opening hours. (3 km, around two hours) Marked outlines of demolished Reconstructed fence posts Long tour path (4.5 km, around three hours) buildings Information panel

1. Foundations of the former camp nursery 9. Supplementary exhibition on the wall 14. Main exhibition in the former 19. Special exhibitions 2. Foundations of the first monument put of the prison built in 1970 and torn prisoners‘ blocks 21 to 24: Traces of 20. Foundations of the former up in 1953 down in 2006: Prisons and Memorial: History: The Neuengamme Concen- camp prison (“bunker) 3. Monuments to individual groups Documenting a Contradiction tration Camp and its Post-War History 21. Information panel of victims and individual commem- 10. Clay pits and tipper wagons 15. Remains of the prison built in 1949 22. Former forge orative stones 11. Commandant‘s house and torn down in 2003 23. Commemorative plaque at the 4. International monument 12. Research exhibition in the former 16. Centre for Historical Studies, archive, site of the crematorium, which 5. House of Commemoration SS garages: Posted to Neuengamme: library and administration was demolished in 1947 6. Prefab building The Camp SS 17. Roll-call square (reconstructed 24. Historic Reichsbahn goods 7. Canal and docks Open Archive between 2002 and 2004) wagon with reconstructed 8. Supplementary exhibition in the 13. Former main SS guard house and 18. Supplementary exhibition in the railway tracks (camp train stop) former brickworks: watchtower former Walther factory: Mobilisation 25. Jean-Dolidier-Weg Labour and Annihilation: for the War-Time Economy: (formerly called Neuengammer Concentration Camp Prisoners Concentration Camp Prisoners as Slave Heerweg) as Slave Labourers in Brick Production Labourers in Armaments Production 26. Coach park