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Neuengamme
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Neuengamme is a quarter of the district Bergedorf within the City of Hamburg, Germany. Before and during World War II, a Nazi concentration camp was established by the SS. Since this concentration camp was located in the quarter Neuengamme, the name of the concentration camp became KZ Neuengamme. The site is one of the few concentration camps in Germany where most of the buildings have been conserved and serves as a memorial today.
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Encyclopedia
Neuengamme is a quarter of the district Bergedorf within the City of Hamburg, Germany. Before and during World War II, a Nazi concentration camp was established by the SS. Since this concentration camp was located in the quarter Neuengamme, the name of the concentration camp became KZ Neuengamme. The site is one of the few concentration camps in Germany where most of the buildings have been conserved and serves as a memorial today. It is situated 15 km southeast of the centre of Hamburg in the Vierlande area. From over 100,000 inmates, almost half of them died.
History
Nazi concentration camp
The camp existed from December 13, 1938 through May 4, 1945 and had a total of 106,000 inmates during this time. These were spread over the main camp (213,000 m²) and 96 outposts across the north German area. Inmates were from 28 nationalities (Soviets (34,350), Poles (16,900), Frenchmen (11,500), Germans (9,200), Dutchmen (6,950), Belgians (4,800), Danes (4,800)) and also from the local Jewish community, but also included communists, homosexuals, prostitutes, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, prisoners of war and many other groups. 55,000 succumbed to the subhuman conditions in the camp from hard manual work with insufficient nutrition, very unhygienic conditions and violence from the guards.
Work at the mother camp was centered on the production of bricks. This included the construction of a canal to transport the bricks to and from the site. Inmates had to excavate the heavy, peaty soil with inadequate tools and regardless of weather conditions or their health state.
In late 1943, most likely November, Neuengamme recorded its first female prisoners according to camp records. In the summer of 1944, Neuengamme received many women prisoners from Auschwitz, as well other camps in the East. All of the women were eventually shipped out to one of its twenty-four female subcamps. Female guards were trained at Neuengamme and assigned to one of its female subcamps. There were no SS women stationed at Neuengamme permanently. Many of these women are known by name, including Kaethe Becker, Erna Dickmann, Johanna Freund, Angelika Grass, Kommandoführerin Loni Gutzeit (who also served at Hamburg-Wandsbek and was nicknamed "The Dragon of Wandsbek" by the prisoners), Gertrud Heise, Frieda Ignatowitz, Gertrud Moeller, who also served at Boizenburg subcamp, Lotte Johanna Radtke, chief wardress Annemie von der Huelst, Inge Marga Marggot Weber. Many of the women were later dispersed to female subcamps throughout northern Germany. Today it is known that female guards staffed the subcamps of Neuengamme at Boizenburg, Braunschweig SS-Reitschule, Hamburg-Sasel, Hamburg-Wandsbek, Helmstedt-Beendorf, Langenhorn, Neugraben, Obernheide, Salzwedel, and Unterluss (Vuterluss). Only a few have been tried for war crimes, such as Anneliese Kohlmann, who served as one of only six woman guards at Neugraben.
On April 26, 1945, the SS Cap Arcona, loaded with about 10,000 prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp, Thielbek and Athen, was brought into the Bay of Lübeck. On May 3, 1945, the Cap Arcona, the Thielbek, and the passenger liner Deutschland were sunk in four separate attacks by RAF planes.
After the end of the war, first the camp was used as a Russian DP (Displaced persons) Camp, German prisoners of war were held separated. Since June 1945 the camp was used by the British forces as an internment camp for SS members and Nazi officials. The Civil Internment Camp No. 6 was closed on 13 August 1948. Since 1948 the city of Hamburg used the camp as a prison. Several original buildings of the camp continued to serve as locations in this prison (for example Building Number 9), until February 2006. Since the demolition of the new-build structures in 2007 the whole area is used as a memorial.
Inmates census
Between December 13, 1938 and May 4, 1945, about 52% of the population of in all kommandos depending on Neuengamme had died.
Well known inmates
Ongoing historical research
Due to the demolition of the Neuengamme camp and its records by the SS in 1945 and the transportation of inmates to other subcamps or other working locations, the historical work is difficult and ongoing. For example: in 1967 the German Federal Ministry of Justice stated the camp from September 1, 1938 until May 5, 1945. In 2008, the organisation of the Neuengamme memorial site (German: KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme)—an establishment of the Hamburg Ministry of Culture, Sports and Media—stated that the empty camp was explored by British forces on May 2, 1945 and the last inmates were liberated in Flensburg on May 10, 1945. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum stated that the camp was established on December 13, 1938 and liberated on May 4, 1945.
Memorial
The KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme (Neuengamme memorial site) is located at Jean-Dolidier-Weg 75 in Hamburg-Bergedorf. A first memorial was erected in 1953 on the site of the former camp garden. It was expanded in 1965, and a "document house" was added in 1981. In 1989, the Hamburg Senate decided that the prisons erected in 1950 and 1970 on the camp site should be relocated. The older one was closed in 2003, the newer in 2006. In 2005 a new memorial site and museum were opened. Since 1985, there are also memorials at the subcamps Fuhlsbüttel and Sasel, and in the Bullenhuser Damm school, where a number of children were murdered after being subjected to medical experiments.
Three of the camp's outposts also serve as public memorials. These are located at Bullenhuser Damm, Kritenbarg 8 and Suhrenkamp 98.
The first of these is a memorial to the murder of 20 children from the Auschwitz concentration camp that had been taken to Hamburg and abused for medical experiments. On April 20, 1945, only weeks before the war was over, they were killed to cover up that crime. The second is an outpost of Neuengamme concentration camp in Hamburg-Sasel where Jewish women from the Lódz Ghetto in Poland were forced to do construction work. The third one is located inside the gatehouse of the Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary. Parts of this complex served as concentration camp for communists, opponents of the regime and many other groups. About 450 inmates were murdered here during the Nazi reign.
20,400 victims, listed by name through the camp memorial Neuengamme, died in the camp and the subcamps. But there are estimated 26,800 victims. During the last days of the camp and "evacuation" about 17,000 people died.
See also
External links
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