More than 40,000 people died in the Hamburg-Neuengamme concentration camp and its satellite camps during the Nazi era. When the British reached the camp on May 4, 1945, they found it empty.
The sheer size of the site alone is striking:the concentration camp memorial in Neuengamme in Hamburg's Vierlanden area covers 57 hectares - the size of around 80 football pitches. It took many years before the history of the concentration camp was comprehensively documented publicly and the victims were commemorated appropriately:the entire area has only been a memorial since 2005. Previously there was only one memorial, which was inaugurated on November 7, 1965.
Nazis evacuated the camp as a cover-up
With around 100,400 prisoners, the Hamburg-Neuengamme concentration camp, including the 86 satellite camps, was the largest in north-west Germany. At least 42,900 people did not survive the Nazi terror there. The first 100 prisoners arrived in Hamburg from Sachsenhausen concentration camp on December 12, 1938. When the British reached the camp on May 4, 1945, they found it empty. The Nazis had it evacuated to cover up their crimes.
Circular routes through the concentration camp lead to places of terror
The city of Hamburg used the site as a prison until 2003. Relatives of the concentration camp victims could not even enter the place where their relatives had suffered. It was only after the penal institution was demolished that the way was clear for a memorial, which today encompasses the entire area of the former concentration camp. Three circular routes of 1.5 to 4.5 kilometers in length lead to the central places of horror:the roll call square, where the prisoners had to line up several times a day and where public executions also took place. The arrest bunker with narrow individual cells where hundreds of prisoners were killed and the crematorium where the corpses of the concentration camp prisoners were burned.
Neuengamme:exhibition in the former prisoner block
Large areas of quarry stone mark the ground plans of the camp's former barracks.The main exhibition of the memorial is located in a former prisoner block behind the reconstructed roll call area. It documents the crimes committed in Neuengamme and the suffering of the prisoners between 1938 and 1945. It also focuses on the subsequent use of the former concentration camp, which for decades prevented Neuengamme from becoming a real memorial. Four supplementary exhibitions can be seen in other historical buildings. Among other things, they address the concentration camp forced labor in armaments production in the former halls of the Walther-Werke armaments factory. The exhibition in the former clinker factory documents the inhuman working conditions of the forced laborers in brick production under the title "Work and Destruction".
Memorial commemorates the victims
Panels of fabric with the names of the victims commemorate the dead of Neuengamme.A visit to the memorial should also include a walk to the International Memorial and House of Remembrance, which are about a kilometer from the main entrance. It was not until 1965 that the memorial for the victims of the concentration camp was inaugurated on the edge of the site and outside the area of the former prison. It consists of a simple stele intended to commemorate the chimney of the crematorium, a wall of honor and a bronze sculpture of a dying prisoner. In the House of Remembrance, the names of 22,460 prisoners and their date of death are written on long strips of material. Another room is dedicated to the thousands of other victims whose names are unknown. The House of Remembrance was originally a small document house, which housed the only exhibition on the Neuengamme concentration camp until 1995.
Prisoners from all over Europe
Some of the prisoners had to do forced labor in this clinker factory.At the end of 1938, initially set up as a satellite camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp (Brandenburg), the Neuengamme concentration camp became an independent camp in 1940. With 86 branch offices, it was the largest in north-west Germany. For example, prisoners in Bremen and Wilhelmshaven had to build ships for the Navy. On the camp site itself, many prisoners toiled away in the clinker brick factory. Others had to clear away debris from bomb damage or dig anti-tank ditches in the inner city.
Murderous operation on the Dove-Elbe
Prisoners assigned to the so-called Elbe Commando had the lowest chances of surviving. In order to make the Dove-Elbe navigable, they had to excavate the body of water and build a branch canal to the camp. From 1941 the majority of the prisoners came from the occupied countries. Initially the Polish prisoners, and from 1942 the Soviet prisoners formed the largest group. More than half of the prisoners came from Eastern Europe, but large groups also came from France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark.
In April 1945, the SS evacuated the camp in Neuengamme
In the final days of World War II, the Nazis began to evacuate the Neuengamme camp and cover up the traces of Nazi crimes. Some of the prisoners were sent on death marches, some were taken on ships to Neustadt in Holstein. On May 2, 1945, the last prisoners and SS men left the camp. When British soldiers entered the Neuengamme concentration camp on May 4, they found it empty. Just one day earlier, on May 3, 1945, around 7,000 concentration camp prisoners died on the ships "Cap Arcona" and "Thielbek" in Neustadt Bay after British bombardments. They fell victim to a tragic error:the British suspected German troops on the ships.
Some of those responsible for the Neuengamme concentration camp had to answer before a British military court in 1946. At the so-called Curiohaus trial, which began on March 18, 1946 in Hamburg, 14 SS men were accused. The court imposed the death penalty on eleven of them. The remaining three convicts received prison sentences.
Long way to the memorial
Because the Nazis had still cleared the camp, no horror pictures of emaciated prisoners from Neuengamme went around the world. Unlike Bergen-Belsen, for example, the name Neuengamme did not become the epitome of Nazi terror internationally. After the end of the war, the British interned members of the SS and German prisoners of war in the camp, which they found intact. From 1948 the British handed over the camp to the city of Hamburg, which set up a prison on the site. The memories of the concentration camp were suppressed.
Instead of erecting a memorial, the city of Hamburg tore down more and more evidence of the horror such as watchtowers, fences and the former crematorium. After years of discussion, the site was finally converted into a memorial in 2003 and the post-war buildings were demolished.
Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial
Jean-Dolidier-Weg 75
21039 Hamburg
Opening hours of the exhibitions
Mon - Fri 9.30 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Sat, Sun and public holidays:
October to March 12 p.m. - 5 p.m.
April to September 12 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Admission free
The site is also accessible outside of opening hours.
Arrival
S-Bahn station Bergedorf (S2/S21), then bus 227 or 327.
By car via the A 25, exit Curslack. The memorial is signposted.
More information on the memorial website
Three other memorials
In addition to the central memorial in Neuengamme, three others in former branch offices on Bullenhuser Damm, in Fuhlsbüttel and in Poppenbüttel commemorate the victims of the Nazi regime. The school on Bullenhuser Damm is a place with a particularly tragic history:on April 20, 1945, SS people hanged 20 Jewish children on whom medical experiments had been carried out in the school's basement. In the former gatehouse of the Fuhlsbüttel prison, visitors can find out more about the fate of the prisoners in the concentration camp and Gestapo prison in an exhibition. More than 250 people died there between 1933 and 1945. The Poppenbüttel memorial prefabricated building documents the destruction of Jewish life in the Hanseatic city and the persecution of women under National Socialism.