History of Europe

KZ Moringen:A camp for false youths

by Michael HollenbachThree concentration camps were run by the National Socialists in Moringen between 1933 and 1945 - here is an undated photo of the command post with the flags.

The Moringen concentration camp in southern Lower Saxony was one of the first camps set up by the National Socialists. Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis set up three of these camps in succession in the small town in the Northeim district. During the Second World War, it was mainly young people who were imprisoned here. 75 years ago, on April 9, 1945, US troops liberated the youth concentration camp.

The "crime" of these youths? They listened to the wrong music or wore the wrong clothes. In Moringen, the aim was to exclude young people who, because of their musical preferences such as swing music, did not fit into the image of the so-called national community, says Dietmar Sedlaczek, head of the Moringen concentration camp memorial. Young people who attracted attention because of their different appearance:they dressed differently. And, for example, "with long hair and English jackets and with their whole demeanor, they expressed that they had nothing to do with this system," explains Sedlaczek. "And that was perceived as a threat."

Young people had to build motorway bridges

The Moringen concentration camp memorial has been located in a former gatehouse since 1993.

By the end of the war, almost 300 young people and young men were imprisoned in the Moringen concentration camp. The youngest was only 13 years old. The inmates had to work for companies both inside and outside the camp. Among other things, they were also involved in the construction of the motorway bridges on the A7.

Attempted embezzlement in the 80s

After the war, the Moringers no longer wanted to remember this dark chapter. At the 1,000-year celebration of the location in 1983, an attempt was made to suppress the existence of the concentration camp:"There was even a vote in the city council as to whether there really was a concentration camp. That's unique:a city council decides whether there is a specific one event," says Sedlaczek.

The fate of peers creates a special closeness

But since 1993 there has been a memorial on the site of the former concentration camp. Pupils in particular are often very inquisitive, as Sedlaczek has observed. The history of the youth concentration camp arouses particular interest, as the young people come across the fates of their peers from the Nazi era. "Of course it's different when it's the fate of other young people."

Corona:Memorial commemorates victims and liberation digital

The Moringen Memorial had originally planned a memorial event to commemorate the liberation of the camp by US troops on April 9, 1945 - but this had to be canceled due to the corona pandemic. "It hurts a lot, because this year we were expecting former prisoners of the youth concentration camp from Austria and Slovenia with their relatives," said a spokesman for the concentration camp memorial in the Northeim district.

Instead, the victims of the youth concentration camp are now commemorated digitally - with photos and historical documents that will be distributed as a multimedia post by the memorial site on its Facebook and Twitter pages by May 20th.

Communicating horror through comics and plays

In times without the Corona crisis, the Moringen memorial relies on direct contact and tries to address young people in a targeted manner. For example with the play "The Improvement", which was created in cooperation with the theater production in Goettingen. The memorial was also the first to take up the difficult topic of Nazi persecution in the form of comics.

In addition, the memorial normally works together with the cooperative comprehensive school in Moringen. Stefan von Huene is a history teacher there. His pupils visit the local memorial in the 6th and 9th grades, and von Huene usually also goes to Auschwitz for a week with an upper-level course:there, where inmates from Moringen also died. He received very positive feedback from the students and their parents for this very intensive project, says von Huene. It brought the students a lot further to deal with these abysses of history.

"History and political commitment belong together"

One of his students is Steven Achterberg. The 18-year-old wrote his thesis on medical experiments on sterilized women in Auschwitz. For him, looking back at the history of the Nazi system and political commitment belong together today:"The events are a long way away. But the fact that we are feeling a shift to the right again today means that we have to focus more clearly than we did back then was - so that something like this doesn't happen again."