Neuengamme Concentration Camp

The collection contains among others:

kitchen log, bread distribution list, various correspondence, documents relating to the maritime disaster in Lübeck Bay, reports on outside units, correspondence, prisoner register (in part according to nations, in part post-war compilation), transport lists, identification of dead, files on the salvaging of corpses in Lübecker Bay (maritime disaster "Cap Arcona and Thielbeck") compiled by the Police Group Schleswig-Holstein/South, death announcements of the Hannover Public Order Office sent to the Arolsen Special Registry Office (cases of death 1944-1945) post-war compilations), documents relating to exhumations, graves lists, “work logs” of the prisoner hospital, arrival lists, personal file-dossier, lists of personal property from CC Neuengamme-prisoners (post-war listings), death notifications, death lists, listing of survivors, Red-Cross-correspondence, post-war reports, witness testimonies, court files, prisoner registration cards without names but including the date of birth, prisoner identification number and date of arrival at the camp, arrival date, “secondary death books” and death certificates issued by various civil records registry offices, medical records, prisoner registration form.

History of Concentration Camp Neuengamme 1938-1945:

Over the course of the war the Gestapo and Security Service deported over 100,000 people from all the occupied countries in Europa to Concentration Camp Neuengamme, which was established in 1938 as a satellite camp of Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen and as of 1940 was an autonomous camp. By the end of 1940 there were already 2,900 prisoners in Neuengamme At that point in time German prisoners formed the largest group. This changed as the war progressed. As of 1941 the majority of the prisoners in CC Neuengamme were from the occupied territories. 1941/42 Polish prisoners formed the largest group in the camp, from 1942/43 it was Soviet prisoners. The total portion of foreign prisoners in CC Neuengamme was over 90 percent. More than half of them came from East Europe and East--Central Europe, but there were also considerable numbers from France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. The reasons for internment were primarily resisting German occupation, the punishment of forced laborers and the abduction as hostages and as victims of “acts of revenge”. Starting in 1941 Soviet prisoners of war were sent to CC Neuengamme, it wasn’t until 1944/45 that also foreign Jews arrived in larger numbers. From the very start the prisoners had to do forced labor in the “work unit Dove Elbe”: They had to widen and deepen the river Dove Elbe, so that transport ships could call at the brickworks in Neuengamme. The demanding physical labor,the poor living conditions and the abuse by the SS-guard units caused many deaths among the prisoners. As of January 1942 those prisoners who were no longer able to work were murdered by phenol injection. On 28 August 1942 an initial outlying camp was set up in Wittenberge, with 150 inmates from Neuengamme who had to work in industrial plants. In the following years satellite camps were set up all over northern Germany, in1944 alone the SS set up sixty further outlying camps. The prisoners in all of the 87 sub-camps of CC Neuengamme had to work on construction sites and in armaments factories, as well as clearing away bombing rubble in the cities On 26 March 1945 the SS began clearing out Neuengamme and its satellite camps holding over 50,000 prisoners. Most of the prisoners were transported to “absorption camps” such as Wöbbelin or Bergen-Belsen. The SS disbanded the main camp in Neuengamme on 20 April 1945, not before executing many of the prisoners there. The last of the remaining prisoners and the SS personnel left the camp on 2 May 1945.Many of the prisoners were taken on board CC ships to Lübeck, where, due to the confined space, hunger, thirst and sickness in the cargo area, they died. During a British air attack on 3 May 1945, intended to prevent German troops from withdrawing over the Baltic Sea, the two ships Cap Arcona und Thielbek, anchored off the coast of Neustadt, caught fire. Almost 6,600 prisoners burned to death, drowned, or were shot while trying to escape.

Source: Garbe, Detlef: Neuengamme (KZ), in: Lexikon des Holocaust, ed.by Wolfgang Benz, München 2002, p. 158-159. http://www.memorialmuseums.org/denkmaeler/view/238/KZ-Gedenkst%C3%A4tte-Neuengamme [Latest access: 2012-08-07] and http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de [Latest access: 2012-08-07].