Sandbostel Absorption Camp

Scope and content

The collection contains primarily:

Prisoner lists, death lists, cemetery lists, lists of survivors

History of Absorption Camp Sandbostel 1939-1945:

The „Stalag X B Sandbostel“ (Main rank-and-file and punishment camp) was constructed in 1939 as a prisoner-of-war camp near Sandbostel in what is now Lower Saxony. Several thousand Poles were among the first prisoners. As the war continued, more prisoners came from all over Europe from Italy, France, Yugoslavia, Belgium and as of 1941 from the Soviet Union. The Soviet prisoners of war formed the largest part of the prisoners. At times up to 50,000 people were interned there. For the majority of the prisoners, however, Stalag X B Sandbostel was only a transit camp: the prisoners were forced to work in agriculture or in armament factories. For this purpose they were separated into so-called work units and housed near their work sites. Many prisoners died from hunger, exhaustion and illness. In April 1945 the SS placed an additional 9,000 CC inmates from Neuengamme and its satellite camps, which were dissolved at that time, in Sandbostel in a separate area of the camp. A few days later, on 20 April 1945,the SS and some of the guard units, together with a few hundred prisoners, left the camp, heading towards Flensburg. Between 20 and 29 April 1945 the captives were given meager provisions by the prisoners-of-war in the adjacent area of the camp. On 29 April Camp Sandbostel was finally liberated by British troops. At least 3,000 prisoners died of starvation and typhus between 12 and 29 April 1945 and the weeks that followed.

Source: http://www.memorialmuseums.org/denkmaeler/view/47/Dokumentations--und-Gedenkst%C3%A4tte-Sandbostel [Latest access: 2012-08-06].