in detail
At the end of 1938, the SS established a satellite camp to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Hamburg-Neuengamme. In the early summer of 1940, this camp was declared an independent concentration camp. During the Second World War, tens of thousands of people from all of the occupied countries in Europe were deported to Neuengamme. In the final years of the war, over eighty satellite camps existed throughout all of northern Germany. The living and working conditions were fatal. The SS referred to it as “extermination through work”. Approximately the half of the 100,000 prisoners at Neuengamme died there.
After the war, the former concentration camp buildings were used initially as a “displaced persons” camp and later as an internment camp. In 1948, the British occupying authorities transferred the camp to the Free and Hansa City of Hamburg which erected a prison at the site. Pressure from French former prisoners in particular, resulted in 1953 in a memorial column being erected on the grounds of the former camp nursery. At the same place in 1965, a memorial comprising a stele, a sculpture and a commemorative wall with panels from different nations was opened to the public. A documentation house with a first permanent exhibition was created in 1981. In September 2001, the Hamburg city parliament unanimously voted for a new design of the memorial site. The prisons were closed and the new design was completed by 2003.
With a total area of ca. 50 ha and 17 buildings from the time when the concentration camp still existed, Neuengamme is one of the largest concentration camp memorial sites in Germany and as a “exhibition, encounter and study center” of importance beyond the region. It is dedicated both to confronting the history, but also to address present and future concerns. In addition to the main exhibition entitled "Traces of History: Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945 and its Post-war History", there is a research exhibition entitled "Posted to Neuengamme Concentration Camp: The Camp SS" and two supplementary exhibitions on "Mobilisation for the Wartime Economy: Concentration Camp Prisoners as Slave Labourers in Armaments Production" and "Labour and Extermination: Concentration Camp Prisoners as Slave Labourers in Brick Production". All of the exhibitions are housed in buildings which were erected during the site's use as a concentration camp. A tour of the grounds shows the remaining buildings and installations of the concentration camp. One can see the SS main guard house, the Commander`s house, two former prisoner barracks and the former brick factory and harbor-basin. The tour ends at the “House of Remembrance” with the “Hall of Names”.
1938-1945
The area is used by the Nazis as a concentration camp.
1948
The city of Hamburg establishes a judicial penitentiary on the grounds of the former prison camp.
1953
A memorial column is erected on the site of the former camp nursery.
1965
A monument consisting of a stele, a sculpture and a memorial wall with panels from different nations is inaugurated.
1981
The documentation house with a first permanent exhibition opens.
1989
The Hamburg Senate decides to move the penitentiary in the near future.
1995
A new permanent exhibition opens in the former Walther Works. The former documentation house is converted to a "House of Remembrance".
2005
Opening of the new Neuengammer concentration camp memorial site as an "exhibition, encounter and study center"
View of the grounds where once the wooden barracks stood, in the background the main exhibition building, 2014 (KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme)
Hamburg, 1990s, Former Klinkerwerk (KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme)
View of the main exhibition, 2009 (KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme)
House of Remembrance, 2013 (KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme)
