in detail
The Ahrensbök memorial museum building is the only remaining architectural remain of an early concentration camp in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. This camp existed only for 6 weeks, from October 3rd to December 10th, 1933.
From November 1, 1932 to March 16, 1933, the SPD affiliated Reichsbanner Youth had a volunteer work-duty camp in the former director house of an old sugar factory. In Lübeck, a part oft he region situated in the Free State of Oldenburg, after the Nazi’s came to power, all “political prisoners” were interned in so called “protective custody camp” of the district court prison of Eutin. On October 3, 1933, the prisoners from Eutin were transferred to the building in Ahrensbök-Holsteindorf that had been set up as a concentration camp.
On December 1, 1933, the leadership school of the Nordmark group of the NSDAP moved into the building of the Ahrensbök middle school. The schoolchildren school were in turn transferred to the building of the Holstendorf concentration camp while the prisoner of the early concentration camp were moved to a building in the center of Ahrensbök. On May 9, 1934, the concentration camp was closed down. A total of more than 300 “protective custody prisoners” were interned in the Eutin/Ahrensbök concentration camp during its existence.
In 1936, as part of the Nazi autarky program, the Flachsröste cooperative was founded and had hundreds of foreign forced laborer working for it. On April 13, 1945, ca. 500 survivors of the National Socialist concentration camp came through Ahrensbök. The prisoners were forced to live for about 14 days in two sheds before they were crowded together on the Cap Arcona that was sunk on May 3 in the Lübecker Bay near Neustadt.
The research on the Eutin concentration camp was conducted in the seventies by the Canadian historian Lawrence D. Stokes. Through the research on the local history by Gerhard Hoch in the late eighties the fate of the Jewish prisoners of Fürstengrube became known. The study by Jörg Wollenberg in the late 1990s brought the entire spectrum of National Socialist tyranny in Ahrensbök to light. In June 1998, the Group 33 – Workgroup for contemporary history in Ahrensbök was founded. In the summer of 1999, the first international youth camp of Action Reconciliation Peace Service took place. On September 1, 1999, as part of the road sign project, the route of the concentration camp prisoners on the last stretch is marked. On May 8, 2000 the Ahrensbök memorial site sponsor association was founded. On May 8, 2001, the Ahrensbök memorial site opened with the first part of the permanent exhibition on the death march from Auschwitz to Holstein.
1883: Director's house of a sugar factory
1908: Director's house of the Chemical factory Dr. Christ
1932: November - March 1933: volunteer work-duty camp of the SPD affiliated "Reichsbanner" Youth
1933: October, 3rd - December 6th, early concentration camp
1934: January - March, site of a Middle School of Ahrensbök
1936 Founding of the Flachsröste cooparative with foreign forced laborers
1945, April: About 500 survivors of two concentration camps - Auschwitz, Mittelbau-Dora - were forced to march through Ahrensbök.They stayed for 14 days in two sheds in Siblin and Sarau.
May 3rd: Majority died on the Cap Arcona, a ship crowded with prisoners that was sunk in the Lübeck Bay near the town of Neustadt
