in detail
The Ladelund Satellite Camp of Concentration Camp Neuengamme existed for only six weeks. From November 1 to December 16, 1944, approximately 3,000 people passed through this camp. 301 of the prisoners died in Ladelund, a small town on the border of Denmark. In addition, an indefinite number of people were transported back to Neuengamme before their death. The death rate in Ladelund is one of the highest for a satellite concentration camp.
In 1938, the camp was built for two hundred men who worked in forestry as well as other areas of the Reich Labor Service. In November 1944, 2,000 concentration camp prisoners were packed into the camp to dig anti-tank ditches, a militarily useless operation at that point.
The prisoners for the most part were Dutch, but there were also many Poles, Russians and people from ten other nations who were considered "political criminals". They had participated in resistance against the occupying powers or had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and were taken hostage. The men died mostly from malnutrition, disease and beatings. They stood all day in ice cold mud or water in the ditches and were often arbitrarily beaten by the Kapos. They could not change their wet clothes.
The camp was located just a few hundred meters outside the town and the townspeople could hear screams in the evenings. In the first weeks, the wretched prisoners always marched directly through the town on their way to work. The Pastor Johannes Meyer, a devoted National Socialist who led the church community, tried to improve the living conditions in the camp. He succeeded in assuring that everyone who died in Ladelund received a Christian burial and that there be accurate records of who died and when and where they were buried.
Ladelund has been an official concentration camp memorial since 1950. Relatives saw to it that the dead remained at the Ladelund Cemetery. Gradually the barracks were torn down until by 1970 none were left. A memorial stone was erected in 1985 near the grounds of the camp. Since November 1990, there has been a permanent exhibition about the Ladelund satellite camp located in a documentation house that was especially built in Ladelund for this purpose.
1938
The Ladelund Camp of the Reich Labor Service ("Reichsarbeitsdienst") is built for 200 men.
November 1 - December 16, 1944
Three thousand people are imprisoned at the Neuengamme satellite concentration camp.
1950
The Ladelund Concentration Camp Memorial is established.
1970
The last barracks are torn down.
1984
A traveling exhibition is created.
1991
A permanent exhibition and documentation center are opened.
