Metadata : Detention Reports
Collection
- Country:
- Germany
- Holding institution:
- Archive of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiv KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme
- Postal address:
- Jean-Dolidier-Weg 75, 21039 Hamburg
- Phone number:
- 0049 40 428131537
- Country:
- Germany
- Holding institution:
- Archive of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiv KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme
- Postal address:
- Jean-Dolidier-Weg 75, 21039 Hamburg
- Phone number:
- 0049 40 428131537
- Reference number:
- HB
- Title:
- Detention Reports
- Title (official language):
- Haftberichte
- Date(s):
- 1990/2020
- Date note:
- 1990-current
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 2,000 items
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- Very few Jews interned in Neuengamme came from the German Reich. Most of those registered as "Germans" and "Jews" came from Austria, the Sudetenland and from the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" in Czechoslovakia. Other Jews came to Neuengamme with the first Polish, Dutch and Belgian prisoners. Orginally, they were not arrested due to their religion but were accused of various crimes, but within the camp were subjected to particularly poor treatment due to their religion. In the course of the "14 f 13" murder campaign in June 1942, 81 Polish, Belgian and Dutch Jewish prisoners from the Neuengamme were gassed in the concentration camp Bernburg/Saale. All remaining Jews were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing centre in autumn 1942. Until spring 1944, no prisoners registered as Jews lived in the Neuengamme concentration camp. The field reports in this collection describe the experiences of Jewish prisoners from the perspective of other prisoners.
- Archival history:
- Especially since the 1990s former prisoners and their relatives contacted the memorial to receive an attestation about their time in the camp. In order to get such a certificate, they usually attached letters and other (auto)biographical documents which then became part of the archive at the memorial.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Neuengamme concentration camp was initially a sub-camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp between December 1938 and January 1940. In August 1938, the SS operation Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH [German Earth and Stone Works] had acquired land near Neuengamme near the city of Hamburg. There was also a disused brickworks on the property. In December 1938 the first 100 prisoners arrived who were entrusted with making the brickworks operational again. In a second development phase from March 1940 to summer 1942, Neuengamme developed into an independent main camp. In June 1940, the number of detainees amounted to about 1000 persons. A new clinker brick factory was built. Due to the increasing lack of manpower in the war economy, the SS shifted the prisoners' deployment from a focus on building materials production to the war economy between spring 1942 and April 1945. The prisoners of the concentration camp were deployed in industrial plants surrounding the camp and the number of prisoners rose to 13,000 by the end of 1942. As part of the wartime use of the concentration camp, a number of satellite camps were set up. Concentration camp prisoners were also obliged to clean up bombed districts in northern German cities. With the advancing front, the main camp and the sub-camps were forcibly evacuated and prisoners were sent on death marches or taken by freight trains to Lübeck to the three ships "Cap Arcona", "Thielbek" and “Athens“. Of the 106,000 prisoners in Neuengamme, 55,000 probably lost their lives; in the last weeks of the camp alone an estimated 15,000 were killed.
From autumn 1942 to spring 1944 there were no prisoners registered as Jews in the Neuengamme concentration camp. It was not until the reorientation towards the war economy that workers were recruited from ghettos and killing centres and deported to Neuengamme concentration camp and its sub-camps, among other places. In this context, the first female prisoners came to one of Neuengamme's women's sub-camps from Auschwitz in mid-1944. The prisoner cards of the women imprisoned in Neuengamme's sub-camps show that the majority of them were Jewish (at least 9,700). Another smaller group of prisoners consisted of political prisoners, some "asocial" prisoners, a few "gypsies" and five Bible researchers. The majority of the Jewish women came from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
- Access points: locations:
- Hamburg
- Neuengamme
- System of arrangement:
- The material is arranged by name of interviewee.
- Access, restrictions:
- Access is by appointment only.
- Finding aids:
- A database is available in the archive. The content is indexed and searchable with a thesaurus.
- Author of the description:
- Esther Yen
- Reference number:
- HB
- Title:
- Detention Reports
- Title (official language):
- Haftberichte
- Date(s):
- 1990/2020
- Date note:
- 1990-current
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 2,000 items
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- Very few Jews interned in Neuengamme came from the German Reich. Most of those registered as "Germans" and "Jews" came from Austria, the Sudetenland and from the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" in Czechoslovakia. Other Jews came to Neuengamme with the first Polish, Dutch and Belgian prisoners. Orginally, they were not arrested due to their religion but were accused of various crimes, but within the camp were subjected to particularly poor treatment due to their religion. In the course of the "14 f 13" murder campaign in June 1942, 81 Polish, Belgian and Dutch Jewish prisoners from the Neuengamme were gassed in the concentration camp Bernburg/Saale. All remaining Jews were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing centre in autumn 1942. Until spring 1944, no prisoners registered as Jews lived in the Neuengamme concentration camp. The field reports in this collection describe the experiences of Jewish prisoners from the perspective of other prisoners.
- Archival history:
- Especially since the 1990s former prisoners and their relatives contacted the memorial to receive an attestation about their time in the camp. In order to get such a certificate, they usually attached letters and other (auto)biographical documents which then became part of the archive at the memorial.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Neuengamme concentration camp was initially a sub-camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp between December 1938 and January 1940. In August 1938, the SS operation Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH [German Earth and Stone Works] had acquired land near Neuengamme near the city of Hamburg. There was also a disused brickworks on the property. In December 1938 the first 100 prisoners arrived who were entrusted with making the brickworks operational again. In a second development phase from March 1940 to summer 1942, Neuengamme developed into an independent main camp. In June 1940, the number of detainees amounted to about 1000 persons. A new clinker brick factory was built. Due to the increasing lack of manpower in the war economy, the SS shifted the prisoners' deployment from a focus on building materials production to the war economy between spring 1942 and April 1945. The prisoners of the concentration camp were deployed in industrial plants surrounding the camp and the number of prisoners rose to 13,000 by the end of 1942. As part of the wartime use of the concentration camp, a number of satellite camps were set up. Concentration camp prisoners were also obliged to clean up bombed districts in northern German cities. With the advancing front, the main camp and the sub-camps were forcibly evacuated and prisoners were sent on death marches or taken by freight trains to Lübeck to the three ships "Cap Arcona", "Thielbek" and “Athens“. Of the 106,000 prisoners in Neuengamme, 55,000 probably lost their lives; in the last weeks of the camp alone an estimated 15,000 were killed.
From autumn 1942 to spring 1944 there were no prisoners registered as Jews in the Neuengamme concentration camp. It was not until the reorientation towards the war economy that workers were recruited from ghettos and killing centres and deported to Neuengamme concentration camp and its sub-camps, among other places. In this context, the first female prisoners came to one of Neuengamme's women's sub-camps from Auschwitz in mid-1944. The prisoner cards of the women imprisoned in Neuengamme's sub-camps show that the majority of them were Jewish (at least 9,700). Another smaller group of prisoners consisted of political prisoners, some "asocial" prisoners, a few "gypsies" and five Bible researchers. The majority of the Jewish women came from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
- Access points: locations:
- Hamburg
- Neuengamme
- System of arrangement:
- The material is arranged by name of interviewee.
- Access, restrictions:
- Access is by appointment only.
- Finding aids:
- A database is available in the archive. The content is indexed and searchable with a thesaurus.
- Author of the description:
- Esther Yen
