Cap Arcona cemetery of honor
The Cap Arcona cemetery in Neustadt in the Ostholstein district ( Schleswig-Holstein ) is a cemetery of honor where 621 victims of the sinking of the Cap Arcona and Thielbek are buried on May 3, 1945 and which is also the central memorial for all victims.
It is located east of the city center of Neustadt directly on the Bay of Lübeck / Baltic Sea . The dead that washed up after the ships sank near Neustadt were initially buried in individual or mass graves - mostly near the beach. In 1948 the cemetery of honor was created.
Cemetery of honor
The complex is rectangular (approx. 100 meters wide and approx. 15 meters deep) in a west-east direction and is enclosed by a half-height wall made of hewn natural stone . The gate itself bears the inscription "Cap Arcona Cemetery of Honor". On the left gate pillar is a bronze plaque on which the events of the sinking of the Cap Arcona and Thielbek are described.
The entrance in the middle is in front of the memorial stone in the middle of the complex. The middle stone bears the inscription "7000", "KZ", "3.5.1945" (number of victims of the ship's sinking; concentration camp & the date). On the stones to the right and left, the nationalities of the victims are listed in their national languages, including the Hebrew term "Jehudim" for "Jews". A DGB memorial plaque has been in front of the memorial stone in the ground since 1983 . The areas on the left and right side of the memorial stone are occupied by beds (over their graves) or lawns.
Commemoration
Every year on May 3rd, around 100 people remember the victims there. Over 1,000 visitors came to commemorate the 70th anniversary. The Neustadt (Holstein) Federal Police , the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial , the DGB and other associations lay wreaths there in a ceremony. The Jewish community in Lübeck holds a prayer for the dead. Two steles between the promenade and the bank document the course of events and the position of the ships at that time.
Information boards
At the western end of the cemetery of honor is a wooden platform on which there are two metal steles, on which the events and details of the sinking of the Cap Arcona and the Thielbek are described and a view of the sinking place of the ships is made possible.
Information platform - pillar 1 (text)
Information platform - Stele 2 (map with the place of the sinking)
Information platform - Stele 1 (back) (Text & photo of the sunken Cap Arcona)
Information platform - pillar 2 (back) (text in English)
Stutthofweg
The path in the area of the cemetery of honor was named Stutthofweg in memory of the murder of more than 200 prisoners of the Stutthof concentration camp on the beach in Neustadt by an SS commando and other armed men . The barges carrying the prisoners had been driven onto the beach at night.
Further cemeteries of honor
See cemeteries with victims of the Cap Arcona disaster around the Bay of Lübeck
literature
- Wilhelm Lange: Cap Arcona . Documentation. Struve's Buchdruckerei und Verlag, Eutin 1988, ISBN 3-923457-08-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Contemporary witness remembers the Cap Arcona tragedy. In: Lübecker Nachrichten of May 4, 2013, p. 15
- ↑ Silent mourning for Cap Arcona victims. In: Lübecker Nachrichten of May 5, 2015, p. 15, author abbreviation bg.
- ↑ a b Cap-Arcona Memorial Support Group, Politische Memoriale e. V. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Ed.): Cap Arcona May 3, 1945. Memorials, museums, cemeteries. Leaflet from around 2012.
Web links
Coordinates: 54 ° 5 ′ 20.4 ″ N , 10 ° 49 ′ 39.1 ″ E
- On the beach at Pelzerhaken . In: Berliner Zeitung . May 16, 2002 ( article in the online archive [accessed May 14, 2010]).
- The grave of Paul Schindler, pianist and choirmaster of the Cap Arcona, in Süderende on Föhr.
- The report by the head of the Neustadt police department, Inspector Saß, is available for download here. On June 26, 1956, he describes the events of the last days of the war in Neustadt and the surrounding area.