Hanover-Limmer subcamp
The concentration camp Hannover-Limmer , even KZ Limmer or KZ Conti-Limmer was one of the satellite camps of the KZ Neuengamme , were imprisoned in which up to about 1,000 female inmates. It was located in the Hanover district of Limmer and existed from the end of June 1944 until the liberation in early April 1945.
Camp, prisoners and camp personnel
The women's camp was located between the Continentalwerk and the village of Limmer. It initially consisted of a wooden living barrack, a kitchen barrack and a washing and toilet barracks. A room as an infirmary was integrated into the living barrack. An SS administration and accommodation barracks lay outside a barbed wire fence that had to be put under high voltage. At the end of June 1944, the camp was occupied by 266 women from a transport from the Ravensbrück concentration camp . They came mainly from France and Russia. About 250 other prisoners from the Salzgitter-Watenstedt concentration camp arrived in December 1944. Continental AG had previously enlarged the camp and built two more barracks. At the beginning of January 1945, almost 500, mostly Polish, prisoners from the Hanover-Langenhagen concentration camp, which had been destroyed by the air raid, were unplanned . The camp planned for 500 prisoners was now completely overcrowded with over 1000 women.
The women had to work in a two-shift system of 12 hours each for the production of gas masks in the Limmer plant of Continental AG . Most of the group of former Langenhagen prisoners continued to work in the Brink ironworks in Langenhagen. Another group had to clear rubble in the Harry Habag bread factory in Linden .
In March 1945, the camp was probably guarded by 5 SS men and 19 concentration camp guards. Only Lina Hillebrecht is known by name of them. From the end of March 1945 SS-Hauptsturmführer Otto Thümmel took over the camp management for probably only about two weeks .
Dissolution of the camp
On April 6, 1945, the camp was evacuated and around 930 concentration camp prisoners who were able to march were ordered to walk north. Almost 80 sick women remained who were rescued by American soldiers on April 10th. On April 8, the women arrived at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp , where they were liberated by British soldiers on April 15. In Bergen-Belsen, more than 100 women probably died before and after liberation from exhaustion or illness.
memorial
The history of the camp, the fate of the prisoners and the process of coming to terms with it in the post-war period were documented in the mid-1980s. In 1987 a bronze plaque attached to a sandstone block was inaugurated on Sackmannstrasse / Stockhartweg to commemorate the suffering of women. In June 2004, the Linden-Limmer District Council asked the state capital Hanover to erect a worthy memorial on the former camp grounds. In 2008 the working group “A memorial for the women's concentration camp in Limmer” was formed , which is pursuing the construction of a memorial and researching the history of the concentration camp. On the 70th anniversary of the liberation in 2015, an information board designed by the working group was set up.
When the area on which the subcamp was located was redesigned to become the water town of Limmer , archaeological excavations commissioned by the state capital of Hanover in 2015 detected postings and remains of the soil of the former concentration camp. The sites were documented and refilled to protect the archaeological monument. Residential buildings are planned to be built over the former camp site. The design of a future memorial, possibly by exposing the former walking horizon and symbolically setting up fence posts, is in the planning stage.
literature
- Hans Ellger: Hanover-Limmer. In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-52965-8 , p. 434 ff.
- Claus Füllberg-Stolberg: Women in the concentration camp: Langenhagen and Limmer , in: Concentration camp in Hanover. Concentration camp work and the armaments industry in the late phase of World War II , Part I, Lax, Hildesheim 1985, ISBN 3-7848-2422-6 , pp. 277 ff.
- Janet Anschütz , Irmtraud Heike: "You stopped being human ..." Survivors from the women's concentration camps in Langenhagen and Limmer report . VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-89965-009-3
Web links
- Working group "A memorial for the women's concentration camp in Limmer"
- Description of the Hannover-Limmer concentration camp on the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial site
- Leaflet of the women's concentration camp working group on the memorial in the Limmer concentration camp (PDF; 354 kB)
- The content of the information board set up in 2015 (PDF; 678 kB)
Individual evidence
- ^ Federal Ministry of Justice : Directory of the concentration camps and their external commands in accordance with Section 42 (2) BEG No. 570, Hanover-Limmer
- ^ Rainer Fröbe, Claus Füllberg-Stolberg, Christoph Gutmann, Rolf Keller , Herbert Obenaus , Hans Hermann Schröder: Concentration camp in Hanover. Concentration camp work and the armaments industry in the late phase of World War II (= publications by the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen . Vol. 35 = Sources and studies on the general history of Lower Saxony in modern times. Vol. 8). 2 volumes. Lax, Hildesheim 1985, ISBN 3-7848-2422-6 .
- ↑ Application No. 15-0864 / 2004 resolved by the Linden-Limmer District Council: Commemoration of the Limmer concentration camp
- ↑ Working group “A memorial for the women's concentration camp in Limmer” ( Memento of the original from September 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Floor of a barracks of the Limmer concentration camp exposed during archaeological excavation Article by the working group "A memorial for the women's concentration camp in Limmer"
Coordinates: 52 ° 22 ′ 53.2 ″ N , 9 ° 41 ′ 6 ″ E