Uelzen concentration camp

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The Uelzen concentration camp existed in the city of Uelzen as a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp from February 1945 until the end of the war. Up to 500 prisoners were used to clean up after air raids.

history

The Uelzen concentration camp was established when the Uelzen freight yard was destroyed by bombing by American air fleets. At the request of the Reichsbahn, 500 concentration camp prisoners from the Neuengamme main camp were taken to the first floor of a warehouse in Uelzen at the end of February 1945 in order to clean up the station and the tracks after the attacks. The commanding officer of this camp located on the site of a sugar factory was Otto Harder , known as Tull, a former HSV soccer player .

The concentration camp was essentially guarded by the Volkssturm . The prisoners worked twelve hours a day after a half-hour walk to the train station. A chain of guards surrounded them so that they could not escape. When British troops began their attack on Uelzen on April 14 and 15, 1945, some prisoners managed to escape. On April 17, the evacuation of the camp and the transport of the remaining prisoners to the main camp began. Numerous prisoners were brought from Neuengamme to so-called concentration camp ships.

Commemoration

The city council of Uelzen had a memorial erected in 1988 and in 1999 information about the time of National Socialism was added. One of the bronze ribbons attached to the memorial provides information about the inmates of the Uelzen subcamp.

literature

  • Marc Buggeln: Uelzen. 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. 525 ff.
  • Dietrich Banse: The Uelzen subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. A documentation. 2nd Edition. Self-published, Suhlendorf 1990.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Petry: Uelzen. 2007, p. 525.

Coordinates: 52 ° 58 ′ 28.5 ″  N , 10 ° 33 ′ 43.1 ″  E