Neuengamme is a quarter of the district Bergedorf within the City of Hamburg, Germany. Before and during World War II, a Nazi concentration camp was established by the SS. Since this concentration camp was located in the quarter Neuengamme, the name of the concentration camp became KZ Neuengamme. The site is one of the few concentration camps in Germany where most of the buildings have been conserved and serves as a memorial today. It is situated 15 km southeast of the centre of Hamburg in the Vierlande area. From over 100,000 inmates, almost half of them died.
The camp existed from December 13, 1938 through May 4, 1945 and had a total of 106,000 inmates during this time. These were spread over the main camp (213,000 m²) and 96 outposts across the north German area. Inmates were from 28 nationalities (Soviets (34,350), Poles (16,900), Frenchmen (11,500), Germans (9,200), Dutchmen (6,950), Belgians (4,800), Danes (4,800)) and also from the local Jewish community, but also included communists, homosexuals, prostitutes, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, prisoners of war and many other groups. 55,000 succumbed to the subhuman conditions in the camp from hard manual work with insufficient nutrition, very unhygienic conditions and violence from the guards.
Work at the mother camp was centered on the production of bricks. This included the construction of a canal to transport the bricks to and from the site. Inmates had to excavate the heavy, peaty soil with inadequate tools and regardless of weather conditions or their health state.
In late 1943, most likely November, Neuengamme recorded its first female prisoners according to camp records. In the summer of 1944, Neuengamme received many women prisoners from Auschwitz, as well other camps in the East. All of the women were eventually shipped out to one of its twenty-four female subcamps. Female guards were trained at Neuengamme and assigned to one of its female subcamps. There were no SS women stationed at Neuengamme permanently. Many of these women are known by name, including Kaethe Becker, Erna Dickmann, Johanna Freund, Angelika Grass, Kommandoführerin Loni Gutzeit (who also served at Hamburg-Wandsbek and was nicknamed "The Dragon of Wandsbek" by the prisoners), Gertrud Heise, Frieda Ignatowitz, Gertrud Moeller, who also served at Boizenburg subcamp, Lotte Johanna Radtke, chief wardress Annemie von der Huelst, Inge Marga Marggot Weber. Many of the women were later dispersed to female subcamps throughout northern Germany. Today it is known that female guards staffed the subcamps of Neuengamme at Boizenburg, Braunschweig SS-Reitschule, Hamburg-Sasel, Hamburg-Wandsbek, Helmstedt-Beendorf, Langenhorn, Neugraben, Obernheide, Salzwedel, and Unterluss (Vuterluss). Only a few have been tried for war crimes, such as Anneliese Kohlmann, who served as one of only six woman guards at Neugraben.
On April 26, 1945, the SS Cap Arcona, loaded with about 10,000 prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp, Thielbek and Athen, was brought into the Bay of Lübeck. On May 3, 1945, the Cap Arcona, the Thielbek, and the passenger liner Deutschland were sunk in four separate attacks by RAF planes.
After the end of the war, first the camp was used as a Russian DP (Displaced persons) Camp, German prisoners of war were held separated. Since June 1945 the camp was used by the British forces as an internment camp for SS members and Nazi officials. The Civil Internment Camp No. 6 was closed on 13 August 1948. Since 1948 the city of Hamburg used the camp as a prison. Several original buildings of the camp continued to serve as locations in this prison (for example Building Number 9), until February 2006. Since the demolition of the new-build structures in 2007 the whole area is used as a memorial.
Most of these pictures are from one of the subcamps of Neuengamme called Wöbbelin (Woebbelin) camp.
A lot of the pictures are from liberation when the American soldiers forced civilians from Ludwigslust (town near to the camp) to bury 200 dead prisoners on the palace grounds of the Archduke of Mecklenburg.