KZ Neuengamme
When the last prisoners of Neuengamme concentration camp were liberated on the 10th of May 1945, there were 100,400 people here and in its 85 branches: 20,000 from Russia, 17,000 from Poland, 11,500 from France, 10,500 from Ukraine, 9,500 from Germany, 7,000 from the Netherlands, 5,000 from Denmark, 80,000 men, 13,000 women, 5,900 unregistered persons, several thousand on their way to other camps. Between December 1938 and May 1945, nearly 5,000 people lost their lives in those places as a result of beating, starvation and working beyond human capacity for the arms industry. At least 2,000 citizens of various nationalities, including Poles, lost their lives by shooting and hanging. They were killed for their opposition to the Nazi regime, their nationality, creed and sexual orientation. They became victims of criminal and sadistic pseudo-medical experiments and of Cyclone B, which was used to poison 448 Russian prisoners of war in 1942. By the end of 1944 the number of deceased was 2,500. The evacuation marches and transports in April and May 1945 killed 16,000 people, 7,100 of whom died on prison ships anchored in the Bay of Lübeck. The victims were buried at the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg or burned in the camp crematorium, initially equipped with two furnaces, but over time extended to four. The crematorium at Ohlsdorf cemetery was also used at the peak of mortality. Ashes were partly used as fertiliser in the camp's horticulture or thrown into a duct connecting the brickyard with the Elbe River, the construction of which cost hundreds of lives.
In a transport of the 24th of August 1944 to the Neuengamme-Alt Garge branch there was a selected group of 5,000 men, mostly from Warsaw. During the completion of the transport each of the group had to legibly sign a form stating that the signatory was not a prisoner, but as a result of the Warsaw Uprising he was evacuated and was interned until the end of the warfare. However, the conditions, murderous work and killings carried out by the SS did not differ from those in other concentration camps. During the time the branch existed, that is from the 24th of August to the 15th of February 1945, 49 prisoners were buried at the cemetery in Barskamp. These people died or were murdered in the camp; an unspecified large group of people unable to work or sick were sent to the main camp in Neuengamme, which usually meant a death sentence. Prisoners from Warsaw were to be punished for the uprising. After selection, they were directed from the main camp to various branches, where they would perform backbreaking work. In addition, they would remove the effects of the increasingly frequent air raids of Allied forces and unexploded bombs in Hamburg and the surrounding industrial centres working at 12-hour shifts. The number of fatalities from among 6,750 Polish men and women from Warsaw insurgent transports is unknown. The young and healthy, selected for extermination by work, had a chance to survive. In turn, the elderly, sick and unable to work died in the main camp or were murdered during the evacuation marches.
After the end of the war, the site of the former concentration camp was, until August 1948, the place where the English occupation authorities interned members of the SS, Gestapo, NSDAP and Wehrmacht officers. After an investigation and preparation of charges, from March to May 1946, a trial of the 14 main criminals of the Neuengamme camp took place at the Curiohaus in Hamburg. The former camp commandant and 10 crew-members were sentenced to death, and the sentences were carried out in October 1946 in the Hameln prison. Subsequent trials before English military courts and later before German courts allowed some SS members to evade responsibility for the crimes committed.
Polish commemoration of the Warsaw Uprising victims was unveiled at the KZ Neuengamme Memorial Site in 1999. Later, an information board was set up with a text in German, English, French and Polish.
