Ilmenau is a river south of Hamburg , in Lower Saxony , Germany .
71-703: The Ilmenau originates in the Lüneburg Heath , south of Uelzen , at the confluence of the rivers Gerdau and Stederau in Veerßen [ de ] , a district of Uelzen. It is a left tributary of the Elbe near Winsen (Luhe) . The Ilmenau is 121 kilometres (75 mi) long, including its source river Stederau. The largest towns along the Ilmenau are Uelzen and Lüneburg . The city Ilmenau in Thuringia
142-474: A contract for the construction of a larger, more modern brick factory, an expanded connecting waterway, and a direct supply of bricks and prisoners for construction work in the city. On 4 June, the Neuengamme concentration camp became an independent camp ( German: Stammlager) , and transports began to arrive from all over Germany and soon the rest of Europe. As the death rate climbed between 1940 and 1942,
213-530: A crematorium was constructed in the camp. In the same year, the civilian corporations Messap and Jastram opened armament plants on the camp site and used concentration camp prisoners as their workforces. After the war turned in Stalingrad , Nazis imprisoned millions of Soviets in the concentration camp system and Soviet POWs became the largest prisoner group in the Neuengamme camp and received brutal treatment by SS guards. The first satellite camp of Drütte
284-463: A prison cell block, converting the former concentration camp site into two state prisons operated by the Hamburg authorities from 1950 to 2004. Following protests by various groups of survivors and allies, the site now serves as a memorial. It is situated 15 km southeast of the centre of Hamburg. In 1937, Hitler declared five cities to be converted into Führer cities (German: Führerstädte ) in
355-495: A prison, the history of the atrocities that occurred in Neuengamme and its subcamps was largely forgotten in Hamburg and the rest of Germany. The establishment of the memorial was thus a gradual process that faced strong opposition from citizens and the Hamburg City Council. Documentation Center reopend camp after 20 year sebaticle, in 2024 by Chief Sargeant of Federal Ministry at Channel Islands (Background) Location
426-659: A small role in the Hanseatic League, there is evidence that it traded with Livonia and Spain . At the Schnellenmarket , a London trading office purchased Uelzener linen , earthenware pitchers were offered for sale and brewery business flourished. On 21 October 1470, Uelzen was the venue for a Hanseatic League Convention. This was a special honor, as these annual resolutions of the association of cities usually took place in Lübeck . The town became part of
497-456: A typical oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ; Trewartha : Dobk ). The average temperature ranges from 1 °C (34 °F) in winter to 18 °C (64 °F) in summer, with precipitation concentrated from May to August. On average, there are 11 days with a maximum temperature of over 30 °C (86 °F) per year, and high temperatures of over 35 °C (95 °F) occur every four years on average. The Uelzen weather station has recorded
568-622: Is 42,900: 14,000 in the main camp, 12,800 in the subcamps, and 16,100 in the death marches and bombings during the final weeks of World War II . Following Germany's defeat in 1945, the British Army used the site as an internment camp for SS and other Nazi officials. In 1948, the British transferred the land to the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which summarily demolished the camp's wooden barracks and built in its stead
639-480: Is not along the river Ilmenau but along the river Ilm . The river is navigable from Lüneburg, but almost exclusively used by excursion ships. Above Lüneburg, the river is popular with canoeists. This article related to a river in Lower Saxony is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Uelzen Uelzen ( German: [ˈʏltsn̩] ; Low German : Ülz'n ), officially
710-680: Is the Holdenstedt Castle Museum which is the town's local history museum. Permanent exhibitions include furniture from the Middle Ages, a glass collection, artwork by painter Georg Wolf, and archaeological finds from the local area. The largest sugar beet refinery in the Nordzucker group is in Uelzen. It processes approximately 20,000 tons of sugar beet per day. Other large employers in the town are Nestlé Schöller or
781-786: The Electorate of Hanover in 1708, the Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807, the Kingdom of Hanover in 1814, and the Prussian Province of Hanover in 1866. Uelzen was the site of a Nazi concentration camp that operated in Uelzen until 17 April 1945. The camp was a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp . Uelzen was hit by five air raids during World War II , on 18 April 1944, 10 November 1944, 27 November 1944, 22 February 1945 and 7 April 1945. Across these raids, 1362 buildings were destroyed or damaged. The heaviest raid
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#1732781048451852-556: The Frisian Islands : Lager Norderney , Lager Borkum , Lager Sylt and Lager Helgoland . The Nazi Organisation Todt (OT) operated each subcamp and used forced labourers to build bunkers , gun emplacements, air-raid shelters, and concrete fortifications. The Alderney camps had a total inmate population of about 6,000. The prisoners in Lager Norderney and Lager Sylt were slave labourers forced to build
923-592: The Hanseatic Town of Uelzen (German: Hansestadt Uelzen ), is a town in northeast Lower Saxony , Germany , and capital of the district of Uelzen . It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region , a Hanseatic town and an independent municipality. Uelzen is characterised by timber-framed architecture and also has some striking examples of North German brick Gothic . The town earned pan-regional fame when Friedensreich Hundertwasser
994-554: The East. All of the women were eventually shipped out to one of its twenty-four female subcamps. Several of the former satellite camps have been converted into memorials or at least feature commemorative plaques on-site. In 2000, however, 28 locations still displayed nothing to indicate the past presence of a camp. Dr. Garbe, from the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, wrote, "The importance of
1065-547: The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which then built and opened a prison on the site of the former prisoners’ bunkers in 1950. Several original buildings from the former camp were used for various purposes by the prisons until their closing in February 2006. In May 1945 the British military government began to construct DP Camps in Hamburg. Responsible for this was the unit "Displaced Persons Assembly Centre Staffs" (DPACS) which
1136-549: The Hamburg Senate to relocate the two prisons standing on the former concentration camp site in 1989, it was in 2003 and 2006 they were officially moved off-site. The entirety of the grounds was thus only incorporated into the memorial site in 2007. The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (German: KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme), opened in 2008, is located in Hamburg-Bergedorf at Jean-Dolidier-Weg 75, named for
1207-513: The Neuengamme concentration camp on 13 December 1938 as a subcamp ( German: Außenlager) of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and transported 100 prisoners from Sachsenhausen to begin constructing a camp and operate the brickworks. In January 1940, Heinrich Himmler visited the site and deemed Neuengamme brick production below standard. In April 1940, the SS and the city of Hamburg signed
1278-627: The Oberlandesgericht (High State Court) region of Celle . Schools in Uelzen include the Herzog-Ernst-Gymnasium, Lessing-Gymnasium, Oberschule-Uelzen, Lucas-Backmeister-Schule, Sternschule, Berufsbildene Schulen I and II and 6 elementary schools. Uelzen has one hospital ( HELIOS Klinikum ), two clinics that specialise in different areas ( Klinik Veerßen and Psychiatrische Klinik Uelzen ) and some pharmacies and dentists. Neuengamme concentration camp Neuengamme
1349-477: The Red Cross. Only certain groups of prisoners, however, were even allowed to receive any mail from family or international organizations. Life in the camp was a constant struggle for survival, down to the smallest of details. One of the few possessions the prisoners were allowed to have, their bowls, were rusty and could only be washed in cold water. At the start of the building of the camp, prisoners slept on
1420-676: The arrest bunker of the camp on 25 September 1942. Four weeks later, 251 additional Soviet POWs were gassed in the bunker. There were also 20 Jewish children specifically brought to Neuengamme from Auschwitz in order to be experimented on by Dr. Kurt Heissmeyer from Berlin. No SS women were stationed at Neuengamme permanently. Female guards were trained at Neuengamme and assigned to its female subcamps . Many of these SS women are known by name, including Käthe Becker, Erna Dickmann, Johanna Freund, Angelika Grass, Kommandoführerin Loni Gutzeit (who
1491-527: The barracks, and transports arrived from Auschwitz carrying 1002 prisoners as well as various other transports carrying 1000 Soviet POWs. The total number of prisoners grew to 4500. 495 known deaths occurred in 1941 alone. Until the end of 1940, the majority of prisoners were of German nationality and contained a mix of Asocials, political opponents to the Nazi regime, and various other German national groups. After Neuengamme became an independent concentration camp,
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#17327810484511562-459: The borough of Uelzen: Groß Liedern, Halligdorf, Hambrock, Hansen, Hanstedt II, Holdenstedt , Kirchweyhe , Klein Süstedt, Masendorf, Mehre, Molzen, Oldenstadt, Riestedt, Ripdorf, Tatern, Veerßen, Westerweyhe, and Woltersburg. Furthermore, there are four other places that have the status of "special parishes" ( Sonstige Ortsteile ): Borne, Kl. Liedern, Pieperhöfen, and Oldenstadt-West. Uelzen has
1633-424: The camp and its satellites. Former prisoners from six countries testified during the trial regarding the executions committed in the camp, including those of Soviet POWs murdered with poisonous gas, "medical" experiments conducted on inmates, and the brutal treatment and appalling conditions of the prisoners in general. The defendants were found guilty of war crimes on 3 May 1946; eleven were sentenced to death and
1704-456: The camp's time as a concentration camp. Men and women were separated, women were placed in former SS-guards accommodations. Survivors said even though food and clothing were hard to get, they felt treated well and enjoyed being free. To get along with the difficulties of supply in the DP Camps, caused by the enormous number of survivors, on 27 May 1945 the British military government called on
1775-410: The camp. The prisoners’ barracks were surrounded by a barbed wire fence electrically charged at night. The SS commandant (German: Lagerführer) was in charge of the entire Neuengamme concentration camp network. There were only three commandants of Neuengamme, and over the years they were in charge of 4,500 SS men, with as many as 500 SS officers working at any given time. As a subcamp of Sachsenhausen,
1846-646: The citizens of Hamburg to donate clothes for men and women. Reactions were mixed, there were also acts of revenge. Because of these, some DPs were killed, the British military government imposed a curfew for several days. In May 1945, the DP Assembly Centre "Zoo" was established in the Hamburg park "Planten un Blomen", for repatriations into the Soviet Union. In fact in 1950 six DP Camps still existed in Hamburg (Zoo, Funkturm, Radrennbahn, Alsterdorf, Fischbeck und Falkenberg) with 4.000 people. Because of
1917-408: The concentration camp as "empty". In the first post-war months, the camp was used as a Soviet displaced persons camp , with German POWs held separately. In June, British forces began to use the site as an internment camp for witnesses, SS members and Nazi officials, called Civil Internment Camp No. 6. The Civil Internment Camp No. 6 was closed on 13 August 1948, and the grounds were transferred to
1988-406: The constant threat of being transferred to the death kommandos. According to the testimony of Wilhelm Bahr, an ex-medical orderly, during the trial against Bruno Tesch , 200 Russian prisoners of war were gassed by prussic acid in 1942. In April 1942, a crematorium was constructed at the camp. Prior to that all bodies were taken to Hamburg for cremation. Because prisoners were forced to clear
2059-532: The control of the SS Hauptsturmführer (an SS rank equivalent to captain) Max List . Over 700 of the OT workers lost their lives on the island or while travelling to or from it in the one year under List's leadership. The camps were then closed and the remaining inmates transferred to Germany in 1944. As the former concentration camp site was used directly after the war as an internment camp and then as
2130-536: The dairy manufacturer Uelzena . Bituminous roofing felts and insulation material has been manufactured in Uelzen by C. Hasse & Sohn since 1872. The Hundertwasserbahnhof is a railway station in Uelzen at the eastern edge of the Lüneburg Heath Nature Park in northeastern Lower Saxony . Cities directly reachable by rail from this hub are Hamburg , Hannover , Lüneburg , Celle , Braunschweig , Bremen and Berlin . The original station
2201-583: The demolition of the former brickworks and several important historical buildings from the former camp were designated as heritage sites. In 1995, the former armaments factory of the Walther company was altered into a permanent exhibition and the Dokumentenhaus remodeled into the House of Remembrance. A new museum was opened in 2005. While decades of pressure from survivors and activists managed to convince
Ilmenau (river) - Misplaced Pages Continue
2272-708: The east–west axis from Bremen to Berlin . Also of economic importance is its location on the Elbe Lateral Canal . The town is situated on the Ilmenau , and the banks in Uelzen are dotted with small parks wetland areas. Large areas in the vicinity of Uelzen have been set aside as nature parks with moors, woods, lakes, and heathland: the Elbhöhen-Wendland Nature Park , Lüneburg Heath Nature Park and Lower Saxon Elbe Valley Water Meadows Biosphere Reserve. The following parishes belong to
2343-602: The floor of their crowded wooden barracks. In 1941, three-tier bunk beds were installed. From 1944, bunks were shared by two or three prisoners. The smell and overcrowding meant sleep was impossible after the 10–12 hour workday, and the bathrooms were always overcrowded in the mornings. Prisoners clung to friendships and relationships in small groups. Intellectual activities as well as the rare opportunities for cultural activities like drawing, woodcarving, talking about literature, and reciting poetry or songs helped them maintain their will to survive. The Neuengamme concentration camp
2414-572: The following extreme values: Uelzen belongs to the Bundestag constituency of Celle -Uelzen. In 2009 Henning Otte (CDU) was directly elected, having been on the state list (place 19) since 2005. Kirsten Lühmann (SPD) was elected in 2009 via the state list. In the years 1998, 2002 and 2005 Peter Struck (SPD), former defense minister and chairman of the SPD party in the German Bundestag,
2485-577: The following men were commandants of Neuengamme: • SS Sturmbannführer Walter Eisfeld • SS Hauptsturmführer Martin Gottfried Weiß , April 1940 – June 1940 Erich Frommhagen (SS member from May 1933, ID No. 73754) became adjutant to the commandant of the Neuengamme camp in early 1940. He was killed in action on 17 March 1945. As an independent concentration camp, the following were commandants of Neuengamme: • SS Hauptsturmführer Martin Gottfried Weiß , June 1940 – September 1942. His adjutant
2556-479: The guards. Although hospitals existed in the camp, medicine was scarce and entrance into the hospital was almost always a death sentence. In 1942, a typhus epidemic entreated the SS to allow former doctors imprisoned in the camp to work at the camp hospitals; prior to this reversal, the hospital staff comprised almost no former medical professionals. The hospitals were also used as a place to murder large groups of weakened Soviet prisoners via lethal injection. Work at
2627-461: The main camp centered around brick production for the first half of the war. This included the construction of a canal on the small offshoot of the Elbe river located at the campsite in order to transport raw materials from Hamburg. Inmates were forced to excavate the heavy, peaty soil with inadequate tools, regardless of weather conditions or the state of their health. Once the prisoners finished building
2698-440: The main organization representing all former camp prisoners, the memorial was then expanded in 1965. In 1981, an exhibition building (German: Dokumentenhaus) was added, and the first exhibition on the history of the Neuengamme camp was inaugurated. All memorialization is still cut off from the main portion of the former concentration camp that included the barracks, brickworks, and death commandos. In 1984, protests successfully halted
2769-482: The many military fortifications and installations throughout Alderney. Norderney housed slave labourers mostly from eastern Europe and a smattering from Russia and Spain. Sylt held Jewish forced labourers. Lager Borkum was used for German technicians and volunteers from different countries of Europe. Lager Helgoland was filled with Russian OT workers. In March 1943, Lager Norderney with its Russian and Polish POWs and Lager Sylt and its Jews, were placed under
2840-676: The new Nazi regime, one of which was Hamburg. The banks of the Elbe river of Hamburg, considered Germany's "Gateway to the World" for its large port , were to be redone in the clinker brick style characteristic of German Brick Expressionism . To supply the bricks, the SS-owned company Deutsche Erd-und Steinwerke ( DESt ) (English: German Earth & Stone Works) purchased a defunct brick factory ( German: Klinkerwerk ) and 500,000 m of land in Neuengamme in September 1938. The SS established
2911-514: The new administration under Hamburg's social authority the DPs were now labeled as "homeless foreigners". On 18 March 1946, the trial of fourteen officials of the main Neuengamme concentration camp began before a British military tribunal, at the Curiohaus building in Hamburg, Germany, the first of 33 trials that would be held over a period of the next two years brought by the British against staff of
Ilmenau (river) - Misplaced Pages Continue
2982-456: The new brick factory in 1942, one of the most populated assignment was working in the clay pit, extracting and transporting clay from the main camp for brick production. Constructing the canal, digging the clay, and transporting the soil were known as the three "death commandos". Skilled labour was almost always given to prisoners on upper rungs of the Aryan hierarchy. From 1942 until the end of
3053-517: The other three to prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years. On 8 October 1946, the eleven men found guilty in the Neuengamme Trials were executed by hanging by the British executioner Albert Pierrepoint . These men were former commandant Max Pauly , SS Dr. Bruno Kitt, Anton Thumann , Johann Reese, Willy Warnke, SS Dr. Alfred Trzebinski , Heinrich Ruge, Wilhem Bahr, Andreas Brems, Wilhelm Dreimann, and Adolf Speck. The order to transfer
3124-550: The passenger liners Deutschland and Cap Arcona , and two large steamers, SS Thielbek and Athen . The prisoners were in the ships' hold for several days with no food or water. Concluding that the ships contained Norway-bound fleeing Nazi officials rather than thousands of prisoners, the Royal Air Force (RAF) Hawker Typhoons bombed the Thielbek , Cap Arcona and Deutschland on May 3. Intelligence that
3195-462: The plan itself called for scuttling the ships with the prisoners still aboard. Hunger reigned supreme. The food given to prisoners was so terribly insufficient that most died within three months of arrival. The meager portions available were of poor quality and were often inedible. The most lethal disease in the camp was dysentery . Many prisoners attempted to acquire food illegally, and others managed to survive through food packages from relatives and
3266-719: The prisoner population grew more diverse, and in the following years the Soviet group followed by the Polish prisoners made up the largest percentage of camp prisoners by nationality. Inmates were from 28 nationalities: Soviets (34,350), Polish (16,900), French (11,500), German (9,200), Dutch (6,950), Belgian (4,800), and Danish (4,800). The prisoner groups included those from the local Jewish community, communists , prostitutes , Gypsies , Jehovah's Witnesses , prisoners of war and many other persecuted groups. Of 106,000 inmates, almost half died. 23,394 victims of Neuengamme and
3337-624: The prisoners from the camps to the prison ships came from the Hamburg Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann who was himself acting on orders from Berlin. Although Kaufmann later claimed during the war crimes tribunal that the prisoners were destined for Sweden, the Higher SS and Police Leader of Hamburg, Georg-Henning Graf von Bassewitz-Behr , said at the same trial that the prisoners were, in fact, slated to be killed in compliance with Himmler's orders. It has been suggested that
3408-401: The raid; only 450 prisoners survived. 600–700 concentration camp prisoners remained in the main camp under SS orders to destroy all incriminating documentation, dismantle many areas of the camp, and tidy the site. On 2 May 1945, the SS and the last of the prisoners left the Neuengamme concentration camp. The first British soldiers arrived the next day and, seeing a barren and clean site, reported
3479-507: The sabotaging and bombing of a military factory in Montluçon . William discovered his singing voice while cheering his fellow prisoners at Neuengamme and went on to a prominent career as a singer of popular and gospel music . By the end of 1944, the total number of prisoners grew to approximately 49,000, with 12,000 in Neuengamme and 37,000 in the subcamps, including nearly 10,000 women in the various subcamps for women. On 15 March 1945,
3550-476: The satellite camps is further highlighted by the fact that toward the ends of the war three times more prisoners were in satellite camps than in the main camp." The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Commonwealth occupied by Nazi Germany . The Germans built four camps on the island of Alderney , two of which later became Neuengamme subcamps. The Alderney camps were named after
3621-555: The ships carried concentration camp prisoners did not reach the squadrons in time to halt the attack. Survivors who jumped into the water were strafed by cannon fire from the RAF aircraft or shot by Nazi officials. Thousands of dead washed ashore just as the British Army successfully occupied the area on land. The British forced German POWs and civilians to dig mass graves for the dead. Approximately 7,100 prisoners and officials died in
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#17327810484513692-402: The site at the end of the war, only 10% of original documentation survives from the period. Despite this destruction, enough evidence has survived to allow scholars to conclusively prove exact numbers for some months of the entire 1938–1945 period. It is known exactly that by the end of 1940, 2,900 were imprisoned at Neuengamme and the known death toll was over 432. In 1941, the prisoners completed
3763-482: The site was used for German prisoners of war. Under the special requirement from the Soviet Union made in 1944 to take back all citizens, repatriation began on 9 May, only four days after the DP Camp was established. In general, the situation in the accommodations of DP's in Neuengamme is not well known. We only know from a war diary of the 53rd British Infantry Division about bad hygienic circumstances, which stemmed from
3834-577: The subcamps can be found listed by name in the Neuengamme Memorial Site's House of Remembrance. In reality, however, it is estimated that there were 26,800 victims of daily camp horrors and about 17,000 victims of the death marches and reception camps. At least 42,900 victims can be verified, even if not by name. According to the testimony of Wilhelm Bahr, an ex-medical orderly, during the trial against Bruno Tesch , 197 Soviet prisoners of war were gassed by prussic acid (Zyklon B) in
3905-411: The subcamps drastically differed from camp to camp with as many as 3,000 inmates to as few as 10 or less. Almost all women imprisoned at Neuengamme were interned in subcamps. In late 1943, most likely November, Neuengamme recorded its first female prisoners according to camp records. In the summer of 1944, Neuengamme received numerous transports of female prisoners from Auschwitz , as well other camps in
3976-433: 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, and these include Anneliese Kohlmann , who served as one of six women-guards at Neugraben, and Gertrud Heise , Oberaufseherin at Obernheide. The administration of Neuengamme
4047-623: The transfer of Scandinavian prisoners from other German camps to Neuengamme began, as part of the White Buses program. Neuengamme's subcamps were emptied later that month on death marches to the reception camps of Bergen-Belsen and Osnabrück , and, on 8 April, an air raid on a prisoner train transport led to the Celle massacre . Orders were issued for the evacuation of the main camp on 19 April. Between 20 and 26 April, over 9000 prisoners were taken from Neuengamme and loaded on four ships:
4118-716: The war, armaments production became the central focus of Neuengamme, with private business ventures profiting financially from the free labour of the prisoners. Several armaments companies, including Messap, Jastram, Walter-Werke and the SS-owned Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW), established facilities inside the Neuengamme concentration camp following negotiations with the Nazi regime. Walther used their factory to manufacture Gewehr 43 semi-automatic rifles. While conditions for prisoners working in these privately owned factories were better than those working in other kommandos, all prisoners worked under
4189-488: Was Karl-Friedrich Höcker . • SS Obersturmbannführer Max Pauly , September 1942 – until liberation. His adjutant from May 1943 was Karl Totzauer . See also: List of subcamps of Neuengamme More than 80 subcamps were part of the Neuengamme concentration camp system. The first Neuengamme satellite opened in 1942, when inmates of Neuengamme were transported to the Arbeitsdorf subcamp. The number of prisoners within
4260-564: Was a network of Nazi concentration camps in northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps . Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg , the Neuengamme camp became the largest concentration camp in Northwest Germany. Over 100,000 prisoners came through Neuengamme and its subcamps , 24 of which were for women. The verified death toll
4331-546: Was directly elected. Jürgen Markwardt (independent) has been the mayor of Uelzen since 2014, when he was elected with 64.4% of the vote. The deputy mayors are Karsten Jäkel (CDU) and Ariane Schmäschke (The Greens). Uelzen is twinned with: Uelzen contains a number of theaters, including the theatre on the Ilmenau, the Jabelmann Events Hall, and the fringe theatre on the Rosenmauer. Worthy of mention
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#17327810484514402-655: Was established in Salzgitter , and in less than a year close to 80 subcamps were constructed. By the end of 1942, the death rate had risen to 10% per month. In 1943, the satellite camp on the Channel Island of Alderney was established. In July 1944, a special section of the camp was set up for prominent French prisoners, comprising political opponents and resistors against the German occupation of France. These prisoners included John William , who had participated in
4473-558: Was founded in 1250. In 1270 Duke John of Brunswick-Lüneburg , a Welf who ruled the Principality of Lüneburg from 1252 to 1277, granted Uelzen its town privileges ( Stadtrechte ). In the Middle Ages it became an active member of the Hanseatic League . The town fortification , built in the 14th century, originally had three gates , a wall , and a moat . Parts of the wall are still standing. While Uelzen only played
4544-475: Was headed by SS-Sturmführer Alfons Bentele (September 1942 – March 1943). Alfred Trzebinski (1902–1946) was the SS-physician for the Neuengamme subcamps. Most SS officers had direct contact with the prisoners, and their harassment and mistreatment were daily markers of camp routine. In Neuengamme, there were three or four guard forces that would form a Sturmbann to guard the camp and the work details outside
4615-486: Was merged with Geospatial Data in 2024. The first memorial is a simple monument erected on the leftmost (northernmost) edge of the grounds on the site of the former SS plant nursery that had used ashes from the crematorium as fertilizer, far from the contemporaneous prison and the former prisoners compound of the concentration camp. Following intense pressure from the Amicale Internationale de Neuengamme,
4686-474: Was nicknamed "The Dragon of Wandsbek" by the prisoners while serving at Hamburg- Wandsbek ), Gertrud Heise , Frieda Ignatowitz, Gertrud Möller, who also served at the Boizenburg subcamp, Lotte Johanna Radtke, Chief Wardress Annemie von der Huelst, and 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
4757-421: Was on 22 February 1945 when 149 people lost their lives and 95 houses were completely destroyed. On 7 April 1944, three civilians were killed and 153 houses were destroyed or damaged. Estimates indicate up to 27% of the town was destroyed at some point during the war. Uelzen lies on the eastern edge of the Lüneburg Heath . The town is a transport hub on the north–south axis from Hamburg to Hanover as well as
4828-465: Was renovated for Expo 2000 following plans by the Austrian artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser . An "environmentally, culturally oriented" station, the station was renamed after the architect as 'Hundertwasser Station, Uelzen'. Today it is one of the town's popular tourist attractions. Uelzen has a district court ( Amtsgericht ), which belongs to the state court region of Lüneburg and
4899-442: Was run under the SS practice of "extermination through labour" (German: Vernichtung durch Arbeit). Prisoners worked for 10–12 hours per day and were killed both due to the inhumane conditions in the camp as well as active violence from the guards. 42,900 prisoners died from difficult slave labour combined with insufficient nutrition, extremely unhygienic conditions contributing to widespread disease, and arbitrary brutal punishments from
4970-496: Was selected to redesign the railway station: the final work of the celebrated Viennese artist and architect was ceremonially opened in 2000 as the Hundertwasser Station, Uelzen , and remains a popular tourism destination. The Polabian name for Uelzen is Wilcaus (spelled Wiltzaus in older German reference material), possibly derived from wilca or wilsa (< Slavic * olăša ) 'alder'. The town
5041-538: Was supported by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). Displaced Persons received a special status under the British military government. It included people, who were in foreign countries because of the war and needed help returning home. This includes former slave laborers and concentration camp inmates. On the site of former Concentration Camp Neuengamme about ten thousand Soviet slave laborers were housed. A different part of
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