|
The Neuengamme concentration camp, was a German concentration camp, established in 1938 by the SS near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, Germany. It was operated by the Nazis from 1938 to 1945. Over that period an estimated 106,000 prisoners were held at Neuegamme and at its subcamps. More than half of them perished there. After Germany's defeat in 1945, the British Army used the site until 1948 as an internment camp. In 1948, the facility was transferred to the Hamburg prison authority which tore down the camp huts and built a new prison cell block. After being operated as two prisons by the Hamburg authorities from 1950 to 2004, and a period of uncertainty, the site now serves as a memorial. It is situated 15 km southeast of the centre of Hamburg.〔 == Camp operation == In September 1938 the SS-owned company DEST Earth & Stone Works bought the defunct brickyard ''(German: Klinkerwerk)'' in Neuengamme. On 13 December 1938 the Neuengamme concentration camp was set up, with the first 100 prisoners coming from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.〔 In April 1940 the SS and the city of Hamburg signed a contract for the construction of a larger brick factory, and on 4 June the Neuengamme concentration camp became an independent main camp.〔 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.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Zyklon B Case: Trial of Bruno Tesch and Two Others )〕 In April 1942, a crematorium was constructed at the camp. Prior to that all bodies were taken to Hamburg for cremation.〔 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. In July 1944, a camp section for prominent prisoners from France was set up. These were political opponents and members of the French resistance who had taken up arms against German forces. They included John William, who had participated in 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. At the end of 1944 the total number of prisoners was around 49,000, with 12,000 in Neuengamme and 37,000 in the subcamps.〔 On 15 March 1945 the transfer of Scandinavian prisoners from other camps to Neuengamme started. This was part of the White Buses program. On 27 March a Scandinavian camp was established at Neuengamme. On 8 April an air raid on a train transporting prisoners led to the Celle massacre.〔 On 26 April 1945 about 10,000 surviving prisoners were loaded into four ships: the passenger liners ''Deutschland'' and ''Cap Arcona'' and two large steamers, SS ''Thielbek'' and ''Athen''. The prisoners were in the ships' holds for several days without food or water. The order to transfer the prisoners from the camps to the prison ships came from the Hamburg ''Gauleiter'' Karl Kaufmann who was himself acting on orders from Berlin. Kaufmann later claimed during a war crimes tribunal that the prisoners were destined for Sweden. However, at the same trial, the head of the Hamburg Gestapo, Georg-Henning Graf von Bassewitz-Behr, said that the prisoners were in fact slated to be killed in compliance with Himmler's orders, and it has been suggested that the plan called for scuttling the ships with the prisoners still aboard. On 2 May 1945 the SS and the last prisoners left the Neuengamme camp. On 3 May 1945 the ships were attacked by three squadrons of Royal Air Force Hawker Typhoons. The RAF believed the ships carried SS personnel who were being transferred to Norway; intelligence that the ships carried concentration camp prisoners did not reach the squadrons in time to halt the attack. The ''Thielbek'' was sunk and the ''Cap Arcona'' and ''Deutschland'' set on fire, they both later sank; survivors who jumped into the water were strafed by cannon fire from the RAF aircraft. Thousands of dead were washed ashore just as the British Army occupied the area; the British forced German prisoners-of-war and civilians to dig mass graves to dispose of the bodies. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Neuengamme concentration camp」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|