The SS first established Neuengamme in December 1938 as a subcamp of Sachsenhausen. Later, in June 1940, the SS decided to establish an independent concentration camp at Neuengamme. Prisoners of the camp were subjected to horrific living conditions, medical experiments, and forced labor. More than 50,000 people—almost half of all those imprisoned in the camp during its existence—died in Neuengamme.
View of the Neuengamme concentration camp. Prisoners stand behind the fence that separates the "protective custody" camp from the manufacturing sectors of the camp. In the distance are the crematorium and the Walther armaments works. Photograph taken between 1940 and 1945, Neuengamme, Germany.
Former prisoners of Wöbbelin, a subcamp of Neuengamme, are taken to a hospital for medical attention. Germany, May 4, 1945.
Item ViewSleeping quarters in Wöbbelin, a subcamp of Neuengamme concentration camp. This photograph was taken upon the liberation of the camp by US forces. Germany, May 5, 1945.
Item ViewEduard, Elisabeth, and Alexander Hornemann. The boys, victims of tuberculosis medical experiments at Neuengamme concentration camp, were murdered shortly before liberation. Elisabeth died of typhus in Auschwitz. The Netherlands, prewar.
Item ViewPhotograph of seven-year-old Jacqueline Morgenstern in Paris, France, 1940. Jacqueline was later a victim of tuberculosis medical experiments at the Neuengamme concentration camp. The SS took 20 of the children who had been victims of medical experiments at Neuengamme to a school building in Hamburg. Situated on Bullenhuser Damm, this location was a subcamp of Neuengamme. Jacqueline and the other children in the group (10 boys and 10 girls, all Jewish) were killed there.
Item ViewA Jewish child is forced to show the scar left after SS physicians removed his lymph nodes. This child was one of 20 Jewish children injected with tuberculosis germs as part of a medical experiment. All were murdered on April 20, 1945. Neuengamme concentration camp, Germany, between December 1944 and February 1945.
Item ViewView of the Neuengamme concentration camp. Neuengamme, Germany, 1945.
Item ViewSS men supervise laborers at construction work. Neuengamme concentration camp, Germany, winter 1943.
Item ViewConcentration camp prisoners, many from satellite camps of Neuengamme, remove corpses of German civilians after Allied bombings of Hamburg. Germany, August 1943.
Item ViewPrisoners at forced labor in the Neuengamme concentration camp, Germany, 1941-1942.
Item ViewForced labor in Neuengamme concentration camp. Germany, 1940.
Item ViewAn SS guard watches prisoner laborers at construction work. Neuengamme concentration camp, Germany, wartime.
Item ViewPrisoners at forced labor in the brick factory at Neuengamme concentration camp. Germany, date uncertain.
Item ViewAn aerial view of the Neuengamme concentration camp. Germany, date uncertain.
Item ViewTroops of the American 82nd Airborne Division view bodies of inmates at Wöbbelin, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. Germany, May 6, 1945.
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