Nazi work camp Neuengamme by Frank Fecteau

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
by Frank Fecteau
The American students and some of the German students traveled to a Nazi concentration camp in Neuengamme that had been turned into a museum. The tour guide that accompanied us was very friendly and informed us of every single detail about the camp. She talked very quickly, so it was a little difficult to understand what she was saying. It was a very moving and emotional environment. The tour guide brought us into a large building that had actually once been one of the building used for barracks. The huge building was about 600 square meters. They were designed to hold only about a thousand people, but actually ended up holding about 2000 prisoners. Between this building and the front gate were large fenced areas that held rubble. These piles of rubble were once buildings, back in 1944 and 1945, when this camp was functioning. The building we were in had 2 floors and several different sections. On the first floor was a map of all the surrounding concentration camp in Germany, Austria, and Poland. There was a piece of the electric fence that used to run around the outside of the camp. There was also a small scale replica of the entire camp. The second floor had accounts of some of the prisoners held at the prison. There was another building that housed the names of all the victims from the camp. There was also a giant monument and what looked like to be a sculpture of a concentration camp victim. Overall it was a great experience that I will surely remember. Here are some pictures I took while there: