Engerhafe is an

East Frisia East Frisia () or East Friesland (; ; ; ) is a historic region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is primarily located on the western half of the East Frisia (peninsula), East Frisian peninsula, to the east of West Frisia and to the ...

n village in

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It is part of the municipality of Südbrookmerland, administratively belonging to the ''

Ortsteil A village is a human settlement or Residential community, community, larger than a hamlet (place), hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located ...

'' of Oldeborg. The village is located on a spur of a

Geest Geest (, , ) is a type of landform, slightly raised above the surrounding countryside, that occurs on the plains of Northern Germany, the Northern Netherlands and Denmark. It is a landscape of sandy and gravelly soils formed as a glacial outw ...

that runs through the middle of East Frisia.

History

The village appears under the names ''Buta-Ee'' ("outside the Ee") and ''Uthengrahove'' ("hove" indicates a court location) in documents from the period between 1250 and 1276. The construction of the church of Engerhafe, dedicated to

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

, also dates from that period. The church has a detached bell tower and a

borg The Borg are an alien group that appear as recurring antagonists in the ''Star Trek'' fictional universe. They are Cyborg, cybernetic organisms (cyborgs) linked in a Group mind (science fiction), hive mind called "The Collective". The Borg co- ...

from the fifteenth century that serves as a

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...

. Since 1938, it has been part of the municipality of Oldeborg, together with the villages of Fehnhusen, Oldeborg, and Upende, which in turn has been an ''

'' of the municipality of Südbrookmerland since 1972.

Concentration camp

A concentration camp was built near the village in October 1944 as a branch of the Neuengamme camp. Around 2,000 people were interned in the camp under inhumane conditions, mainly resistance fighters, forced laborers, and hostages from the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. The camp inmates were put to work between October and December 1944 in the construction of the so-called ''Friesenwall'', a defense line part of the

Atlantic Wall The Atlantic Wall () was an extensive system of coastal defence and fortification, coastal defences and fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the coast of continental Europe and Scandinavia as a defense (military), d ...

that the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

built from the Dutch border to

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. When the camp was closed again in December, around 200 prisoners had not survived. The survivors were sent back to Neuengamme.

Gallery

Churchtower_of_Engerhafe.jpg, Church tower Engerhafe_Pfarrhaus.jpg, Rectory KZ-Außenlager Engerhafe-Mahnmal-2024-msu-7456-.jpg, Memorial site Engerhafe concentration camp

References

External links

{{Authority control Südbrookmerland Villages in Lower Saxony Towns and villages in East Frisia