Lager Norderney was a

Nazi concentration camp From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately af ...

Alderney Alderney ( ; ; ) is the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependencies, Crown dependency. It is long and wide. The island's area is , making it the third-largest isla ...

, in the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...

, named after the

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 island of Norderney. The German

Organisation Todt Organisation Todt (OT; ) was a Civil engineering, civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior member of the Nazi Party. The organisation was responsible ...

(OT) built four labour camps in Alderney to house workers for the planned fortifications. ''Lager Norderney'' located at Saye, Lager Borkum off Longis Hill, Lager Sylt near the old telegraph tower at La Foulère and Lager Helgoland, situated behind Platte Saline. the control of ''Lager Norderney'' changed from March 1943 to June 1944 when it was run by the Schutzstaffel - SS-Baubrigade and ''Lager Norderney'' became a subcamp of the

Neuengamme concentration camp Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and List of subcamps of Neuengamme, more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme, Hamburg, N ...

(located in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

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 ...

Alderney camps

Each Alderney camp was named after one of the

Frisian Islands The Frisian Islands, also known as the Wadden Islands or the Wadden Sea Islands, form an archipelago at the eastern edge of the North Sea in northwestern Europe, stretching from the northwest of the Netherlands through Germany to the west of Denm ...

: ''Lager Norderney'' located at Saye, Lager Helgoland at Platte Saline, Lager Sylt near the old telegraph tower at La Foulère and Lager Borkum, situated near the Impot. Two of these camps were the only Nazi concentration camps on

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

soil, the other two were labour camps. The labour housed in the camps were used by the OT in a

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...

programme, to supply labour to build

fortifications A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from La ...

including

bunker A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. T ...

s, gun emplacements,

air-raid shelter Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of non-combatants as well as combatants against enemy attacks from the air. They are similar to bunkers in many regards, although they are not designed to defend against ground attack (but ...

s and other concrete defensive structures. ''Norderney camp'' housed

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an (mostly

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n and other Eastern but including

Spaniard Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance languages, Romance-speaking Ethnicity, ethnic group native to the Iberian Peninsula, primarily associated with the modern Nation state, nation-state of Spain. Genetics, Genetically and Ethnolinguisti ...

) enforced labourers. The prisoners in ''Lager Norderney'' and ''Lager Sylt'' were slave labourers. The ''Borkum'' and ''Helgoland'' camps were "volunteer" (Hilfswillige)

labour camps A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...

and the labourers in those camps were treated harshly but better than the inmates at the ''Sylt'' and ''Norderney'' camps. ''Lager Borkum'' was used for German technicians and volunteers from different countries of

. ''Lager Helgoland'' was filled with

workers.

Norderney Camp

The camp was built up by the OT after January 1942 and run by them until in March 1943 when it was handed over to the Schutzstaffel - SS-Baubrigade I—which was first under supervision of the

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners t ...

; and ran under the Neuengamme camp in northern

. Some of the structures of Lager Norderney still remain, and the site is now a camping site for tourists. Close by is a tunnel from the camp to the beach, which is it is claimed was used by the Nazis as a shelter, or possibly as a killing site.Solomon Steckoll - "The Alderney Death Camp" - 1982. Over 700 OT workers lost their lives in the island and in shipping traveling to or from Alderney, before the workers were transferred to France to help build 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 ...

. The destruction of Norderney Camp by the Nazis began in March 1942 and the camps were closed after the Normandy invasion in June 1944.

References

{{reflist Nazi German camps on Alderney Subcamps of Neuengamme

Alderney camps

Norderney Camp

See also

References