Lager Sylt 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 British Crown Dependency 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, ...

. Built in 1942, along with three other labour camps by the

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 ...

, the control of ''Lager Sylt'' changed from March 1943 to June 1944 when it was run by the Schutzstaffel - SS-Baubrigade 1 and ''Lager Sylt'' 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 Lager Norderney was a Nazi concentration camp on Alderney, in the Channel Islands, named after the East Frisian island of Norderney. The German Organisation Todt (OT) built four labour camps in Alderney to house workers for the planned fortific ...

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 ''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 and were paid for work done. ''Lager Borkum'' was used for German technicians and volunteers from different countries of

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 ...

. ''Lager Helgoland'' was filled with

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 ...

workers. (For further information on Alderney camps, see ''Appendix F: Concentration Camps: Endlösung – The Final Solution''; ''Alderney, a Nazi concentration camp on an island Anglo-Norman''.)

Lager Sylt

Today, little remains of the camp. Three gateposts to the rear of the island's airport mark the entrance; one has had a commemorative plaque attached. Some ruins remain, including a number of sentry posts, some foundations and a small tunnel, which led from the camp commandant's house to the inside of the camp. The commandant's house was later moved to another part of the island. It was built by the

(OT) in January 1942 by and for their forced labourers who would be employed in building

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 tunnels. ''Sylt camp'' held

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish enforced labourers. The prisoners in ''Lager Sylt'' and ''Lager Norderney'' were slave labourers forced to build the many military fortifications and installations throughout Alderney. ''Norderney camp'' housed

an (usually Eastern but including Republican Spaniard) and

n enforced labourers. The ''Lager Sylt'' commandant, Karl Tietz, had a black French colonial as an under officer. Shocked to see a black man beating up white men from the camp, a German naval officer threatened to shoot him if he saw him doing it again. Tietz was brought before a court-martial in April 1943 and sentenced to 18 months penal servitude for the crime of selling cigarettes, watches and other valuables he had bought from Dutch OT workers on the black market. It was taken over by 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 ...

; from mid-February 1943 it ran under the Neuengamme camp in northern

, located near the old telegraph tower at La Foulère. It was used by the Organisation Todt, 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 build

s, gun emplacements,

s, and concrete fortifications on the island.

Post-war

Alderney has been nicknamed "the island of silence", because not much is known about what occurred there during the occupation. The German officer left in charge of the facilities, Commandant Oberst Schwalm, burned the camps to the ground and destroyed all records connected with their use before the island was liberated by

British forces The British Armed Forces are the unified military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, support international peacekeeping ef ...

on 16 May 1945. The German

garrison A garrison is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a military base or fortified military headquarters. A garrison is usually in a city ...

on Alderney surrendered a week after the other Channel Islands, and was one of the last garrisons to surrender in Europe. The population were not allowed to start returning until December 1945. Over 700 of the OT workers are said to have lost their lives in Alderney, or in shipping that was sunk; the remaining inmates transferred to France in 1944. The

States State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

(Alderney's governing body) decline to commemorate the sites of the four labour camps. Local historian Colin Partridge feels this may be due to the locals' desire to dissociate themselves from the accusations of collaboration. A faded memorial plate, tucked away behind the island's parish church, vaguely mentions 45 Soviet citizens who died on Alderney in 1940–1945, without saying how they died and why. In June 1963, Roland Puhr, the first commandant of the Lager Sylt camp, was arrested in East Germany for unrelated atrocities committed in

. He was sentenced to death, and executed in 1964.

References

External links

Lager Sylt Concentration Camp
* {{Authority control Nazi German camps on Alderney Subcamps of Neuengamme

Alderney camps

Lager Sylt

Post-war

See also

References

External links