The Satellite Camps for Women

In 1944/45, 24 satellite camps for women were under the administration of Neuengamme main camp. In these camps, women had to work in armaments production both above and below ground, and they had to clear rubble and build provisional housing. The women came from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. They had to sleep in overcrowded and dirty quarters under appalling conditions. Reports from survivors state that the female SS guards were often more brutal than the non-SS male guards.

Ágnes Lukácz, a Jewish woman from Hungary and survivor of Salzwedel satellite camp, put her memories of the solidarity among the “camp sisters” after their liberation into her series of drawings entitled “Close Together”. The drawings were published in 1946 in the “Auschwitz – Women’s Camp” portfolio.