The Satellite Camps for Men

Tens of thousands of men from all over Europe – more than half of the prisoners of Neuengamme concentration camp – were used as slave laborers in more than 60 satellite camps during the second half of the war. They worked in arms production, they built bunkers, fortifications, industrial plants and undergroundproduction facilities, and they had to clear away rubble and repair roads and other traffic routes. The first Neuengamme satellite camp on the grounds of an armaments factory was set up in Wittenberge in August 1942. The different working conditions determined the living conditions, which were often catastrophic due to hard labour and SS terror in the largely provisional quarters in which the prisoners were housed.