Cultural and Resistance Activities – Maintaining the Will to Survive

In their daily struggle for survival, prisoners clung to friendships and relationships in small groups. Intellectual and religious activities helped them to maintain their will to survive,as did the rare opportunities for cultural activities like drawing, woodcarving, talking about literature and reciting poetry or songs. In 1943/44, music, football, and evenings of entertainment were occasionally permitted, but only higher-ranking prisoners were allowed to attend such events. Prisoners could only send or receive a limited amount of letters, and the letters they did receive orsend were read by the camp’s censors.

The black and white photo shows a prisoner showing a British cameraman a radio hidden in an electric meter after liberation.

 

 

Former prisoner Arthur Lange showing a British cameraman a radioreceiver hidden inside an electricitymeter. On this receiver, Langehad covertly listened to Allied radio broadcasts. Still from a film made by the British Army on May 5, 1945.

Media Library

The complete permanent exhibition "Time Traces" and the other side exhibitions on the grounds of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial are also available digitally in the memorial's media library. Unfortunately, the media library is only available in German.

media library
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E-mail: lernwerkstatt@gedenkstaetten.hamburg.de

Phone: +49 40 428 131 551