Uelzen

The Uelzen satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp was probably established at the end of 1944 with around 100 prisoners. The prisoners were used to carry out clearance work and construct railway tracks. When the Uelzen railway station was destroyed by American bombs on 22 February 1945, the number of prisoners in the camp rose to 500. Most of these prisoners came from the Soviet Union, Poland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Very few Germans were imprisoned in the Uelzen camp. The Reichsbahn (Reich railway company) had requested the concentration camp prisoners to use as labourers for clearing bomb rubble and laying new tracks at the Uelzen railway station. Various emergency services and quasi-military associations were also involved in the clearance work.

Every day, the prisoners had to work for 11 hours and then walk along the tracks back to their accommodation, which was located on the first floor of a warehouse at the sugar factory in Uelzen. The factory had previously requested Polish and Russian forced labourers, who were kept strictly separated from the concentration camp prisoners.

On the night of 14 April 1945, British ground forces began their assault on Uelzen. The prisoners were evacuated on 16 or 17 April 1945 to eliminate all traces of the satellite camp. The prisoners from Uelzen reached the Neuengamme main camp one day later.

In February and March 1945, the commander of the Uelzen camp was SS-Untersturmführer Otto “Tull" Harder, a well-known former Hamburg football player. Harder had been temporarily transferred from the Hannover-Ahlem satellite camp for this task.