At this location was the entrance to the Bremen-Farge “labor education” camp run by the SS and the Gestapo in Bremen between the summer of 1943 to April 1945. Before this, the camp had been in operation since October 1940 as part of the Organization Todt (naval community camp II, Neuenkirchen). KZ Farge was a sub camp of concentration camp Neuengamme.
In the background you can see the concrete foundations of the former guard barracks. A little further more foundations can be found of the prisoner barracks.
Work Education Camp
This part of KZ Farge was called “education camp for unfaithful work” by the Nazis, which means that people who did not conform to the system were to be “re-educated” here. Up to 600 male prisoners were held here in two large barracks. The conditions in this part of the camp were dreadful and the behavior of the camp guards was even more cruel than elsewhere in the camp in order to achieve the “educational effect”.
The inmates had to do forced labor for the German Navy under the most miserable conditions at the nearby naval oil depot (round bunker) and at the Valentin submarine bunker guarded by German and foreign members of the SS and Gestapo police officers. Many prisoners were shot “while trying to escape”. The names of almost 170 people from this camp are known as victims of “extermination through work”. An unknown number of mostly Polish and Russian prisoners were buried in a mass grave.
Visit
You can visit this location on the Neuenkirchen Heide near Bremen. As this is an Army training grounds of the German Bundeswehr, the site is only accessible during the weekends.
