‘OPERATION GOMORRAH’ AND JEWISH
SLAVE LABOUR IN WARTIME HAMBURG
Dr. Iris Groschek
How the Allied air raids shaped Hamburg’s concentration camp system
Exactly 75 years ago, in July 1944, a transport comprised of 1,000 Jewish women from Auschwitz arrived at a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp in Hamburg. This in itself was remarkable, on two counts. Neuengamme concentration camp had been built in 1938 and named after a district of Hamburg. One of the largest camps of its kind on the territory of the German Reich at the time, it was used exclusively for male prisoners. And in July 1944, none of the prisoners held there was Jewish. Rather, there were none left. Indeed, all concentration camps on the territory of the German Reich had been rendered ‘free of Jews’ in October 1942 by order of the Reichsführer-SS. In other words, all the Jewish prisoners previously held at Neuengamme concentration camp had been sent to Auschwitz. So why the sudden turnaround? Why were Jewish prisoners now being taken from Auschwitz back to Hamburg?
Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, death register August 1944: A page from a death ledger which was kept at the infirmary at Neuengamme. The entries are dated August 1944 and show the names of prisoners who lost their lives in explosions.