May 5: Neuengamme

May 5 was sobering. We visited Neuengamme concentration camp around Hamburg, Germany. It was built in 1940 by prisoner hands, operating mainly for labour and production and housed thousands of people. The things that took place there were too terrible for words.

Neuengamme was turned into a historic site around 2003 but after the war was used as a prison by British troops, then by the German government. The construction and destruction which took place on the site was intended to 'obliterate the history' of what happened there, but protestors and those who didn't want to hide reality had it turned into historical grounds. It is a place of much debate because it is one of the most preserved concentration camps.

There were a few things which really stood out.
One was that the cabin bunkers, where prisoners lived and slept, were torn down but their rubble was put in fences in place of where the bunkers were, so visitors could understand the sheer magnitude of the buildings. John and I walked around the outside of them for a very long time, just looking at the bricks, the rocks, everything which had crumbled and used to house dying prisoners, overstocked and sick. We kept finding rocks which said 'fernsicht' but I don't know what that means, I think it's a town.

Next was the personal stories of the children who had expirements done on them, one in particular of a boy named Sergei - I watched a video of his family telling his story, and then there was a display with his photo. It grounded me.

The train tracks which were built by the hands of prisoners, on which new prisoners came in. There were remains of the tracks throughout different parts of the camp.

The brick and concrete and clay plant, there was a massive clay pit where prisoners had to dig out clay and push it on trolleys by hand, although it weighed about a tonne, and push it up a ramp to a building. The ramp still stands today and the clay pit has been recreated.

The way people were treated, hung, injected, expiremented on, malnourished, inadequately housed, women were subjected, and the fact that it only became a protected site - the citizens of the town only came to terms with the realities of Neuengamme - in 2003 and that the womens' prison was only torn down in 2006.

I kept feeling like I should pray, but I didn't know what for. Or I felt like I needed to say something, but nothing was good enough.