Memorial plaque for the Moortwiete forced labour camp

In the summer of 2006, former forced labourers from Ukraine and Russia visited the Max Brauer Comprehensive School and explained that a forced labour camp had existed on the site between 1942 and 1945. After their encounter with these women, six students from the school set up a project which researched the history of the camp and arranged for a memorial plaque to be installed in the school grounds. In co-operation with the neighbouring Paul Gerhardt Lutheran parish, the Ottensen local history workshop, the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial and the Friends of the Concentration Camp Memorial, an exhibition about the former forced labour camp with an accompanying programme of film screenings and lectures was organised in Paul Gerhardt Church. The memorial plaque on the wall of the school was dedicated on 19 April 2007. With photographs, explanatory text and a map, it recounts the history of the forced labour camp on Daimlerstrasse (formerly Moortwiete).

In the last three years of the war, the men’s camp here held 200 to 350 forced labourers and prisoners of war from various European countries. A second camp held up to 500 women and some children from the Soviet Union and Poland. They were all housed in simple, crowded huts and had to work for up to 16 hours each day. The men were put to work in various shipyards, while the women worked in fish processing facilities and tinned food factories. The students from the Max Brauer school were awarded the Bertini Prize in 2007 for their project.