Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial – International Monument

It was thanks largely to the initiative of survivors that a suitable memorial was finally established in the grounds of the former Neuengamme concentration camp. The process that led there was long.

First commemorative site
Survivors of the Neuengamme concentration camp erected the first commemorative pillar in 1953. It was placed at the edge of the camp in the former garden nursery, where the SS had spread some of the ashes from the bodies burned in the crematorium.

International Monument
In 1965, the first commemorative pillar was replaced with a 27-metre-high column bearing the inscription ‘Your suffering, your struggle and your death shall not have been in vain’. There is also a plaque and an L-shaped wall with stone slabs in front of it that have been engraved with the names of the countries from which the prisoners came. These monuments and a landscaped park in the style of a cemetery make up an extensive memorial complex. When the International Monument was dedicated on 7 November 1965, a sculpture was also unveiled by the French artist Françoise Salmon (1917-2014), which was donated by the Amicale Internationale de Neuengamme (now known as the Amicale Internationale KZ Neuengamme). The bronze sculpture depicts a dying prisoner lying on the ground.

The monument is freely accessible to the public at all times.