Emslandlager IV Walchum - Hasselbrock, Germany
Posted by: dreamhummie
N 52° 55.852 E 007° 12.539
32U E 379617 N 5866081
Location of former POW Camp "Emslandlager IV" at the Nord-Süd-Straße in Hasselbrock, near Walchum, Germany.
Waymark Code: WM10FWF
Location: Niedersachsen, Germany
Date Posted: 05/01/2019
Views: 3
Emslandlager ("Emsland camps") were a series of 15 moorland labor, punitive and POWs-camps, active from 1933 to 1945 and located in the districts of Emsland and Bentheim, Lower Saxony, Germany.
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"Camp IV Walchum was planned as a prison camp of the judiciary for 500 prisoners and completed in May 1935. The guard took over a serving in the judiciary SA unit, which was later supplemented by judicial officials.
First plans in December 1936 to expand the camp to a capacity of 1,000 prisoners were implemented until 1939. The actual occupancy fluctuated strongly in the following period.
Until the beginning of the war, people who were persecuted by the Nazi regime for political, racial, social or religious reasons were imprisoned. In addition, there was a much larger group of prisoners convicted of criminal offenses. During the war, the judiciary occupied the camp mainly with former military soldiers convicted by the Wehrmacht. In addition, foreign prisoners from areas occupied or annexed by Germany (Poles, Czechs, Luxembourgers and others) were also imprisoned here.
Depending on the time of year, the prisoners had to do forced labor in the moor for 8-12 hours a day (drainage, road and road construction, peat extraction). After the beginning of the war in 1939, they were increasingly used in war-important enterprises and in agriculture. The food was bad and in relation to the hard work not enough. Beyond this general ordeal, the prisoners were subjected to multiple physical and mental ill-treatment by the guards.
In February 1945, 167 prisoners were still imprisoned in the camp Walchum. They were relocated in early April 1945 in the camp Aschendorfermoor.
There are 71 deaths recorded in the civil registry; the actual number is likely to be higher. The dead were buried in the camp cemetery Börgermoor, today burial site Esterwegen."
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