Lager Borkum

49°42′54″N 2°11′10″W

Lager Borkum was a labour camp on Alderney, in the Channel Islands, named after the East Frisian Island of Borkum.

The Germans built four camps, two of which became concentration camps on the island, subcamps of the Neuengamme concentration camp (located in Hamburg, Germany). Each camp was named after one of the Frisian Islands: Lager Norderney located at Saye, Lager Borkum at Platte Saline, Lager Sylt near the old telegraph tower at La Foulère and Lager Helgoland, situated in the northwest corner of the island. Over 700 workers died in the Alderney camps (out of a total inmate population of about 6,000) and in ships moving them to and from the Island.

Camp

Little remains of Lager Borkum now. The gateposts still stand, but now form the entry to the island's tip - the impot.

It was built by the Organisation Todt (OT) in January 1942 by and for their forced labourers. It was used by the OT, a forced labour programme, to build fortifications including bunkers, gun emplacements, air-raid shelters, and other concrete structures.

The Borkum and Helgoland camps were "volunteer" (Hilfswillige) labour camps[1] and the labourers in those camps were paid but treated harshly – though better than the inmates at the Sylt and Norderney camps.

Lager Borkum was located near the centre of Alderney and was the smallest of the four camps. The Borkum and Helgoland camps were "volunteer" (Hilfswillige) labour camps.[1] The prisoners in Lager Sylt and Lager Norderney were slave labourers forced to build the many military fortifications and installations throughout Alderney. Sylt camp held Jewish enforced labourers.[2] Norderney camp housed European (usually Eastern but including Spaniard) and Russian enforced labourers.

Lager Borkum was used for paid German technicians and volunteers from different countries of Europe. Lager Helgoland was filled with Russian OT volunteer workers.[3][4]

See also

References
  1. Christian Streit: Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die Sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941-1945, Bonn: Dietz (3. Aufl., 1. Aufl. 1978), ISBN 3-8012-5016-4 - "Between 22 June 1941 and the end of the war, roughly 5.7 million members of the Red Army fell into German hands. In January 1945, 930,000 were still in German camps. A million at most had been released, most of whom were so-called "volunteers" (Hilfswillige) for (often compulsory) auxiliary service in the Wehrmacht. Another 500,000, as estimated by the Army High Command, had either fled or been liberated. The remaining 3,300,000 (57.5% of the total) had perished."
  2. Subterranea Britannica (February 2003), SiteName: Lager Sylt Concentration Camp, retrieved 2009-06-06
  3. Christine O'Keefe, Appendix F: Concentration Camps: Endlösung – The Final Solution, retrieved 2009-06-06
  4. Matisson Consultants, Aurigny ; un camp de concentration nazi sur une île anglo-normande (English: Alderney, a Nazi concentration camp on an island Anglo-Norman) (in French), archived from the original on 2014-02-20, retrieved 2009-06-06
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