Lager IX

Versen

The justice administration had Camp VIII Wesuwe built in order to expand the system of Emsland penal camps from seven to fifteen camps and to be able to deploy more prisoners for moorland cultivation.

The Versen camp was completed in the summer of 1938 for a total of 1,500 prisoners. The first prisoners were incarcerated in May 1939 and by the summer the camp was already occupied by around 900 prisoners.

Up until the beginning of the war, the prisoners were people who had been persecuted by the Nazi regime on political, racial, social or religious grounds. In addition, there was a much larger group of prisoners who had been convicted of criminal offences.

After the start of the war in September 1939, the Wehrmacht High Command took over the camp as the VI B prisoner-of-war camp, before incorporating it into the VI C Bathorn camp in May 1942. In December 1939, the Versen camp was holding 50 prisoners of war. The number increased to 300 by September 1941. In 1943/44, the Versen camp mainly held Italian military internees. Until 1941, the prisoners of war were also used for moorland cultivation. Later, they worked in agriculture and industrial operations, particularly in brickworks, clay pits and peat works.

As of November 1944, the SS took over the camp as a branch camp of Neuengamme concentration camp (near Hamburg). The concentration camp prisoners had to build defensive positions in the winter of 1944/45. Due to inadequate food, clothing and accommodation, hundreds of prisoners died during the hard labor. In addition, there were arbitrary attacks by the guards. The Versen branch camp was dissolved on the 25th of March 1945. The SS transported the concentration camp prisoners via Cloppenburg in the direction of Neuengamme ahead of the approaching Allied troops.

Following exhumations in the 1950s, the Versen war cemetery still houses the graves of 297 deceased prisoners from the satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp and 71 concentration camp prisoners from Börgermoor, Esterwegen and Neusustrum concentration camps in Emsland who were reburied here in 1955.