Lager Borkum was a labour camp on Alderney, in the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

, named after the East Frisian Island of Borkum. The Germans built four camps, two of which became

concentration camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

on the island, subcamps of the

Neuengamme concentration camp Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...

(located in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

). Each camp was named after one of the

Frisian Islands The Frisian Islands, also known as the Wadden Islands or the Wadden Sea Islands, form an archipelago at the eastern edge of the North Sea in northwestern Europe, stretching from the northwest of the Netherlands through Germany to the west of Denma ...

Lager Norderney Lager Norderney was a Nazi concentration camp on Alderney, in the Channel Islands, named after the East Frisian island of Norderney. The German Organisation Todt (OT) built four labour camps in Alderney to house workers for the planned fortifi ...

located at Saye, ''Lager Borkum'' at Platte Saline, Lager Sylt near the old telegraph tower at La Foulère and

Lager Helgoland Lager Helgoland was a labour camp on Alderney in the Channel Islands, named after the Frisian Islands, Frisian Island of Heligoland (in German, Helgoland), formerly a Danish and then British possession located off the German North Sea coastline a ...

, situated in the northwest corner of the island. Over 700 workers died in the

Alderney camps The Alderney camps were prison camps built and operated by Nazi Germany during its World War II occupation of the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles to be occupied. Camps Until 2022, it was believed that ...

(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 Organisation Todt (OT; ) was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi. The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering pr ...

(OT) in January 1942 by and for their forced labourers. It was used by the OT, a forced labour programme, to build

fortifications A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

including

bunker A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. T ...

s, gun emplacements, air-raid shelters, and other concrete structures. The ''Borkum'' and ''Helgoland'' camps were "volunteer" ( ''Hilfswillige'')

labour camps A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (espec ...

Christian Streit: Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die Sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen, 1941-1945, Bonn: Dietz (3. Aufl., 1. Aufl. 1978), - "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." 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)

. 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

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish enforced labourers. ''Norderney camp'' housed

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

an (usually Eastern but including

Spaniard Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both i ...

) and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

n enforced labourers. ''Lager Borkum'' was used for paid German technicians and volunteers from different countries of

. ''Lager Helgoland'' was filled with Russian OT volunteer workers.

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

* Th
Edward F. Lyons, Jr. papers, ca. 1917-1959
are located in the Northeastern University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Boston, MA. Nazi German camps on Alderney Neuengamme concentration camp Defunct prisons in the Channel Islands

Camp

See also

References

External links