Participants
- Swenja Granzow-Rauwald – President Young Committee President
- Tom Devos – Vice-president
- Franci Henning – Archive Neuengamme
- Alexander Bancic – Descendant of Neuengamme Inmate / Drama Teacher & Storyteller
- Ana Buka – Educator at Neuengamme
Timestamps for Generations
- Introduction of the participants of the podcast
- Ana gives an overview of the system of satellite camps and how Spaldingstraße fit in
- Aleksandar tells us about his grandfather Josip Bancic
- Ana gives us more information about the situation at Spaldingstraße and why it had such a high death rate
- Franci tells about the Neuengamme archives, the work they do, what she was able to find about Josip Bancic
- Aleksandar talks about how he first wanted to learn the facts about his grandfather and his visit to Spaldingstraße
- Ana tells story of the panels at Spaldingstraße
- Aleksandar explains his connection to storytelling and his ideas about how to use it to commemorate
- Goodbyes
Shownotes
St. Nikolai Memorial (Bombing of Hamburg 1943): https://english.mahnmal-st-nikolai.de/
A&O Hostel at Spaldingstraße: https://www.aohostels.com/en/hamburg/hamburg-city-sued/
List of Neuengamme Sub-Camps/Satellite Camps: https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/en/history/satellite-camps/satellite-camps/
Archive Request Form: https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/en/service/archive-request/
Commemorative Events in May (German): https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/en/events-in-german/calendar/2022/05/
Arolsen Archives online Database: https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search
Contact Arolsen Archives: https://arolsen-archives.org/en/contact/
Books from Spaldingstraße
« Spaldingstraße. Das vergessene Konzentrationslager mitten in Hamburg »
Joho, Michael: « Kein Ort für anständige Leute »
Juillard, Raymond: « La Caisse de Grenades »
Loheac, Paul: « Un medecin francais en deportation »
Testimony of Kai V. Dahl
Kaj V. D a h l
København
Christmas at Spaldingstraße
Time is running fast. Remember Christmas almost three years ago in a camp in Germany! It is unbelievable how the days go by and for most of you Christmas in a foreign country is only dimly remembered and yet your Christmas of today is in the most glaring contrast to that Christmas night in 1944. Christmas in the front yard of the death, concentration camp in Germany.
We were 20 Danes among the 2,000 prisoners in the Spaldingstraße death camp in Hamburg. We had a devilishly hard time in our daily lives, expected nothing and lacked everything except hope, and tried with more or less good results not to let our courage sink. The success was only partial, probably because we had made up our minds and knew that this Christmas would be the last.
And what a Christmas it was!
There were 8 of us Danes lying in the precinct, a pure plague for most of us and only one station on the way to the crematorium.
We didn’t get Red Cross parcels, so all nations were equal that evening, which was also an advantage.
Often enough, sooner and later, it was bad enough to see all those living dead, starving, staring at our parcels, and all of them couldn’t be helped.
But Christmas?
A Christmas tree with a few electric candles was there, and it’s most distinguished finery was a cardboard sign saying, “Merry Christmas!” – a festive smell of sausage and green kale reached us. The SS’s Christmas meal. The prisoners were given a bowl of pea soup in which the peas had been forgotten and 2 cigarettes each.
Despite everything, it was better than the daily soup we usually got at the “table d’hote”. Towards evening, the various nations began to sing and we, who could not recite anything, lay still and lost in our memories of the days so far away at home. The Russians in particular, plagued by TB, sang gloriously.
Harry CHRISTIANSEN, the Danish medic, defended the Danish colours with honour, even – it is a national weakness when he could only ever sing the first verse of the various Christmas carols.
No one slept. The singing resounded all night through the gloomy room. We were all left in our memories and had forgotten the reality.
Every night the Grim Reaper mowed down the weariest, and Christmas night was no exception, but we who are now alive were given, that night and for that night, the power to remember and forget.
Kaj V.DAHL
Published. ” PIGTRAD” Dec. 1947 — København
(Archive Neuengamme, Testimony Nr. 205)
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